New Academic Certificates & New Digital Badges

Internal Approval Flowchart

Academic certificates must go through all the internal approval steps as shown below.

If the proposal is rejected, it is sent back to the school to address the committee’s issues and returns to that committee for additional review/approval.

New Academic Certificates

To start, follow these steps:  

1. Prior to the development of an academic certificate, the school dean must inform the provost of their school and/or program’s intention to offer the academic certificate. There is no notification form.
2. Upon the provost’s agreement, the school/program faculty will complete the New Academic Certificate Template (docx) and the Certificate Program Assessment Plan (docx).
3. Please review the Certificate CIP Code Assignment Matrix (pdf) to assign the certificate’s CIP code if the academic certificate is embedded in one or more existing degree programs.
4. A digital badge may accompany the academic certificate upon request from the school/program. If so, the Digital Badge Template (docx) should be submitted with the documents outlined in step 2.

New academic certificates may be subject to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges’ Substantive Change Policy and Procedures. 

New Stand-Alone Digital Badges

A digital badge also may be a stand-alone award. This flexibility allows school/program staff/faculty or administrative units to recognize the completion of established requirements of cocurricular opportunities.  

Digital badges may be awarded for academic or professional certificate programs.  

For assistance with stand-alone digital badges, please email Yuliana Butchko, Microcredentials Program Manager. 

To start, follow these steps:  

1. The faculty/staff lead will submit the Digital Badge Template (docx) by email to Yuliana Butchko, Microcredentials Program Manager.
   • If the digital badge will accompany an academic certificate, please follow the instructions under the “New Academic Certificates” section above. If it will accompany a professional certificate, please visit the Professional Certificates page.
2. Drs. Serenity King and Mary Jo Venetis and the microcredentials team will review the proposal.
3. Upon approval, the program manager will set up a meeting to discuss the final design of the digital badge and additional steps.