The document discusses reinventing ePortfolios with open badges. It begins with a brief history of ePortfolios and open badges. It then discusses how open badges can help address some challenges with ePortfolios, such as fragmentation across systems and platforms. Open badges are presented as simple, modular objects that can carry metadata across the web in a way that is more open and innovative than traditional ePortfolios. The document suggests open badges may help build "holographic identities" that are distributed, trustworthy, and co-constructed through social interactions. It emphasizes the importance of trust in open badge systems and how open badges could help develop new forms of trust networks.

1. Reinventing the
ePortfolio
with Open Badges
Why doesn't everyone have an ePortfolio?EUROPORTFOLIO
The projects Europortfolio and Badge Europe are funded with the
support of the European Commission
Roma maggio VIII MMXV
#OpenBadges
#ePortfolio
Buone pratiche internazionali per
costruire il next step della formazione e
del lavoro in Italia
VENERDÌ 8 MAGGIO 2015
MINISTERO DELL’ISTRUZIONE,
DELL’UNIVERSITÀ E DELLA RICERCA
ROMA
CARLA
CASILLI
Badge Alliance
USA
THOMAS
BLACK
Stanford University
USA
CINECA
ITALY
SERGE
RAVET
Badge EU project
France
SIMON
WHITTEMORE
JISC
UK
MIUR
ITALY

2. History
ePortfolios
Open Badges
&

3. 1995 2000 2005 2010 2015
10ePortfolioChallenges

4. hosted in information silos (ePortfolio platforms)
managed by fragmented institutional silos
personal information silos
ePortfolios
Fragmentation

