Open Badges are becoming the digital standard for recognising and communicating skills acquired through informal and non-formal learning. They are increasingly being explored for use within formal education, and by employers. They are particularly valuable for supporting transitions between learning and the world of work. This is because of the verified data they can convey, including the issuing organisation, links to evidence and learning standards - all linked to the individual's identity. The other advantage of Open Badges is their portability and visibility in an electronic world - they can be shared across various online platforms. The Certificate Supplement was designed to make vocational education and training qualifications more transparent both within, but particularly between, European member states. Whilst widely issued in some member states, it is less well known in others. The reasons for this vary and are dependent on each national context. In its standard form, the Certificate Supplement is a generic document, specific to the individual, but in some member states, the Certificate Supplement is an individualised supplement - essentially an enhanced transcript - that provides a record of what a student actually achieved. ESCO is a multilingual taxonomy for skills, competences, qualifications, and occupations and provides a common language for recording skills / learning outcomes required for particular occupations and qualifications. What these tools have in common is that they were designed to support the transition between learning (formal / non-formal / informal) and the world of work. ABECS aimed to combine the best attributes of electronic transcripts, the Certificate Supplement and ESCO and incorporate them in a modern, portable, verified, shareable, visible, electronic package - an Open Badge. The project piloted these badges in specific sectors across all the partner countries with carefully selected qualifications that provided proof of concept. The six partners involved in the project, deriving from five member states, were chosen for their knowledge and experience in various areas including Open Badges, digital student data and digital credentials, ESCO expertise, development of certificate banks and Certificate Supplement databases, electronic transcripts, individualised Certificate Supplements and curriculum development, to name a few. To achieve the project aim of developing enhanced electronic transcripts in the form of an individualised Certificate Supplement, using ESCO terminology and packaged as an Open Badge, the partners utilised a phased methodology to: - Select test qualifications for which occupational information already exists in ESCO and are offered across all partner member states - in particular, in sectors with high rates of international mobility. - Establish the content for the Open Badges by reviewing existing Certificate Supplement data (where available) and cross referencing to ESCO terminology and other occupational data - Develop / adapt / utilise an Open Badge issuing platform and establish how to populate the platform / badges with the credential content. - Develop guidance information for awarding institutions / organisations and learners to guide them through the issuance process and how to share the Badges once in receipt in order to optimise their visibility and use by employers as part of their recruitment - in particular, sharing them via online media. - Test methods for populating and issuing the Certificate Supplements as Open Badges - Reviewing the information included in the badge, translations into project partner languages and consistency of the learning outcomes. - Present the results of the pilot study in a report / presentation along with guidance for up-scaling the pilot across other qualifications, awarding institutions / bodies / sectors, member states, etc. - Disseminate these results to partner stakeholder networks and more widely using appropriate media. - Hold multiplier events to share the results / guidance to stakeholders and gather feedback. The aim of ABECS was to develop a workable model for issuing enhanced transcripts in the form of individualised Certificate Supplements using ESCO terminology, in multiple languages in an Open Badge format, and for those Open Badges to be shared and distributed to employers and other end users via online media such as LinkedIn. The longer term impact that the project intends to achieve is for the pilot to have demonstrated the feasibility of this model and therefore to see the process duplicated widely across Europe, hopefully including adoption by the European Commission into the new Europass portfolio. The consortium also hoped to raise awareness of the Certificate Supplement with employers and present the value of issuing such information in the form of an Open Badge, including better reputational assessments of candidates and access to a wider pool of talent.