Connecting People to Jobs: ESCO and Open Badges

The UK National Europass Centre attended the IMS Europe Summit 2019 in Barcelona. IMS Global is the world-leading non-profit collaborative advancing edtech interoperability, innovation, and learning impact. The summit was an opportunity to hear about the latest standards IMS have developed with specific interest in the advancement of digital credentials such as Open Badges and the Comprehensive Learner Record – technology which could integrate and be interoperable with the New Europass.

The UK National Europass Centre spoke on a panel, Connecting People to Jobs: ESCO and Open Badges, with Open Badge Factory and Digitalme. The session was hosted by Digitary and provided an opportunity to discuss the potential implementation of ESCO within the New Europass.

Along with Digitalme, who are partners in an Erasmus+ funded project led by UK NARIC entitled Aligning Badges, ESCO and the Certificate Supplement (ABECS), an example of an innovative project was presented, which shows one way in which ESCO and Europass can work together. Open Badge Factory presented the integration of ESCO within their Open Badge issuing system – using the ESCO taxonomy as tags for competencies and skills acquired for a particular Open Badge. This is an innovation which could also be interoperable with the New Europass.