Hi:
The SAS Academy for Data Science is not just one course. The program is a multi-level program consisting of multiple courses organized into these 3 levels:
![Cynthia_sas_0-1588434589800.png Cynthia_sas_0-1588434589800.png](https://communities.sas.com/t5/image/serverpage/image-id/39001i2239111469F094E0/image-size/medium?v=v2&px=400)
Notice that Data Curation level has 4 courses; Advanced Analytics Professional has 9 courses and AI&ML level has 5 courses.
The only way to earn the official certification credential is to take the graded exam(s) through Pearson VUE test centers. However, if you finished all 5 of the AI&ML courses or all 4 of the Data Curation courses, then you would earn a Learn badge -- which is more of a certifcate of completion, that you finished the course -- not that you earned the credential.
Hope this explains the difference between a "Learn Badge" for completing a course and a certification credential that you earn by passing one or more than 1 exams.
Cynthia