Let's Talk About Governance & Taxonomy In a Non-Boring Way

Credly Team

We get it. Your eyes glazed over the second we started talking about taxonomy and governance. If they didn’t, then congratulations! You win at adulting. However, it’s time to take those two words and make them non-boring, non-scary, and dare we say, actually useful. We can do this.

Here’s why you need to know why governance and taxonomy are important when it comes to your digital credentialing program.

First, let’s define what they are. Taxonomy is just a fancy word for classification. Classification is important because as your credentialing program grows, chances are there’s going to be a higher demand for the courses you’re offering. And as those offerings increase, so is the scope of your badging program. See where we're going with this? You’re going to have to classify your badges. The easiest way to think about this classification process is in terms of beginner, intermediate, and advanced. Remember college courses? You can also think about classifying your digital credentials in 101, 102, and 103 if that helps. Either way, determining how your digital credentialing program is going to be classified and grow before your program launches will help give you a clear idea of how you’re going to best issue badges to your earners. You may already have this in place, in which case, great! You’re ahead of the curve.

Now, let’s talk about governance. Governance is a way to describe process or hierarchy, and it’s relevant to your digital credentialing program because again, you’re going to want to see your program grow. Digital credentials aren’t meant to be created or shared in isolation. If you work in the marketing department at your organization and want to issue digital credentials, but you also think that the IT department could benefit from issuing them as well, governance is really just breaking down the barriers to make sure that everyone is informed, involved, and prepared. Once marketing lays the foundation for issuing badges - including creating badge templates, writing metadata, and rolling out earner communications - then the IT department can take that information to springboard their own digital credentialing program. Objectives can be set at the corporate level ahead of time so that everyone in the organization can follow a single, streamlined process.

That wasn’t so bad, was it? Let’s get you started. Fill out the form below and we’ll walk you through how to start your digital credentialing program.