Digital Badging
Digital Badging
The Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at the University of New Mexico is proud to be one of the first Chemical Engineering departments in the country to offer Digital Badges to undergraduate students. These are online certificates of recognition of competence or mastery in specific areas, allowing students to showcase their unique skills and attributes. These digital badges provide a window for faculty and employers to view students' experiences, competencies, and accomplishments.
Our digital badge system helps students connect what they are learning in classes to real world practice and allows students to have ownership of their accomplishments by sharing their work online. This digital badging system allows students to easily display the outcome of their work to potential employers and graduate schools. We feel this is an especially powerful approach to enhance the value of a student's degree since it is a demonstration of accomplishments and ability, often not clearly determined through interviews, resumes, graduate school applications, or GRE scores. Allowing students to showcase their work to family members and friends also fosters greater support and acknowledgement from individuals whose opinions are most important to students. This is particularly valuable for underrepresented students, who are often the only person in their family or peer group to study engineering.
We offer the specific badges to students based on: (1) suggestions made by our advisory board; (2) interest expressed by our student focus group; and (3) because certain skills are not well represented on other materials (transcripts, resumes, etc.). Badge earners are recognized perpetually in digital format on the departmental website, with more detailed information about what the badge certifies.
Current Digital Badges
The Outstanding Teamwork Badge is earned through student application and peer evaluation from fellow students who have worked with the applicant in chemical engineering courses. The badge signifies the student has demonstrated competency in teamwork according to their peers including the ability to complete quality work on time, clear, respectful, and inclusive communication skills, effective conflict resolution, among other skills.
The Outstanding Mentorship Badge is earned through student application and peer evaluation from fellow students and mentees who have interacted closely with the applicant. The badge signifies the student has demonstrated competency in mentorship including the ability to clearly communicate, share knowledge and useful guidance generously and compassionately, encourage and support others, and provide constructive direction and feedback, among other skills.
The Outstanding Oral Presentation Badge is earned through nomination and evaluation by multiple faculty who have observed and directly assessed students' presentation skills in junior and senior level chemical engineering courses. The badge signifies the student has demonstrated sustained and outstanding competency in oral presentation in multiple chemical engineering courses.
The Outstanding Technical Writing Badge is earned through nomination and evaluation by multiple faculty who have read and assessed students' individual writing in junior and senior level chemical engineering courses. The badge signifies the student has demonstrated sustained and outstanding competency in technical writing in multiple chemical engineering courses.
Potential Future Digital Badges
Engineering Identity
Level One: This badge is earned in the first course as a way to help students connect their existing identities and assets to chemical engineering.
Level Two: This badge is earned in the second chemical engineering course to help students nurture a sense of belonging to the engineering college.
Design Under Constraint
Level One and Two: These badges are issued in the first and second chemical engineering courses to help students craft creative solutions whilst meeting specific necessities in solving real world engineering problems.
Gathering Information
Level One and Two: These badges are issued in the first chemical engineering course to help students in the process of gathering and evaluating information on a selected focus.
General Safety
Level One: This badge is earned in the first chemical engineering course to initiate students’ participation in the safety culture of the CBE department.
Level Two: This badge is earned in the second chemical engineering course to help students continued participation in the safety culture of the CBE department.
Academic and Professional Integrity
Level One: This badge is earned in the first course as a way to help students connect their existing experiences to the importance of honoring and respecting other people’s work.
Level Two: This badge is earned in the Sophomore year as a way to help students understand the importance and reasons for an Academic Dishonesty/Plagiarism policy.
Level Three: This badge is earned in the Junior year as a way to help students understand the legal implications and consequences of professional dishonesty.
Level Four: This badge is earned in the Senior year as a way to help students prepare for and properly respond to future situations of academic and professional dishonesty.
Professional Writing
Level One: This badge is earned in the Freshman or Sophomore year as a way to help students understand that people of various experience levels struggle with written communication, and that writing is a process of continuous improvement.
Level Two: This badge is earned in the Freshman, Sophomore, or Junior year as a way to help students practice technical writing by identifying writing issues and correcting them.
Level Three: This badge is earned in the Sophomore or Junior year as a way to help students practice collaborative technical writing and revision.
Level Four: This badge is earned in the Junior or Senior year as a way to help students practice technical writing and revision.
Process Safety
Level One: This badge is earned in the first course as a way to help students connect their existing knowledge of safety to the importance and complexity of chemical engineering safety.
Level Two: This badge is earned in the sophomore year as a way to help students learn how chemical processes are run and their potential safety hazards.