5. For the 7th ePortfolio conference, and in order to give directions to our work towards our 2010 goal (ePortfolio for all), EIfEL has decided to address a number
of challenges to the ePortfolio community and beyond —many of the problems the ePortfolio community faces today will not be resolved if they are not
addressed beyond the ePortfolio silo. The goal of these challenges is to move beyond the current state of ePortfolio development, in particular in the field of
interoperability as interoperability is not just a technical issue, but a means to enable new practices and the emergence of truly lifelong and life wide
ePortfolios.
Our main objective is to create the conditions for the emergence of
MultiPortfolio organisations (one organisation can interact with many different
ePortfolio platforms) and MultiOrganisation ePortfolios (have one ePortfolio to
interact with many different institutions with their own platform).
1. Universal ePortfolio Repository —a unified view of all my assets
Context: Today, the digital assets used to create an ePortfolio can be hosted in
many different systems managed by many different organisations.
Issue: How can we provide a unified view of all the assets belonging to one
person, so she/he can seamlessly create ePortfolios without having to navigate
through multiple sites? How can I reunite my digital identity?
Direction: Identity and access management (IAM) technologies, such as
federation of identities and services need to be fully explored by the ePortfolio
community.
NB: a universal repository is not equivalent to a unique repository; it can be
universal while being distributed over a number of loosely connected and
heterogeneous systems.
2. Universal Competency Identifiers —share competency definitions
across systems
Context: A number of ePortfolio platforms, and other applications in the field of
education, employment, accreditation and human resource use competency
frameworks. Today, the dominant delivery format of competency frameworks is a
PDF file, forcing each system to import or recreate them from scratch.
Issue: How can we share competency definitions across systems and
applications? How can we elicit emerging competencies through interactive
technologies?
Direction: The creation of a competency wiki providing shared, distributed,
multilingual URIs (Unique Resource Identifiers) to competency definitions. The
solution to unique resource identifiers for competency definition has already
been discussed by Simon Grant (Representing frameworks of skill and
competence for interoperability). We have the technology required, what is
missing is the political impetus and commitment.
3. ePortfolio social —share assets, knowledge and processes across
communities
Context: The idea of using social computing for ePortfolios is growing and a
number of platforms have integrated such features. Nevertheless, the current
implementation of social networking technology is mainly limited to connecting
individuals as silos of information.
Issue: Let’s imagine a group of 100 people belonging to the same community
(company, school, etc.) among which 10 are writing their own CV. Can we
design a technology that will make it possible that at the end of the process,
each of the 100 people will have (part of) their own CV written? How can we
automatically generate and updated ePortfolios and CVs through social
interaction?
Direction: Imagine that each time a person writes an elementary entry into their
CV describing a professional experience, they have to name the people that
shared the same experience; then for each person named, the entry is added to
their ‘CV’, with the ability to edit it and share it back with the original author or
create their own edited version of the entry. This way, each CV would be thread
weaving a collective story. For the reader, being able to judge how an individual
CV is connected to other stories, could even be an indicator of trustworthiness.
The same reasoning could of course apply to ePortfolios.
4. ePortfolio semantic editors —make sense of what I write, connect,
etc.
Context: In 2003, during the first international ePortfolio conference in Poitiers,
Christopher Tan presented Knowledge Community, a platform scaffolding
learners reflection through semantic annotation, i.e. identifying key words and
labelling them with semantic value, e.g. evidence, theory, example, etc. Since
then, not a single editor of ePortfolio tools has included any form of semantic
annotation.
Issue: We need ePortfolio editors that scaffold reflective thinking, not just enrich
text with bolds, italics and ‘pink on purple’ effects. We need proper, simple
semantic editors, as semantic annotation is a way to structure reflection,
connect ideas, facts and people.
Direction: RDFa editors provide the blueprint for ePortfolio editors that fully
support the components of a reflective process. At minima, be able to tag parts
of texts/images, not just the whole document.
5. ePortfolio Readers —read any ePortfolio through consistent and
multiple views
Context: There are a number of ePortfolio platforms, each one with their own
user interfaces and some people create ePortfolios without using any dedicated
ePortfolio platform (e.g. content management system). And people want to be
free to express their identity without being kept in the straightjacket of
predefined templates.
Issue: How can we leave total freedom to ePortfolio author’s creativity, while
providing readers with their own view through a consistent navigational
interface, e.g. evidence on the left, competency framework on the right, etc.?
Direction: We might have to define different readers, depending on the process
being involved, so the same ePortfolio could have different views generated by
when this possibility is offered.
Issue: How can we provide ePortfolio owners with an unlimited number of
services without forcing service providers to develop multiple plug-ins for
multiple applications? How can we trust the usage made by services of our
personal data?
Direction: This is connected to the idea of Universal Repository, exploited and
enriched by service providers. Schools, universities, employers, professional
bodies etc. need to provide conversational systems through trusted web
services —a technology currently under development by different initiatives,
such as TAS3.
7. ePortfolio based performance support system —make the ePortfolio
part of my work
Context: One of the current problems with ePortfolio adoption at the workplace
is the fact that ePortfolios can be seen as something either nice to have or
adding to the regular work. Moreover, the current level of integration of
ePortfolios with other information systems is still low.
Issue: How can we make ePortfolio construction part of everyday activities?
How can we demonstrate ePortfolio benefits through business benefits?
Direction: Use ePortfolio technology and methods to develop next generation
electronic performance support systems, integrate reflection as part of routine
work processes, so the ePortfolio is built through naturally occurring business
activities.
8. ePortfolio discovery mechanism —find people, competencies,
resources
Context: While there are a number of methods for learning resources discovery
(c.f. the learning resources exchange (LRE) repository of European Schoolnet)
there are not yet universal mechanism to discover ePortfolios on the Internet,
each individual relying on ad-hoc services.
Issue: How can we easily find an ePortfolio or a resource contained in an
ePortfolio?
Direction: OAI-PMH (Open Archives Initiative's Protocol for Metadata
Harvesting) is a possible method to create large indexes of ePortfolios per
organisation, sector or even territory. Other methods could be the publication of
ePortfolios in trusted parties' indexes.
9. URIs as tags
Context: Tag is a popular form to connect things together. within an ePortfolio.
Unfortunately the meaning of tags is context dependent, and different tags can
share the same meaning.
Issue: How can we create tags that are not context dependent?
Direction: make tags RDF triplets: name (what is displayed as ‘tag’); URI to
definition (an hidden hypertext link); link type (is, is part of, etc.). NB: this is an
extension of challenge #2. Two tags are close if they share the same URI and
identical if they are identical triplets.
10. Universal Metadata
Context: ePortfolio construction is about connecting data together. Metadata
are not just ‘comments’ about data, but links between all the data sharing the
same metadata. If data are assimilated to neurones, metadata can be seen
as.the synapses connecting neurones together..
Issue: How can we enrich distributed data with ‘personal/social metadata
repositories
Direction: keep metadata repositories apart from data, on the model of social
bookmarking.
e P o r t f o l i o c h a l l e n g e s
2009
1. Universal ePortfolio Repository
2. Universal Competency Identifiers
3. ePortfolio social
4. ePortfolio semantic editors
5. ePortfolio Readers
6. Open & Trusted Service Architecture
7. ePortfolio based performance support system
8. ePortfolio discovery mechanism
9. URIs as tags
10. Universal Metadata
ePortfolios
Challenges

6. ePortfolios
Solutions!
1. Universal ePortfolio Repository
2. Universal Competency Identifiers
3. ePortfolio social
4. ePortfolio semantic editors
5. ePortfolio Readers
6. Open & Trusted Service Architecture
7. ePortfolio based performance support system
8. ePortfolio discovery mechanism
9. URIs as tags
10. Universal Metadata
2011

7. 2000 2005 2010 2015 2020
!
2020
Open Badges
?

