Schedule and Sessions

Description

This session introduces the Credential Trust Model (CTM) — a four-layer framework that helps credential designers, platforms, and communities build structured trust into open, decentralized recognition systems. Designed to be both rigorous and adaptable, the CTM draws on global credentialing practices to support meaningful and credible digital credentials.

The four layers of trust include:

1. Design Trust – Is the credential clearly described, visually coherent, and structured in a way that reflects meaningful achievement? This layer focuses on metadata, assessment criteria, alignment to skills taxonomies, and issuer reputation.
2. Process Trust – Was the credential earned through a documented, fair, and transparent process? This includes defined learning pathways, assessment methods, endorsement by quality assurance partners, and alignment with recognized standards.
3. Consumer Trust – Do external organizations value and use the credential? Examples include employer or university endorsement, integration into job platforms, and use in credential-based admissions or hiring decisions.
4. Social Trust – Is the credential visible in the real world? Trust deepens when credentials are shared by earners, supported by success stories, and recognized by peers, thought leaders, and professional communities.

To bring these layers to life, the session will include a practical demonstration of how the CTM can be applied to evaluate and improve a real credential. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of how to apply the Credential Trust Model in their own context—whether issuing badges in a grassroots learning community, designing micro-credentials for workforce development, or enhancing the quality and transparency of existing recognition practices.

Facilitator: Stephen Buckley, BA, MIC, FRSA

Description

When a credential gets questioned — by an employer, an auditor, or a regulator — most programs discover the same problem: the integrity of the assessment and the integrity of the credential exist in separate systems, with no defensible connection between them.

In this session, Brandon Smith (Integrity Advocate) and Dan Theckston (Accredible) explore the Credential Security Trifecta: a practical framework for connecting identity verification, assessment integrity, and digital credential issuance into one auditable, defensible workflow. Drawing on a real-world integration between Integrity Advocate and Accredible, the session moves from concept to practice through an operational scenario built specifically for CE/T environments — and the framework applies regardless of which systems your program currently uses.

Attendees will leave with a clearer picture of where credential trust breaks down across disconnected systems, what a connected workflow looks like when it's working, and why a credential that's earned legitimately can still fail learners, expose programs to audit risk, and lose employer trust if the chain of custody behind it was never built to hold.

Panelist:
Brandon Smith, CEO, Integrity Advocate
Dan Theckston, Chief Customer Officer, Accredible

Description

As learning increasingly moves across institutions, systems, and borders, the ability to represent and interpret verified achievements has never been more critical. This session explores how metadata—the “data about learning”—shapes the meaning, usability, and credibility of digital credentials and the issuing organizations.

Participants will examine how open standards from 1EdTech, such as Open Badges and the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR), can complement IACET’s accredited framework for Continuing Education and Training (CE/T). Together, these systems define both the quality and the portability of learning outcomes.

Discussions will focus on practical and conceptual intersections, including how metadata design communicates achievement, how aligning standards improves interpretability and interoperability, and how verification systems can reinforce trust without increasing administrative burden. The session will also highlight learner-centered design principles, emphasizing how digital credentials can empower individuals to share and communicate their verified learning more effectively.

By connecting CEU documentation practices with open data models for credential exchange, this session positions metadata not just as technical scaffolding, but as the foundation of transparency and trust in the modern learning ecosystem.

Facilitator: Rob Coyle, M.Ed.

Description

The open digital badge movement began with a simple promise: make learning visible. Nearly a decade later, the ecosystem has exploded — over one million credentials exist in the U.S. alone — but a credibility gap persists between the credentials we issue and the trust employers, learners, and policymakers place in them. This panel confronts that gap head-on.

In an "inverse panel" format, consultant Rob Bajor of Micro-Credential Multiverse — whose work on credential architecture redesign, legal alignment, and governance intentionality has reshaped how organizations like ASME approach open digital credentialing — takes the moderator's chair not to lead, but to provoke. Drawing from his own field experience, Rob poses pointed questions to panelists representing organizations at different stages of the credentialing journey, challenging them to share where they've made real progress and where honest gaps remain.

Anchored by the four metadata principles IACET established in its original Guidelines for Open Digital Badging, join members of IACET’s Digital Credential Task for as they trace their evolution from foundational guideline to the emerging ODC Endorsement framework based on four key pillars: Evidence, Validity, Portability, and Modularity.

Moderator:
Robert Bajor

Panelist:
Sandra Bullock
Gayle Claman
Meghan Conan
Hillary Washburn