Digital Badges in Higher Education: The Perspective of Employers in Upper Austria

Abstract

Digital Badges are a means to communicate skill attainment, which have gained popularity in higher education in recent years. We report on a survey study (N=57) with Upper Austrian employers in which we tried to assess the familiarity with digital badges for recruiting purposes. In addition, we gather indicators of the potential usefulness of digital badges in this area. While we find that digital badges are still widely unknown, we also find widespread interest in their use as well as areas that could profit from their use.