We’re always striving to make Accredible the best it can be. Because of this we have made some pretty big improvements to our Certificate Designer, to make creating your beautiful certificates even easier.
To make sure that you’ve got everything you need to navigate the sleek new designer, Gemma has jumped in to show you exactly where everything is so you don’t waste time working it out.
If you have any questions or comments about the new designer, let us know at support@accredible.com.
Like many things in life you need to treat your Open Badge with care, in order to ensure you get the most from it.
Why? Because an Open Badge complies with the Open Badges Specification. Information about your award is embedded into the badge image: the badge is more than an image alone.
Take this badge, which I issued to myself by signing up for Accredible’s free trial service:
Now, the badge is issued by Accredible, and I cannot tamper with it in its web location. However, as with a digital badge from any issuer, I can also download a local image file. To all intents and purposes the downloaded image behaves like a normal .png file. However, it is a valid Open Badge, and I can show this by using a verification service. For example, Accredible’s verification service lets me upload and validate:
Since the badge is Open Badge compliant, I can verify it using another tool, such as the IACET OpenBadge Verification Tool. If I upload my badge and verify it, the page reports that the badge is valid, and displays more information such as the issuer, issue date, name etc.
So how do I share my badge? What happens if rather than using the original image, or the embed links that it comes with, I simply grab a screenshot and save it? Because let’s face it, we’re busy and that is easy to do! 🙂
My badge still looks okay:
But let’s go and verify it by uploading to a verification service:
All is not well. The embedded information has been lost.
If I convert the badge file to a JPEG the same thing happens – the embedded information has been lost.
What about if I edit the downloaded badge image and then save it as a PNG, such as this one, to make it look as if I have a better award than I really have:
Interestingly it still verifies, but even better the verification retrieves the original badge image that I cannot tamper with and my deviousness is exposed:
To wrap up then, here are some do’s and don’ts for caring for your Open Badges:
Do
Don’t
To get started with Open Badges for free, go to our sign up page. You will find everything you need, including an easy to use and powerful badge designer.
When issuing credentials, many organizations wish to protect their brand identity, and ensure a seamless and high consistency experience for their users.
We’re delighted to announce that our new white labelling service that allows you to do just that, in an easy and cost effective manner.
The white labelling service makes core functionality available to all users, and adds more through a self-selectable premium feature. The core functionality allows you to:
The premium feature (available as a self-selectable add-on for all issuers) enables you to:
White labelling brings benefits beyond the immediately apparent ones of enforcing a consistent brand identity and professional presentation. People accessing the credentials that you have issued will feel that they are still on your site. As a result they will therefore feel more engaged with your organization, and more aware of the value that you provide. The legitimacy and value of your credentials will be enhanced since it is your organization, directly, that can be seen to be the issuer.
The premium feature enables the “Recipient Website Branding” page:
When viewing a credential, the page is branded with your logo, and uses your chosen URL:
Should even more customization be required, we also offer a bespoke-level service, which allows control of navigation bar, footer, CSS, and changes to other page elements.
For more information on setting up white labeling, see our help page. To see pricing and get it set up for your organization click here. For more information, do contact us.