California State University, East Bay
IN-26: Innovation C

Cal State East Bay is enhancing how we serve students by creating "Pioneer Merit," a digital badge acknowledgement program. Digital badges validate students’ skills, achievement, and competency in diverse contexts through online recognition via a digital emblem. Earned digital badges can be shared through various social media outlets, such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, BaySync, and other networking sites. Showcasing "Pioneer Merit" illustrates students’ scholastic achievements, to potential employers and advanced degree programs, above and beyond academic major requirements and information on official transcripts. Students that successfully complete a particular course or reach a specific milestone towards graduation will earn an official Cal State East Bay Pioneer Merit digital badge. The titles and descriptions of Badges that may be earned are outlined below. Imagine you are a Nursing Major at Cal State East Bay. You are diligently working on your major coursework, but you are also very interested in green hospitals. As a result, you’ve been focusing your general education courses on sustainability. How would a future employer know that you have a skill set in sustainability as well as nursing? By earning a Pioneer Merit digital badge for “Sustainability Scholar” or “Sustainability Scholar Advanced” (details below), you can illustrate your knowledge and academic achievement in this area on your social media outlets, such as LinkedIn, for professional contacts to see first-hand. "Pioneer Merit" Digital Badge Criteria: Successful completion of General Education Subarea, A1 Successful completion of General Education Subarea, A2 Successful completion of General Education Subarea, A3 Successful completion of General Education Subarea, B4 Successful completion of the University Writing Skills Requirement Successfully earning enough units to advance from a first-year to a second-year student Successfully earning enough units to advance from a second-year to a third-year student Successfully earning enough units to advance from a third-year to a fourth-year student Successful completion of the Cal State East Bay Graduation Check Successful completion of a lower-division General Education Sustainability Overlay course Successful completion of an upper-division General Education Sustainability Overlay course Successful completion of a lower-division General Education Diversity Overlay course Successful completion of an upper-division General Education Diversity Overlay course Successful completion of a lower-division General Education Social Justice Overlay course Successful completion of an upper-division General Education Social Justice Overlay course Successful completion of Internship 498 or 698