Toxic polarization has eroded Americans’ trust in democratic institutions to historic lows. Citizens, weary of the hyperpartisan political environment, disengage from civic learning and life. The lack of civic engagement threatens the processes that support our constitutional republic.
The Civics Credentialing System is a nonpartisan digital badge platform that recognizes and connects civic learning and action, making participation in democracy more visible, rewarding, and trusted. It disrupts the cycle of polarization and civic disengagement by:
Civics Credentialing enables nonprofits, schools, businesses, and government institutions to align efforts and strengthen their collective influence.
The Civics Credentialing Frameworks is built around five core pillars of a healthy democracy that were developed by leading democracy practitioners from a variety of disciplines. All credentials in the Civics Credentialing System must be nonpartisan and democracy-affirming.
The Civics Credentialing System offers four main types of badges, ranging from more formal to informal credentials.
Building Skills
Applying Skills
These credentials can stand alone or be stacked into larger pathways, leading to milestone badges that mark deeper civic achievement. Together, these badges form visible, verifiable records of civic learning and action.
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The Civics Credentialing System uses digital Open Badges technology and standards, which lets people earn and share secure, verifiable badges that show what they’ve learned or accomplished. Each badge is packed with details about the skills or actions behind it.
Digital badges are visual digital documents that recognize competencies, skills, learning, commitments, actions, and achievements. They are displayed as a digital image that can be posted on a website. Most importantly, they are linked back to the issuer of the badge, the assessment criteria, and the evidence of achievement, which support the badges’ credibility. Users can also easily display and share their badges using social media channels such as LinkedIn and Facebook.
While there are some differences between the terms “Open Badges,” “badges,” “micro-credentials,” and “digital credentials,” for the sake of simplicity, we use these terms interchangeably.
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Open Badges are digital badges that follow a standard that makes them easy to accept, share, and transfer across platforms. Open Badges have several key features:
Open digital badges and credentialing are backed by evidence and have already transformed education and workforce training by motivating participation, validating learning, and guiding people along clear development pathways. Digital badges establish a common framework for recognizing skills and competencies between employers, professionals, and educational providers. Civics Credentialing applies this same, proven model to civic life, recognizing that:
There are three major players in a badging ecosystem: issuers, earners and consumers.. The diagram to the left describes how these players interact in the process of creating, finding, earning, issuing, claiming, sharing and recognizing a digital badge.
To establish a truly nonpartisan platform for Civics Credentialing, Team Democracy is collaborating with distinguished partners to define the principles, standards, and processes for the Civics Credentialing System:
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Team Democracy manages the Civics Credentialing System. Team Democracy brings together Americans of all political perspectives around our shared commitment to the core principles of our constitutional democracy. Our focus is on countering the toxic polarization that has come to dominate political discourse in recent years. We promote and amplify positive messages and actions that underscore the importance of democratic institutions, norms and processes and our shared commitment to free, fair, and inclusive elections.
Team Democracy is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization.
