Ilona Buchem is Professor for Media and Communication at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences. She teaches courses in bachelor and master programmes including Digital Business and Media Information Science. Ilona Buchem has been designing and delivering technology-enhanced university courses both on-campus and on-line for over eight years.
Ilona Buchem holds a Ph.D degree in Business Education from Humboldt University Berlin, Certificate in Business Administration from St Gallen University, Switzerland and a Masters degree in Applied Linguistics and Communication from Warsaw University (Poland).
As member of the Gender & Technology Centre at Beuth, Buchem has actively supported inclusion and diversity. Her research and teaching focus on fostering access to learning and reducing the digital divide in digital media and through educational technology. Ilona Buchem has been involved in a number of projects aimed at enhancing openness in education and fostering co-operation and has participated in joint projects in higher education and with industry.
Ilona Buchem has led a number of research and development projects including the recent project Open Virtual Mobility (Erasmus+, Strategic Partnership, 2017 – 2020), Open Badge Network (Erasmus+, Strategic Partnership, 2014 – 2017), BeuthBonus and CreditPoints (Qualification Programs for Migrant Academics as part of the German Federal Programme “IQ – Integration through Qualification”, 2013 – 2020), Digital Future (Digital Strategies for Higher Education, Stifterverband – German Association of Foundations for Science, 2015 – 2017), Wikipedia-Diversity – a research project in cooperation with Wikimedia Germany promoting gender mainstreaming in the German Wikipedia.
Ilona Buchem is the Chair of the Special Interest Group on Wearable Enhanced Learning at the European Association of Technology Enhanced Learning, Chair of the Europortfolio German Chapter, member of the European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL), member of the European Distance and E-Learning Network (EDEN), member of the German Association of Media in Science (GMW), member of the Scientific Committee of IEEE/ICALT and IDGEI (Intelligent Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion), and a member of the Advisory Board of the global conference Online Educa Berlin.
ABSTRACT
R/e-volution of Credentialing: From Paper-based to Open Digital Credentials
The proliferation of credentials has been an enduring trend of modern times. Credentialing has been defined as a process through which person’s qualities are approved or recognised by an authority. Credentials, including educational and academic credentials, help establish the expertise and social position of the holder. The Internet and related digital media have created unprecedented opportunities to connect, communicate and learn. In the digital age learners also need new opportunities to aggregate their learning achievements and associated evidence of learning from multiple sources in a portable, digital, interoperable and verifiable way. Digital Credentials such as Open Badges (Mozilla) and Blockcerts (MIT) have been only recently developed as open standards which enable an open, digital infrastructure and an ecosystem of digital credentials. Digital credentials based on Open Badges and/or Blockcerts can be designed to represent valid indicators of specific achievements such as competencies, skills, knowledge and diverse accomplishments, point to evidence of such achievements and share digital representations of these achievements across the web. Schools, universities, employers and informal learning providers globally have been using digital credentials to capture life-long and life-wide learning which may have otherwise remained unrecognised. This talk explores the evolution of credentials from a historical perspective and provides an overview of the recent developments in digital credentialing with the focus on various concepts, technologies, uses and functions of digital credentials. This talk also provides recommendations for moving forward with digital credentials in the digital age.