Digital Badging
Digital badges allow students to showcase their skills to prospective employers through the completion of various courses and learning experiences.
Career Competencies
The National Association of Colleges and Employers highlights eight skills as essential to professional success, regardless of industry. At UWF, we want to ensure our students are both academically prepared and career-ready to contribute to the work of your organization. Career readiness is a foundation from which to demonstrate requisite core competencies that broadly prepare the college-educated for success in the workplace and lifelong career management.
Clearly and effectively exchange information, ideas, facts, and perspectives with persons inside and outside of an organization.
Global Learning exhibits respect and learning from all people or cultures. It demonstrates openness, inclusiveness, sensitivity and the ability to interact respectfully with all people or cultures.
Understand and leverage technologies ethically to enhance efficiencies, complete tasks, and accomplish goals.
Recognize and capitalize on personal and team strengths to achieve organizational goals.
Identify and respond to needs based upon an understanding of situational context and logical analysis of relevant information.
Proactively develop oneself and one’s career through continual personal and professional learning, awareness of one’s strengths and weaknesses, navigation of career opportunities and networking to build relationships within and without one’s organization.
Knowing work environments differ greatly, understand and demonstrate effective work habits, and act in the interest of the larger community and workplace.
Build and maintain collaborative relationships to work effectively toward common goals, while appreciating diverse viewpoints and shared responsibilities.
How Your Organization Can Incorporate Career Competencies:
- Highlight these skills in your job descriptions based on your priorities and need.
- Craft interview questions that will allow candidates to showcase their skills in the areas you find most important to your business.
- Integrate these skills into your internship or co-op programs for more meaningful experiences.
Digital Badges
Digital badges, also known as micro-credentials, allow recipients to showcase their skills to prospective employers through the completion of various courses and learning experiences. UWF students have the exciting opportunity to earn a Digital Badge in certain General Education courses.
Benefits
- Serve as recognition of the career readiness skills gained through courses and other learning experiences
- Provide potential employers with a visual representation of your competency in a particular skill area
- Showcase the skill-related experiences that make you a highly qualified, competitive candidate
Annually, the National Association of Colleges and Employers surveys employers on the value of transferable skills in the workplace as well as their new college graduates’ proficiency levels in these areas. This graph displays the skills employers desire in employees and the proficiency of their recent hires in these areas. The gap in need versus proficiency is striking, indicating a need for students to better showcase their skills to employers. Digital badges can help!
Frequently Asked Questions
Digital badges allow students to enhance their career readiness skills while also conveying to future employers they have acquired the vital skills needed for professional success. Students can earn digital badges through LinkedIn Learning, Argo2Pro, UWF's career readiness program, and several other platforms.
General Education Digital Badges
Recognizing the importance of these badges, the 2021 Florida Legislature approved a statute that public postsecondary institutions will award students a nationally recognized digital badge upon completion of specific general education core courses that demonstrate career readiness, beginning with students who initially enter a postsecondary institution in the 2022-23 academic year.
Current General Education Digital Badges include:
- Fundamentals of Written Communication Badge: Through earning the Fundamentals of Written Communication Badge, students have demonstrated foundational communication skills including effective reading, writing, speaking, listening and nonverbal skills for a variety of rhetorical purposes and audiences.
Fundamentals of Written Communication Digital Badge
This badge conveys the student's ability to convey information to another effectively and efficiently.
Why is effective communication important in the workplace?
- Helps with goal-setting and decision making
- Creates more openness and reduces conflict
- Encourages innovation and creativity into the organization
- Strengthens team building and employee morale
- Increases engagement and team effectiveness
- Fosters creativity and team-building
Additional Digital Badges
Students also have the opportunity to earn a Communication, Leadership, Professionalism and Career-Ready digital badge through Argo2Pro.
Students are encouraged to display their digital badges on Handshake, LinkedIn, resumes and ePortfolios.
For questions, please contact our office at career@uwf.edu or 850.474.2254.
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