Everyone belongs to Local Recognition Networks (LRNs) of some sort, which may be a professional, civic or social network, informal or formal (club, association, business, trade union, etc.). Whether for leisure or work pursuits, these LRNs are places where individuals develop a wide range of skills, knowledge, attitudes and values that could be activated beyond those places. But to do so, they would need to be recognised beyond the limits of LRNs.
The objectives of REVEAL (Recognition of Experience Validation of Experience, Achievements and Learning) is twofold:
- providing support to existing informal and formal networks to become active Learning Recognition Networks, i.e. recognising the learning that takes place within in a way that makes it visible beyond
- exploring the potential of loosely coupling (informal) ‘recognition’ and (formal) ‘validation’ as a means to remove current barriers to recognition
REVEAL builds on existing and emerging practices with the support of technologies, Open Badges, open data and their application to social innovation to remove barriers to recognition, encouraging new learning and career pathways based on real life experience with a focus on adults with low levels of formal education in, or expected to be, in precarious job situations, e.g. early school leavers, long term unemployed, women back to work, migrants.