8. The University today faces the possibility of being itself transformed by the
cyberspace culture generated by its computing centres and networks. Just as
the printing press spelled the demise of monastic institutions and ushered in
the modern university, cyberspace may dissolve the bricks and mortar
campuses of today into a de-centred knowledge culture, a networked "virtual"
site of intellectual exchange that renders obsolete old ivied quadrangles as
well as institutional and political borders, creating something akin to H.G.
Wells's vision of a ‘World Brain’.
Peter Childers & Paul Delany (1994)
World Brain: The Idea of a PermanentWorld Encyclopaedia, H.G.Wells
Contribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August1937

9. Could Open Badges be the neurones
embedding H.G.Wells' vision of a
"World Brain?"

10. Individuation
ePortfolios
Open Badges
ofas

11. In L'individuation Psychique et Collective, Simondon
developed a theory of individual and collective
individuation, in which the individual subject is
considered as an effect of individuation, rather than as
a cause.Thus the individual atom is replaced by the
never ending process of individuation [creating] both
an individual and a collective subject, which individuate
themselves together.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_Simondon
Individuation

12. Individuation
The technical object or individual is not a
concretization in the sense that it instantiates an
abstract object. Rather, it is a novel emergence from
the preindividual, whose tensions it resolves in its
mode of being. In the process, it potentializes an
“associated milieu,” which acts as a connective force
maintaining the solidarity of its subsequent operations
as a constituted being.
http://www.inflexions.org/n5_boucherharrophtml.html

13. ePortfolioMainframe
ENIAC, 1947
Individuation

15. Open Badges vs. ePortfolios
Autonomy As pictures, they can move metadata all over the Web
Simplicity Uncomplicated objects, Lego™ blocs-like
Granularity Get a badge for something big or small
Openness The Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) is... open
Innovation New ideas emerge and are integrated into the Open Badge architecture
Integration Practice re-shapes technology which re-shapes practice...
Trust The elementary building blocks of a native trust network
trusted identities
they
travel
well!

16. Identity Construction
ePortfolios
Open Badges
&

17. “Self identity is not a set of traits or
observable characteristics.
It is a person's own reflexive understanding
of their biography. Self-identity has
continuity, but that continuity is only a
product of the person's reflexive beliefs
about their own biography.
It explains the past and is oriented towards
anticipated future."

18. Me Self-narration Me
Me
Me
Me
Me
"A person's own reflexive understanding of their biography" A. GiddensePortfolio

19. “Every relationship. . . implies a
definition of self by others and other by
self. . . A person's 'own' identity can
never be completely abstracted from
his identity-for-others.
Ronald Laing, Self and Others, 1961

20. “If I am I, simply because I am I, and
thou art thou simply because thou art
thou, then I am I and thou art thou. But
if I am I because thou art thou, and thou
art thou because I am I, then I am not I
and thou art not thou.”
Rabbi Mendel of Kotsk
quoted in Ethos and Identity, Epstein, 1978

21. Me
Self-narration
You
You
You
You
Narration
through
others
&
You
Me
Me
Me
Me
Me
A person's 'own' identity can never be completely abstracted from his identity-for-others - Ronald LaingePortfolio

22. Holographic Identity

23. Holographic Identity

24. Holographic Identity

25. Distributed
Trustworthy
Complex, yet uncomplicated
Co-constructed
Connected
Resilient
Holographic
Identities

26. the pixels of holographic identities
Open Badges

29. Chains of trust

30. Trust!
Issuer Earner

31. Trust!

32. The TrueValue of Open Badges
Hidden behind a 'pretty picture'
Trust

33. Trust and security work in reverse proportions: the more trust, the less
extrinsic security measures are required, the more extrinsic security
measures are taken, the less trustworthy the system becomes.
The Deleterious
Effects of Mistaking
Security for Trust
Increasing security measures is about addressing the symptoms,
not the causes of failing trust. There is no alternative to increasing
trust than taking the necessary steps to… increasing trust!
Trust vs Security
http://www.learningfutures.eu/2015/04/openbadges-the-deleterious-effects-of-mistaking-security-for-trust-aspentrust-dmltrust/

