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Common badge writing mistakes and how to solve them

Find out about common badge writing mistakes, how to solve them, and top tips.

Our Quality Assurance (QA) process supports you to write great badges that are easy to understand and valued by your earners.

Below is an example badge that would not pass QA first time and requires amendments to get it ready for publishing. After reviewing the explanations of why this is, keep reading to see a ready-to-publish version of the badge and some top tips.

Badge that requires amendments:


Click here to see this example badge on Credly.

Explanations

❌Conventions and tense


With the huge range of sectors, industries, and activities that digital badges can be applied to, we often see individuals be referred to as different terms. E.g., student, pupil, learner, individual, participant, and so on. For this reason, we refer to any individual that has earnt a digital badge as an “Earner”, unless the badge is being issued to an organisation.

This badge also includes mixed tenses, making it difficult to follow what the badge earner has carried out to achieve the badge.

How to solve:

  • Start each bullet point in your earning criteria with "Earner has..." or "Organisation has..."
  • Remember to write in the past tense about things that have happened.
  • See How to write earning criteria for more information including top tips and dos and don'ts.


❌the ‘Stranger Test’
This submission does not fully explain what an earner has done to earn this badge and is difficult for viewers to understand what was learnt in the course.

How to solve:

  • Consider detailing what the sessions are, what earners have done in them, and what they have learnt / demonstrated.
  • See Passing ‘The Stranger Test’ for more information including top tips and dos and don'ts.


❌Skills tags


The tags submitted are not mentioned in the earning criteria. This means there is no explanation as to how the earner has learnt about or demonstrated these skills, and they might struggle to articulate them in the future.

How to solve:

Result:

Click here to see this example badge on Credly.

✅Conventions and tense
Use of conventions and tense remain consistent throughout the badge.

✅ the ‘Stranger Test’
The description and earning criteria clearly explain what the earner has learnt about and skills they have demonstrated, making it easy for viewers to understand what the earner has done to achieve the badge.

✅ Skills tags
Each of the skills tags are mentioned in the earning criteria, highlighting transferrable skills and making it easy for the earner to articulate their experience.

Top tips

  • When writing each bullet point, think "ASO" - Action, Skill, Outcome. See How to write earning criteria for more information.
  • Check out our Badge Ideas and Examples bank to see existing published badges. This is not a fully comprehensive list as new badges are published all the time. If you can't find an example, ask us! We may just have one for you.
  • Don’t be intimidated – we are here to support you. You might find badge writing tricky at first, but providing us with as much detail as possible will help us to help you get it right.
  • Feeling stuck? Don't hesitate to leave a comment on your badge with any questions you have and we will be delighted to discuss them with you.