In September, 2017, the USF Tampa Library, working with USF Career Services, began a digital badging pilot program based on existing multimedia tools workshops offered by the Digital Media Commons team. Students, faculty, and staff can earn Bronze, Silver, and Gold badges for Adobe Photoshop, Premiere Pro, Illustrator, and InDesign. So far, 16 students have earned 26 bronze badges and the average attendance at each workshop is about 20. The DMC is also getting high praise via their post-workshop surveys. Sign up for a workshop at http://www.lib.usf.edu/dmc/workshops/. More are coming in the Spring.
Digital badges are offered for learning that occurs outside the traditional classroom and are becoming more common in post-secondary education, especially for skills-based training. Badges provide students with evidence of accomplishments and help them differentiate themselves in the job market. USF Career Services is building a campus-wide badging program based on the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) career readiness competencies (http://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/competencies/career-readiness-defined/).