1. A brief introduction to
Open Digital Badges
What, why and how?
Brenda Mallinson
OPEN LEARNING & DISTANCE EDUCATION
INCUBATION for AFRICA SUMMIT
28 – 29 July, 2014
Johannesburg
3. Near-term horizon – within the next 12 months
Flipped Classroom, Learning Analytics
Mid-term horizon – 2-3 years out
Games & Gamification, 3D Printing
Far-term horizon- 4-5 from widespread adoption
Quantified Self, Virtual Assistants
Higher Education
Technologies to watch
The NMC Horizon Report: 2014 Higher Education Edition
4. The Concept of Micro-credentials
• Competency-based education
• Recognize smaller achievements
– Can add up to something more
• Non-traditional / informal
• Gamification:
– reward/incentive
– strategy
– transparency
formal potential?
6. • Visual symbol used to:
– set goals
– motivate behaviours
– represent achievement
– communicate success
• Online representation
– within and across
– networks & communities
• Free & open
• Transferable
• Stackable
• Evidence-based
Digital Badges Open Badges
7. Example 1: Course with 4 Modules
• History of Badges
• Designing & Issuing Badges
• Policies & Procedures
• Storage & Security
9. Badges in Moodle
• Categories: site wide & course specific
• Compatible with Mozilla Open Badges in 2.6
– Export from Moodle to Backpack
– Link from Backpack to Moodle site
• Badges shown in site profile
10.
11. Example 2: Badges process in Moodle
1. Create your badge (.png image)
2. What does it represent?
– name, description, issuing organisation, expiry
3. Criteria for award
4. Who can award? (automated/manual)
5. Message
6. Storage
– Internal to system
– External - link to Open Backpack
12.
13. System Elements
Issuer
• Organisation; Employer; Assessment; Awards badge
Digital Badges
• Badge Design; Criteria;
Earner
• Performs tasks; Display on Profile; Export to storage
Storage
• In-house; Open storage system; e.g. Mozilla Backpack
Displayer
• Internal; External; Social site; Link to storage
15. Useful Tools / Projects
• Open Badge Designer Tools
– OpenBadges.me
– OnlineIconMaker
• Open Badge Storage:
– Mozilla Backpack
• Digital Credential Curation & Validation service
– BadgeSafe tied to Canvas
– BadgeStack tied to WordPress & Credly
– Credly – verify, share, manage micro-credentials
16. Discussion
How does/could this relate to your organisation?
– With respect to internal achievements
– Providing services
– Providing accreditation
– Capturing skills not usually represented on certificates
– ….
17. Bibliography
• Accreditrust (2014) Website
• Bernard Bull (2014) How Will Badges and Micro-Credentialing Change Education?
Etale – Life in the Digital World (Blog)
• Canvas Network (2014) Badge 101
• Credly (2014) Website
• News Editor (2013) Professional Examination Service Introduces Digital Micro-
Credentials Learning Solutions Magazine
• Jonathan Finkelstein (2012) Digital Badges and Meaningful Microcredentials
EDUCAUSE Library
• MozillaWiki (2014) Badges
• New Media Consortium (2014) Horizon Report - Higher Education Edition
Open Badges are:
Free and open: Mozilla Open Badges is not proprietary. It’s free software and an open technical standard any organization can use to create, issue and verify digital badges.
Transferable: Collect badges from multiple sources, online and off, into a single backpack. Then display your skills and achievements on social networking profiles, job sites, websites and more.
Stackable: Whether they’re issued by one organization or many, badges can build upon each other and be stacked to tell the full story of your skills and achievements.
Evidence-based: Open Badges are information-rich. Each badge has important metadata which is hard-coded into the badge image file itself that links back to the issuer, criteria and verifying evidence.
A digital badge is an online representation of a skill you’ve earned. Open Badges take that concept one step further, and allows you to verify your skills, interests and achievements through credible organizations and attaches that information to the badge image file, hard-coding the metadata for future access and review. Because the system is based on an open standard, earners can combine multiple badges from different issuers to tell the complete story of their achievements — both online and off. Badges can be displayed wherever earners want them on the web, and share them for employment, education or lifelong learning.
Open Badges make it easy to:
Get recognition for the things you learn;
Give recognition for the things you teach;
Verify skills; and
Display your verified badges across the web.
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/
•A badge is more than just a static image - its value comes from the information or "metadata" attached to it.
•This supporting data contained within the badge reduces the risk of abusing the system (e.g., illegitimately copying badges and putting them on your site) and builds in an implicit validation system.
•The metadata may vary based on the particular skill, assessment and issuer.
Badges are a good way of celebrating achievement and showing progress.
2 way compatibility with Mozilla – export Moodle badges to your Mozilla backpack, and link to your backpack to display your backpack badges on your Moodle site via your user profile.
Backpack connection
If the email address a user has for Moodle is the same as their Open Badges email address, then they will be automatically connected here and may choose to disconnnect if they wish. If the email address a user has for Moodle is not the same, then they can add the email address which will connect them to their backpack. They can then choose to "push" to their backpack badges which they have earned on Moodle. The badge must then be added to a public collection for it to be visible on their Moodle profile.
DEMO – in Saide Moodle