A Study on ways to revitalize extracurricular education through digital badges

This study was conducted to analyze the public's perception and evaluation of digital badges, which are gaining increasing interest as an alternative to university comparison and educational innovation, and to derive developmental alternatives. For this purpose, text mining analysis was conducted on documents related to “digital badges” collected online from Naver, Daum, Google, Twitter, and YouTube. As a result of the analysis, blockchain technology was recognized as an important factor that determines the function of digital badges, and “digitalization” played a mediating role in the relationship between digital badges and education. Additionally, the CONCOR analysis confirmed that the online public perceives digital badges as an integration of cutting-edge educational technology, an essential element in the digital educational environment, and an alternative for university innovation. Based on the research results, expansion of digital badge-related policies to revitalize extra-curricular education and maximize performance was proposed. This study has academic value in that it is the first study to analyze online perceptions of extra-curricular education using big data text mining techniques, and is significant in that it presents policy suggestions regarding the research results.