A review of the IPWEA AM 101 digital badge
Have you heard about the IPWEA digital badge programme? It is a resource for professional development in infrastructure asset management.
Last month I completed the Asset Management 101 digital badge, which is an Introduction to Asset Management. Also known as AM 101, this is the entry-level starting point, to get yourself going within the digital badge programme.
In this post I am going to review this badge so you know what to expect going in, and what you will get out of it at the end.
But first things first... let’s take a minute to look at what this digital badge thing is all about.
What is a digital badge?
In September 2019, IPWEA launched their digital badge programme. This is an online professional development resource, which is specifically geared towards the infrastructure asset management sector.
To borrow a quote from the IPWEA website:
"The infrastructure asset management sector in New Zealand is facing a significant skill shortage, due to increasing demands of our aging infrastructure, and many in our sector reaching retirement age. We need new pathways into the profession, that the tertiary education system does not provide. Recognition of skills and competencies is becoming increasingly important, and digital badges provide this."
The programme includes a growing catalogue of short-courses, which has expanded quickly in a short space of time.
Upon successful completion of each course, you earn a digital badge as evidence of your achievement. You can then share this badge in places like your email signature or social media, to highlight the qualifications you have earned.
To give you an example, a digital badge looks a little something like this…
These digital badge courses are scheduled to run each and every calendar month. They are hosted online, and are run in a fully self-service learning environment. This means there are no fixed 'classroom hours' or livestreams that you need to attend.
You can simply take things at your own pace, where and when it fits in your schedule.
The only real time constraint is that you are given one month to complete each badge. So if you sign up for a badge that runs in November, the clock starts ticking on November 1st, and you must reach 100% course completion by the end of that month.
The time commitment is however very reasonable. The IPWEA site suggests each digital badge will take you between 2-4 hours to complete. Your experience will probably vary depending on how quickly you move through the content.
What badges are available?
As at the time of writing there are 9 badges available to earn, that are spread across four different levels (ranging from introductory to specialist);
Introductory Badge (100 level) | this contains the single introductory badge on offer:
AM 101: Introduction to Asset Management
Essentials Badges (200 level) | this contains the following three badges:
AM 202: Understanding Requirements
AM 203: Lifecycle Planning
AM 204: Asset Management Enablers
Advanced Badges (300 level) | this contains the following four badges:
AM 303: Knowledge Management
AM 304: Asset Management Strategy
AM 305: Planning and Decision-making
AM 307: Performance Management
Specialist Badges (400 level) | this contains a single badge at present:
TM 401: Traffic Estimation and Strategy
As noted at the top, the AM 101 badge is basically the entry point to this digital badge programme. All four of the Essentials Badges (the 200 level) list the AM 101 badge as being a pre-requisite.
This implies you need to start with the AM 101 badge, whether you are a grizzled veteran of asset management or not.
However, it is worth noting that on another page on the site, it does say there are no pre-requisites for any of the badges. So perhaps it's not a true pre-requisite, in the sense you need have earned the AM 101 badge before signing up for the more advanced badges. Instead it may just be more of a recommendation of the level of knowledge you should have going in.
Either way, if you are going to try and earn a bunch of the digital badges on offer, you may as well have the AM 101 badge in your portfolio as well.
A potential missing link in the value proposition?
I think there is possibly a missing link with regards to the full value proposition of these digital badges. Something that could probably be summed up as sector recognition and adoption.
So by this I mean communicating the value beyond the obvious benefits of increasing one’s own personal knowledge. Now don’t get me wrong, that is still a fantastic & worthy outcome in its own right, and justification enough enrol in a digital badge.
However, if it were possible, it would be awesome to see some value insights in the context of the wider sector...
Are employers recognising or acknowledging these badges when recruiting new staff?
Are clients requiring suppliers to have these digital badges as part of the procurement process? Do they give the buying organisation an increased confidence about a prospective supplier? Do they give suppliers a boost in their non-price attributes?
What is the general perception of these badges vs other asset management qualifications in the marketplace?
If such insights could be demonstrated (which could very well be quite tricky to do), they could add justification to your decision to enrol in a badge(s) within the programme.
The registration process for AM 101
The registration process for the AM 101 badge is very simple.
First you need to head to the Upcoming Training and Events page on the IPWEA website. From there it’s a case of picking the badge you want to do and the month you want to do it in, and hitting the Register Now link.
An example of what this looks like is below…
A few clicks here, some credit card details entered there, and you are all signed up. The process is quick and easy and can be done within a couple of minutes.
Just so you know, you do need to be logged into your IPWEA account to register for a digital badge. If you don’t have one, it is free to sign up, and there is a link to do this on each of the digital badge pages.
