Parchment Digital Badges - How can I add Parchment Digital Badges to my Canvas course? [UW-Madison]

Instructure (the parent company of Canvas) now offers a credentialing tool known as Parchment Digital Badges (formerly Canvas Credentials). This document is meant for instructors and course designers interested in adding Parchment Digital Badges to their Canvas course.
Parchment Digital Badges is available for use in all UW-Madison Canvas courses as of May 2025. It is supported by the Division of Continuing Studies (DCS). If you are an instructor or course designer, and would like to use Parchment Digital Badges in your course, contact DCS to create a digital badge. For more information, visit the Digital Badging website. Use of digital badges is directed by the UW-Madison Digital Badges Policy. 

Adding Parchment Digital Badges to your Course Navigation Bar

After you have a policy-compliant digital badge, you can enable Parchment Digital Badges in your course by adding the Parchment Badges item to your course navigation bar.

  1. Open your Canvas course, and select Settings from the course navigation bar.
    The bottom five items of the Canvas course menu. Settings is listed at the bottom.
  2. On the Settings page, select Navigation from the options along the top of the page.
    Five tabs of the Settings page are listed. Navigation is the third item listed.
  3. On the Navigation tab, find Parchment Badges.
    The "Parchment Badges" tile as it appears on the Navigation Tab. Underneath it says "Page disabled, won't appear in navigation."

  4. Select the menu (⋮) icon beside Parchment Badges, and then select Enable or Move. Or, click and hold the Parchment Badges tile with your cursor.
    The "menu" button, with ⋮ is selected. A menu is open, with "+Enable" highlighted.
  5. Move Parchment Badges to the place in your navigation bar where you would like it to appear. If you selected Enable in the step above, Parchment Badges will appear at the bottom of your navigation bar, but you can move it at this time.
  6. At the end of the page, select Save.
    A red button is shown with the text "Save". This is shown at the bottom of the Settings page.
  7. Parchment Badges will now appear on your course navigation bar.
  8. To automatically award badges in Parchment Badges once learners have met badge requirements in their Canvas course, reach out to the DCS digital badging service team.

Keywords:
badgr digital badges certificate noncredit training dcs continuing studies learn@UW track completion Parchment Digital Badges canvas credentials 
Doc ID:
150595
Owned by:
Learn@UW Madison in Learn@UW
Created:
2025-05-12
Updated:
2026-05-27
Sites:
DoIT Help Desk, Learn@UW