Badgesplaining: Making Sense of Badges, CLRs, LERs, Digital Wallets, and Interoperability

Badges. CLRs. LERs. Digital wallets. Interoperability.

The language around digital credentials and skills can get complicated quickly. But the ideas behind it do not have to be.

In his Badgesplaining talk at the 2026 Badge Summit, Territorium’s Keith Look used everything from smartphone photos and iTunes playlists to toll-road transponders and dating apps to explain how these pieces fit together.

At the center of it all is a simple question:

How do we help learners better understand, demonstrate, and share what they know and can do?

Skills Are Often Invisible in Traditional Records

For decades, education has relied heavily on transcripts to document learning.

Transcripts remain important. But they were designed primarily to show courses, credits, and grades. They were not designed to capture the full range of skills learners develop across their education and experiences.

As Keith explains:

“Transcripts may remain necessary, but they’re increasingly insufficient in showing what our learners know and are able to do.”

Consider what may sit behind a single line on a transcript or resume.

An English major may have developed strong crisis communication skills. A resident assistant may have demonstrated conflict resolution and leadership. An internship may have required project management, collaboration, data analysis, or problem-solving.

The learner developed those skills. The problem is that they often remain difficult to see.

That is where digital credentials begin to change the picture.

A Badge Is So Much More Than a Sticker

A digital badge is easy to think of as an image representing an accomplishment.

But the image is only the visible part.

Keith compares a badge to a photo taken on a smartphone. When someone shares a digital photo, the file can contain far more information than what appears on the screen, including when and where the photo was taken and technical information about how it was created.

A standards-based digital badge works in a similar way.

Behind the visual credential is metadata that can provide context about the achievement, including:

• Who issued it
• What the learner demonstrated
• The criteria required to earn it
• When it was awarded
• Skills associated with the achievement
• Evidence or artifacts demonstrating the learner’s work

That last element can be especially important.

Instead of simply claiming a skill, learners can connect that skill to evidence showing what they actually did.

A badge therefore becomes more than recognition. It becomes a portable, verifiable record of an achievement.

From Individual Badges to a Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR)

A learner rarely has only one achievement.

They complete courses, earn credentials, participate in internships, complete projects, demonstrate skills, receive certifications, and gain experience in many different environments.

A Comprehensive Learner Record, or CLR, helps bring those achievements together.

Keith uses the example of an iTunes playlist.

Individual songs represent individual badges or achievements. A playlist brings selected songs together into something with a broader purpose.

The same idea applies to a CLR.

The songs are the individual Open Badges. The playlists are the CLRs.

A CLR can bring multiple verified achievements together to provide a richer picture of what a learner has accomplished.

And just as someone can create different playlists for different situations, learners may have different collections of achievements that serve different purposes throughout their education and careers.

The Digital Wallet Gives Learners a Place to Keep It All

Once learners begin accumulating credentials and records, another question emerges:

Where do they keep them?

That is the role of a digital wallet.

Keith compares the concept to a medical records app, where someone might have access to prescriptions, appointments, test results, doctors, and other information in one place.

A learner wallet serves a similar purpose for education and employment records.

It gives learners a place to maintain credentials, achievements, skills, and other records they may need throughout their lives.

Just as importantly, the wallet should not be limited to achievements from a single institution or technology provider.

A learner may earn a degree from one institution, an industry certification from another organization, a microcredential from an employer, and additional credentials throughout a career.

Those achievements need to work together.

That is why interoperability matters.

Interoperability Makes the Ecosystem Work

Keith explains interoperability through another everyday example: toll-road transponders.

Drivers may use different vehicles and different toll systems, yet shared standards allow those systems to work together.

Education technology needs the same kind of connectivity.

Learners should not have to worry about whether one credential was issued by one platform and another credential came from somewhere else.

Standards such as Open Badges and CLR provide a common foundation so credentials and records can be recognized across different systems.

The result is an ecosystem in which learners can carry verified information with them and use it where it matters.

LERs Add the Proof Behind Skills

Learning and Employment Records take the concept a step further.

Many professional profiles and resumes rely heavily on self-reported information. Someone can list project management, communication, leadership, data analysis, or dozens of other skills.

But eventually, those claims need evidence.

As Keith puts it:

“If you’re going to make a claim, how do you back it up? The LER is that proof.”

An LER can provide verified information behind the skills and achievements a learner presents.

Instead of simply saying, “I have this skill,” a learner can have a record showing where the skill was developed, how it was demonstrated, who verified it, and what evidence supports the claim.

That distinction matters as employers place greater emphasis on skills.

From Verified Skills to Opportunity

Once skills become structured, verified, and portable, they become much more useful.

Learners can better understand the capabilities they have developed. Institutions can provide clearer evidence of learning outcomes. Employers can identify candidates based on skills rather than relying solely on job titles, degrees, or self-reported information.

And technology can help connect the two.

Verified skills profiles can support job matching based on what an individual actually knows and can do. The process can also work in the other direction, helping employers identify people whose verified skills align with their workforce needs.

The technology may be new, but the objective is straightforward:

Make skills visible. Make them verifiable. And make them useful.

Badges Are Part of a Bigger Picture

Digital badges are often the most visible part of this ecosystem, but they are not the end goal. A badge can capture an achievement. A CLR can bring achievements together. A digital wallet can give learners a place to keep and manage them.

Standards and interoperability allow records to work across systems.

And an LER can help turn those records into verified evidence that learners can use in education and employment.

Together, these tools give learners a stronger way to understand and communicate what they know and can do.

And that is what Badgesplaining is really about.

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Turn Skills and Achievements Into Verifiable Digital Credentials

Territorium helps institutions create and issue standards-based digital badges that do more than recognize completion.

Connect credentials to skills, criteria, evidence, and learner achievements, then give learners a portable way to share what they have demonstrated.

See how Territorium’s badging solution can support your credentialing strategy.