When graduate student Atis Degro got an email about a George Mason University course in resilience last year, he had to look up what that meant.

He was also curious about the credential being offered for successfully completing the course: not a conventional degree or a certificate, but a “badge.”

“I thought, OK, this sounds useful,” says Degro, a 32-year-old doctoral student from Latvia studying applied physics. “I’m always eager to try new things.”

So Degro took the course and earned the badge that turned out to be a way to list his new skill in an online résumé with a digital graphic that looks like an emoji.

Such nondegree credentials have been growing in popularity. But as students invest more time and money in them, concerns grow about credentials’ quality control and value.

While there has generally been consensus about what a college degree represents, there’s confusion over how to define many of these new credentials and judge their usefulness for employers and job seekers.

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