Badging

VIEW ACHIEVEMENTS AT A GLANCE. LaunchPath badges make it easier to showcase the work students have completed in preparation for entering the workforce, give recognition to a school’s pathway program, or highlight an employer’s top-tier internship program.

WHY BADGES MATTER

Online badges benefit students, employers, and educators on multiple levels:

Establish expectations around what is required to be successful in a job or internship.
Recognize areas of growth for students. Students receive and also complete evaluations after every LaunchPath experience.
Make goals more tangible, including mastering workplace “soft skills” like communication, problem solving, and teamwork.
Give employers a visual way to understand the skillset of potential applicants at a glance.
Provide students with something measurable they can take away after completion of a job or internship.

21^ST CENTURY SKILLS

LaunchPath has developed a series of badges based on career-readiness skills identified by the New World of Work (NWoW) initiative.
Learn more about this project >

PATHWAY BADGES

For each career pathway in LaunchPath, students and schools are awarded unique pathway badges. Pathways range from Arts, Media, and Entertainment to Public Services and Manufacturing and Product Development.

SCHOOL BADGES

School badges instantly identify which high school or community college a student attends, allowing employers to instantly recognize a student's educational background.

ACHIEVEMENT BADGES

Achievement badges are awarded once students complete an internship, employers successfully host an intern, or after a user completes their profile. Completion badges are awarded after students and employers complete a National Academy Foundation (NAF) Assessment. NAF has worked with business, education, and workforce experts to create an internship assessment that is useful in targeting individual participant skills in the workplace and to enhance curriculum and work-based learning experiences that prepare students for the internship.

Within the Open Badges ecosystem, badges are issued by organizations or communities like LaunchPath using an open standard. Users can collect badges from multiple sources and display them across the web on job applications and social networking websites like LinkedIn. These badges can lead to job opportunities, support lifelong learning, and unlock new possibilities.

Online badges provide the information employers need to make a smart hire, and are a visual way to showcase industry sector skills, career readiness, and success in internships—accomplishments that grades and classwork can’t communicate.

Watch an overview of online badging from the MacArthur Foundation.