General Assembly Adopts Canvas Credentials to Meet Rising Demand for Job-Ready Skills

Expands credentialing with Canvas Credentials, powered by Parchment, to deliver portable, workforce-aligned digital badges at scale

Salt Lake City — Aug. 5, 2025 — Instructure, the leading learning technology ecosystem and maker of Canvas Learning Management System (LMS), today announced that General Assembly, the leading talent and upskilling community, has adopted Canvas Credentials, powered by Parchment, to scale its digital badging efforts. The move reflects General Assembly’s commitment to supporting job readiness through verifiable, skills-tagged recognition that provides learners with greater visibility and aligns with shifting workforce expectations.

The urgency for job-ready skills has never been greater. The Boston Consulting Group reports the average half-life of job skills has dropped to under five years. Additionally, a recent survey conducted by The Harris Poll, commissioned by Instructure, found that 73% of U.S. workers feel unprepared to adapt to changes or disruptions in their careers over the next five years, and half are unsure which skills, certifications or credentials employers value most. General Assembly’s adoption of Canvas Credentials reflects a broader shift toward verified, skills-based recognition that connects education to employment outcomes.

“Our goal is to prepare students to be job-ready,” said Heather Luna, senior technical product manager at General Assembly. “Canvas Credentials plays a critical role in that journey by helping learners verify their skills, stand out to employers and showcase their achievements in ways that matter.”

As an existing Canvas LMS customer, General Assembly saw Canvas Credentials as a natural extension of its learning ecosystem, offering tight integration, automated workflows and robust metadata that connects each badge to skills frameworks such as TalentNeuron. Canvas Credentials is already being deployed across General Assembly’s portfolio, from immersive bootcamps and enterprise training to accelerators and workshops.

The result is a unified, scalable approach to credentialing that:

• Signals job-relevant skills with transparency
• Supports career mobility through digital badges
• Enhances the learner experience with easy access to verifiable records
• Reduces operational overhead through automation and LMS integration
• Elevates brand visibility as learners share achievements online

Canvas Credentials is part of Instructure’s broader open ecosystem, which includes the Canvas LMS, a global community of educators and learners, an expansive partner network and more than 500 APIs. This extensibility allows institutions like General Assembly to create seamless, scalable experiences that meet the evolving needs of today’s learners and tomorrow’s workforce.

“General Assembly has long been a leader in workforce-aligned learning, and their adoption of Canvas Credentials demonstrates how forward-thinking institutions are scaling impact,” said Melissa Loble, chief academic officer at Instructure. “By leveraging Instructure’s open ecosystem, General Assembly can seamlessly connect learning to opportunity, empowering individuals to showcase their skills, supporting scalable credentialing across programs and helping employers build stronger, future-ready teams.”

General Assembly's Badges are now being issued across multiple learning experiences, with each badge designed to reflect the scope, rigor and outcomes of its corresponding program. Learners benefit from increased motivation, employer recognition and a stronger sense of achievement, while enterprise clients are leveraging co-branded options to celebrate employee development.

“When learners share their badge on social media, it’s not just a credential, it’s a moment of pride and a bridge to what comes next,” added Luna.

This initiative aligns with broader shifts in education and employment, including the rise of skills-based hiring, growing demand for non-degree credentials and the expanding need for lifelong learning pathways. With Canvas Credentials by Parchment, General Assembly is helping define a new era of visibility, validation and workforce readiness.

Haris Poll Methodology

This survey was conducted online within the United States by The Harris Poll on behalf of Instructure from April 23 - 25, 2025, among 1,210 employed U.S. adults ages 18 and older. The sampling precision of Harris online polls is measured by using a Bayesian credible interval.  For this study, the sample data is accurate to within +/- 3.4 percentage points using a 95% confidence level. This credible interval will be wider among subsets of the surveyed population of interest. For complete survey methodology, including weighting variables and subgroup sample sizes, please contact Brian Watkins, Corporate Communications at Instructure, brian.watkins@instructure.com.