Accessing the learning platform
The AM 101 badge is run through the iQualify platform (presumably this is true for all of the badges on offer).
As I was signed up for the November 2021 course, I received an email a couple of days prior to the course commencing. This contained a link to finish setting up my iQualify account. I also received another email on October 29th, confirming all the key course details.
When the course becomes available, it’s simply a case of logging into the link provided and completing all the course content. You don’t have to do it all in one sitting, so you should bookmark the page, to make it easy to find the next time you want to log in.
The AM 101 digital badge course content
The AM 101 digital badge is designed to introduce you to some of the key tenets of infrastructure asset management. The course draws on content from the International Infrastructure Asset Management Manual (the IIMM).
Throughout the course you will learn about things like;
why infrastructure asset management is important
the benefits of asset management
elements of the asset management system
the asset management maturity index
enabling the asset management system
There is a content overview page accessible at any time, to help you navigate through the course material. There are also indicative time estimates tagged to each section on this page, to help you plan and schedule your path through the course.
The content is broken down into sections for each subject area. Each section then contains multiple pages of course notes. The good news is these course notes are not limited to just walls and walls of text. They include all sorts of interesting multimedia like embedded videos, a TED Talk, case studies and links to other relevant websites.
Interactive sections
Scattered throughout the pages are embedded interactive sections, where you need to answer questions or describe your own experiences and thoughts.
As an example, in one section you are asked to watch a short video about the infrastructure for Auckland's drinking water. You then have to do a little write up to discuss the asset management functions that you observed in the video.
If you are brand new to asset management, or the idea of this type of exercise sounds scary, do know that you are given the tools and knowledge to tackle these questions. They are strategically placed at relevant places in the course material, so you are not facing these questions from a completely blind position.
For the free-form written responses, you type your answer directly into a text box on the course page. All free-form response sections did have a word limit imposed on them. This means you are not having to write a thesis each time, but you can go up to 500 words in your response.
The free-form responses did not appear to have any real-time grading assessment (in terms of receiving a graded score). However to be eligible to earn your digital badge, you do still need to complete every single response section throughout the course.
Tracking your progress
Your progression towards your digital badge is tracked on your own dashboard page. This gives you an indicator of how far along you are towards achieving a 100% completion rate.
At the end of the course there is a quiz that you need to complete. I don’t know if the quiz gets randomised each time in terms of the questions themselves, the required pass mark, or the number of questions asked. However, when I did the quiz it said up front the pass mark was 10 out of 13 questions answered correctly (so about 77%). You do also have the option to resit the quiz if needed.
Getting your digital badge
Once you successfully complete your course, you will be awarded your digital badge.
There are various resources available for saving and sharing your newly earned digital badge;
there is an editable format (.svg) of the badge that you can download
you are issued with a unique URL to a hosted version of the badge, which has metadata such as your name and date and time of completion.
there is an article discussing how to share the badge including how to do it on the LinkedIn platform
you can download a number of email signature templates that are available here
How much does it cost?
The cost for the AM 101 digital badge (in NZD) was $195+GST for non-IPWEA members. A discounted rate of $175.50+GST was available to IPWEA members.
Badge costs increase with the level of the badge, so the 200 series will cost you more than the 100 series, and so on. There is detailed in the pricing information on the IPWEA site, and a summary is shown in the screenshot below.
Closing thoughts
Jumping straight into the IIMM without any sort of background in infrastructure asset management could be a daunting exercise. Heck, it is probably a daunting exercise for many that do have experience in the field.
So, I think the digital badge programme is a really good (and convenient!) option to help you learn & up skill in the field of infrastructure asset management.
Regardless of the question raised earlier about the broader value proposition of these badges, from a personal viewpoint, the AM 101 badge will give you a solid foundation in the what’s and why’s of asset management.
Therefore this AM 101 digital badge is worth considering for your own professional development journey, and you should factor in the following;
You can go at your own pace and you have a month to get everything done
The course content is based on the International Infrastructure Management Manual (IIMM)
The badge is listed as a pre-requisite for the 200-level digital badges - great if you are keen to pursue further digital badges in the programme
Each subject is broken up into manageable blocks - if you only had 5 minutes spare, that would be enough time to complete some of the sections
The course material is not limited to just big chunks of text - there is multimedia content in there as well
I enjoyed my time completing the AM 101 badge. I am also really interested to watch the digital badge programme continue to develop, evolve and expand into new subject areas.
I also think it’s really important that we (as in we the wider sector) support initiatives like this in our industry. A rising tide lifts all boats, so everyone will ultimately benefit from the increase in knowledge and skills, that professional development opportunities like this provide to our people.