34. Trust
Intimacy
Security
Privacy
OpenBadges
ePortfolios

35. "The best way to find out if
you can trust somebody is
to trust them."
Ernest Hemingway

36. A teenager had spent many months in a young peoples psychiatric hospital.
When he was about to leave a therapist asked him what was the most
significant thing which helped him in his recovery. He responded that it was the
moment when in and art group the therapist asked him to fetch some art paper
from a cupboard in another part of the building.The therapist handed him the
keys to the cupboard which were on a key ring with many other keys to the
rooms in the building.
They young man said he felt so good, not just because he had been chosen to
do the small job when his esteem was very low but because the therapist had
not hesitated but just handed him the keys. He knew he could have used those
keys to get up to all sorts of mischief but he felt trust to act responsibly.
Julie Lunt <julie at newpaths.eu>

37. Open Badges Passport
ePortfolios
Reinventing

39. Nate's Passport
Contact Search
About me Activity wall

40. Created
Issued
Connections
My Dashboard
20
245
Badges Collected
47,405
Total Recent
1
30
Total Recent New
1,230 25,639
15
Pledged
10
Endorsement
Collected Issued
56124
Badges Issued
My Issuers Through Badges
Visits
Total Recent
5612,453
Top Search
My Badge Earners
40
Evidence
Total Recent
204,592
Create Issue Search Organise ClaimDashboard NetworkEvidence Configure

41. New Pledged
Collections
Events
Achievements
Competencies
Endorsements
Pages
Résumé
Reflective Rebel
Mentorship offers
Summer job application
Create Issue Search Organise ClaimDashboard NetworkEvidence Configure
Organise Public Restrict. Private External Search

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vix, mea accusam perpetua indoctum no, populo
deleniti te eum. Eos quod alii patrioque an, ne
ludus noluisse eum. Essent verear an cum, viris
accusata per at, liber interesset vix an.
Blandit dissentiunt te mel, clita eirmod ne vel,
mutat definitionem mediocritatem ex ius.!
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suscipiantur eu. Ferri iriure menandri ut sed, no
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menandri assueverit.! Ei sea tantas platonem, pro
audiam impedit apeirian ea.
Per consul suscipiantur te, no stet recteque est.
Corpora disputando at vim. Atqui eirmod
alterum sit ea, no quod tempor convenire pro, qui
id habeo error moderatius. Ex has eirmod
Pages
Résumé
Reflective Rebel
Mentorship offers
Summer job application
Create Issue Search Organise ClaimDashboard NetworkEvidence Configure
Organise Public Restrict. Private External Search

43. Types
Badges
Experience (xAPI)
Images
Texts
Create Issue Search Organise ClaimDashboard NetworkEvidence Configure
Miscellaneous
Pages
Evidence Public Restrict. Private External Search

44. Repository
Apps
API
Kernel
S e r v i c e s
BadgeIssuing
Career
Management
Social
Networking
Learning
Management
FindPeers
Learning
Resources
Event
Management
Self
Employment
Discovery
Services
Badge
Verification
App Store
...

45. Invitation to further reflection
ePortfolios
Open Badges

46. danah boyd "The Power of Fear in Networked Publics"
"The tools that we build are getting repurposed
around the globe by people with all sorts of
different agendas. They're being used by
activists to challenge the status quo, but they're
also being used by the status quo to assert new
kinds of authority. People are building the new
networks of power on the technological
networks that we’ve generated and they’re
reinforcing existing power structures."

47. "The tools that we build are getting repurposed
around the globe by people with all sorts of
different agendas. They're being used by
activists to challenge the status quo, but they're
also being used by the status quo to assert new
kinds of authority. People are building the new
networks of power on the technological
networks that we’ve generated and they’re
reinforcing existing power structures."
danah boyd "The Power of Fear in Networked Publics"
trust
challenging
Trust with Open Badges

48. Credits
ENIAC US Army
Hologram with baby Chris Helson and Sarah Jackets
Gilbert Simondon couldn't find credits

49. Serge Ravet
ADPIOS, Open Passport Badge Europe, EUROPORTFOLIO
@Szerge, learningfutures.eu
openpassport.me, openbadges.eu europortfolio.org, iosf.org
Merci!