What do you think? Would this be a viable alternative to an undergraduate degree in your field — or a graduate degree perhaps? What about ongoing education once you’re in the work force?

The Mozilla Foundation and Peer-to-Peer University P2PU, among others, are working to take the idea of merit-earned badges and build a framework around which they can be used as alternative but accepted forms of certification.The main premise behind this idea, the argument goes, is that the institutions and organizations traditionally responsible for accreditation no longer match the realities of what learning looks like today. For example, holding a bachelor’s degree in computer science is not necessarily an indication that you’re skilled in JavaScript, that you are an experienced project manager, that you’ve contributed to an open source project, or that you work well with virtual teams.

via Mozilla’s Open Badges Project: A New Way to Recognize Learning | MindShift.