Write a badge for a workshop

Writing a badge for a workshop? Check out our how-to guide.

Issuing digital badges for workshops is an amazing way to capture the achievement of undertaking further learning, whether part of formal study or informal spare-time learning.

This guide will take you through the process of using our badge writing form to enter relevant metadata for a digital badge recognising completion of a workshop.

Before you get started, if your course aligns with a formal qualification, please read write a badge relating to a qualification to gain an understanding of the general best practice for referring to qualifications in your badges.

Badge Title

This is the long title for the badge and the first opportunity to provide detail. You should include the workshop name or subject. You might also like to include your organisation name.


Section 1: About This Badge

Who will this badge be issued to?
- Select “Individuals” if your badge will be issued to individual participants completing the workshop.

- Select “Organisations” if the badge will be issued to organisations that send participants to the workshop.

Badge Name – Short Title
- Include the workshop name or a shortened version (maximum 30 characters including spaces), or a fun recognition of what earning the badge says about the earner.

Badge Description
- This should be a brief summary of the badge. For more information, please see Writing a great badge description.

Be sure to include the workshop length, and an overview of what earners achieve by completing it e.g.
“Earners of this badge have participated in a full-day workshop to increase their knowledge of photography and develop skills in taking black and white portraits.”

URL for Additional Details
- Include a link to your organisation’s website so that anyone viewing the badge online can easily find information about you or other workshops that you offer.

Badge Standard Layer
- Most badges recognising the completion of a workshop sit at the “Participate” layer of the Badge Standard, but this can sometimes be different depending on what actions earners take along the way. If your badge should sit at another layer, we will support you to get this right as part of the Quality Assurance process.


Section 2: Topic/Industry/Sector Information

Sector / Industry:
- Select the sector / industry that your organisation or the specific workshop relates to. If you feel none apply, select “Other” and enter a relevant sector or industry into the box that appears below.

Topic / Theme / Curriculum Area:
- Enter a term for the area of study or learning that the workshop has taken place in to refine the Sector / Industry.

E.g., if your answer to Sector / Industry was “Creative”, you might refine this by using “Photography” as your topic.

Sub – Topic / Theme / Curriculum Area:
- Entering an answer here is optional but is available if you would like to provide another generic tag that can add additional context to your answers above e.g. “Portrait Photography”.


Section 3: Earning Criteria

This section is the place to detail what your earners have achieved throughout their participation. For more information on how to complete this section, please see How to write earning criteria.

Some recommended information that is valuable to include is:

  • A breakdown of the workshop content (you might find it helpful having a session plan, itinerary, or event description handy for this).
  • A breakdown of tasks, activities, and knowledge that earners complete / demonstrate to help them articulate the experience they’ve gained with you.
  • Earners’ use of any equipment, tools (physical or digital), platforms, and standards for which proficiency is essential to your industry / sector or career paths associated with this workshop.
  • Reference to how they come to participate in the workshop. This is a good opportunity to mention what this demonstrates about the earner e.g. self-motivation, willingness to learn, curiosity etc.
  • Any behaviours, attitudes and values that matter to your organisation and have been displayed by the earner.


Section 4: Skills Tags

This is the place to list each skill that your earners have developed / demonstrated while completing the workshop. This may well be a long list if your workshop covers a large range of content but don’t be intimidated – this is a valuable part of your badge and will support earners to clearly identify their transferable skills.

If you have been very detailed in your earning criteria, you might find the Navigatr Skills Scanner a useful tool for extracting a list of tags – for more information, please see Generating Skills Tags with the Skills Scanner.

Before moving on with writing your badge, be sure to review your list of tags and ensure that each skill is mentioned in the earning criteria section. For more information, please see Referencing skills tags in earning criteria.


Section 5: About the Activity

Activity Type:
- Select “Workshop”.

Who is this activity available to?
- If your workshop has no strict eligibility criteria, select “This badge is open to all”.

- If your earners can only participate if they are existing students, members, or employees of your organisation, select “This badge is only available to Students, Members, or Employees”.

- If your earners must go through an application process to participate, the workshop has strict eligibility criteria (such as specific demographics or protected characteristics), select “Available by application only, please contact the provider for more information”.

How long does the activity take to complete?

- Choose a timeframe from the drop-down menu. You might consider choosing the minimum, or average, timeframe that the workshop takes to complete.

- Your chosen timeframe should be the total time an earner has engaged with this workshop. If your badge is for a series of workshops taking place over time, be sure to choose the total timeframe for engagement e.g. if they have done a one-hour workshop per week for 6 weeks, although it is only 6 hours of workshop activity, they are engaged with you for a total of six weeks.

Does the earner pay to access the activity?
- If the earners do not need to pay to participate, select “Free – Earners access this activity for free”.

- If earners must fund themselves to participate, select “Paid – Earners pay to access this activity”.

Activity Location:

- Select whether the workshop takes place “In-person” or “Online”. Choose whichever feels most appropriate for how your earners engage with the workshop.

Your answer to this will dictate whether you are asked to provide a postal address or a URL as a location for the workshop.

If your workshop takes place across multiple locations, or is a mix of online and in-person, please select in-person and use your organisation’s main admin/office address.


Section 6: Standards

Does your badge map to an additional standard?

 Standards, also known as Alignments, are a way to add further detail to a badge when earners must meet a formal standard while earning a badge. For example, if an earner has to have gained an official qualification to achieve the earning criteria, you might like to consider including this as an additional standard.

If your badge does not align with a formal standard:

- Select “No”.

 If your badge aligns with a formal standard:
- Select “Yes”.

This will open three new fields in the form.

Standard Name:
- Enter the name of the apprenticeship qualification associated with this badge.

 Standard Description:
- Enter a brief description (up to 350 characters including spaces) summarising this qualification. You will often find an appropriate short paragraph describing the qualification on the awarding body’s website.

 Standard URL:
- Enter a URL to information about the qualification to the relevant awarding body’s website.