Open Badges

An Open Badge is a file in the Open Badges 3.0 format, a W3C Verifiable Credential, signed with your organization’s own key. It names:

• the recipient, by name (never their email address)
• the course, with your badge description and criteria
• your organization as the issuer: its name, website and contact email
• the issue date, and the expiry date if the certificate has one

Recipients keep it in a digital wallet such as the Learner Credential Wallet, and anyone can check it with standard verifiers such as VerifierPlus. The signature travels inside the file. Verifiers fetch your organization’s public key and revocation list from CertSeal.

Before you start

• You need to be an owner or admin of the organization, on the Plus or Professional plan.
• You need your organization’s own website, on a domain you control. You’ll prove it with a DNS record or a small file.

1. Fill in your issuer profile

Open Organization in the sidebar and scroll to the Open Badges card at the bottom. Enter:

• Issuer name: how badges name your organization.
• Website: your organization’s website, starting with https://.
• Contact email (optional).

These appear in every badge. Select Save profile. Changing any of them later sends the profile back for review.

2. Prove your domain

The card shows a value like certseal-issuer=…. Do one of these:

• Add a DNS TXT record on your website’s domain, such as example.com, with that value.
• Publish a file at https://example.com/.well-known/certseal-issuer.txt that contains it.

Then select Check domain. A new DNS record can take a few minutes to show up.

3. Wait for CertSeal’s review

The card says Waiting for review until CertSeal approves your profile, then Approved. Until then, no badge can be downloaded.

4. Offer badges on a batch

Once your profile is approved, new batches offer badges by default. Batches created before then start with badges off.

On a batch, open the Open Badge section:

• Turn on Offer Open Badges.
• Optionally write a Badge description and Criteria. Left empty, CertSeal builds them from the course and issuer names.

Select Save changes. Recipients now see an Open Badge button on their certificate page. The REST API and webhooks give each recipient’s badge link as badgeUrl.

What revokes a badge

A recipient keeps the file they downloaded, so a badge can’t be changed afterwards. It can only be revoked and replaced:

• Changing a recipient’s name, the course name, or the issue or expiry date revokes the badges they’ve downloaded. They can download a new one. CertSeal warns you before you save such a change.
• Revoking a certificate revokes its badge for good. Reinstating the certificate doesn’t bring the badge back: the recipient downloads a new one.
• Changing the badge description, criteria or your issuer profile revokes nothing. New downloads use the new text.

Wallets and verifiers see a revocation within about 5 minutes.

For recipients: add your badge to a wallet

1. Open your certificate page, from the link in your certificate email, and select Open Badge. Your browser downloads a .json file. On a phone, it goes to your downloads.
2. Install the Learner Credential Wallet for iPhone or Android, choose Quick Setup, and set a password. Keep the password safe: the wallet can’t recover it.
3. Tap the + icon (Add Credential), select Add from file, pick the badge file, and choose your profile.

The wallet then shows the badge and its checks under Credential Verification and Validation.

Check a badge

Anyone can check a badge at verifierplus.org: upload the file, or paste its contents into Paste JSON or URL.

Wallets and verifiers may say the issuer isn’t in a known issuer registry. That means your organization isn’t on the registries those apps check. The signature and revocation checks still show whether the badge is genuine and current.

About Open Badges

Open Badges is a specification of 1EdTech Consortium, Inc. CertSeal issues credentials in the Open Badges 3.0 format but isn’t affiliated with or endorsed by 1EdTech.