Open Recognition Exploration

Learning Agents is a Canadian company focused on career development and workplace learning using digital badges and micro-credentials based on the international standard for Open Badges.

Type of recognition

Participation and light reflection badge

Learning Experience, Activities

Badge earner participated in or viewed a recording of a Learning Agents workshop or presentation on open recognition. Earner then provided a written reflection on what they learned and how they might apply that new learning in their life and work.

Assessment

This is a Participation badge that includes reflection and feedback but no summative assessment of learning.

Learner submitted a badge application form that was reviewed by a member of the Learning Agents team. There were two reflections provided by the Learner:

• What did I learn?
• How may I apply this in my work?

The reflections were recommended to be 25 - 150 words each, but this requirement was not strictly enforced by the Learning Agent who evaluated the badge application, and there were "no wrong answers" to the reflection questions, other than commonly accepted standards for polite social communication.

A link to the Learner's evaluated form was included in the badge a time of issue.

Learning Agents thanks the learner for their feedback on the session.

Estimated learning effort

1 hour +

Badge last updated 2025-06-05

About this recognition event

This badge was issued in connection with a presentation entitled:

Step Up to the Microphone.

It was delivered in person by Beka Tavartkiladze and Don Presant on 28 October, 2026 at the TAICEP 2026 conference in Halifax, Canada.

In return for completing a badge application with light reflection and feedback on the learning provided, the badge recipient has unlimited access to the following resources from this session:

• Overview Presentation
  
• Video: Driving Canada
  
• Presentation: Open Recognition - remarks for "Step up to the Microphone"

The recipient's issued badge also contains a link to the validated badge application form they submitted to earn the badge, making it a learning capsule for ready reference in the future.

The presenters thank all badge recipients for their attention and for the feedback they provided in their badge applications, which will help improve future presentations!

Session information from the TAICEP 2026 program

The rapid growth of AI, digital credentials, skills-based validation, and lifelong learning is skyrocketing. As these changes accelerate, credential evaluators are no longer simply comparing qualifications-they are helping safeguard trust in an increasingly borderless and digital world. Our role in ensuring fairness, transparency, and confidence in global mobility has never been more important.

Yet perhaps the most important question is not how credential evaluation should adapt to new technologies, but whether our very understanding of recognition must evolve to view it more holistically as a type of human connection that can have formal, semi-formal, and informal elements. If recognition itself is changing, how must the credential evaluation community evolve to lead that shift?

Step Up to the Microphone is TAICEP's signature networking plenary-an interactive, high-energy session designed to bring the global credential evaluation community into one shared conversation. Rather than formal presentations, this session creates an open space to surface what matters most directly from those out in the field.

Following a brief framing of the issue by the session leaders, participants were invited to step up to the microphone to share emerging challenges, promising practices, and bold ideas. Together, we explored how traditional recognition frameworks and emerging ecosystems-like Open Recognition-can complement one another to support modern learning environments while preserving the foundational trust on which global mobility depends.

Discussions about verification technology, social trends, shifting policy environments, labor market integration, and more were driven entirely by the collective expertise in the room.

Presentation Learning Objectives

1. Explore how AI, digital credentials, and competency-based pathways are reshaping the global recognition landscape.
2. Examine how traditional credential evaluation and Open Recognition frameworks can complement one another to build robust, global digital trust.
3. Share and analyze practical case examples and diverse regional perspectives to navigate shifting mobility patterns and policy environments.
4. Leave with actionable strategies, new cross-sector contacts, and insights to advance both day-to-day institutional practice and long-term strategy.

This badge was issued in partnership with CanCred.ca.