Presentation at the Boldic project meeting, 13 October 2014, Riga, Latvia.

1. Mozilla Open Badges for Assessment
Hans Põldoja, Tallinn University

2. Hans Põldoja!
!
Lecturer of educational technology
Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics
!
Doctoral student
Aalto University, School of Arts, Design and Architecture
!
hans.poldoja@tlu.ee
http://www.hanspoldoja.net

3. What are Open Badges?

4. Mozilla Open Badges
http://openbadges.org

5. (Class Hack, n.d.)

6. (Open Badges, 2013)

7. (Open Badges, 2013)

8. (Open Badges, 2013)

9. (Open Badges, 2013)

10. Using Open Badges in
Formal Higher Education

11. Exploring the Potential of Open Badges in Blog-Based
University Courses
Hans Põldoja and Mart Laanpere
Tallinn University, Institute of Informatics, Tallinn, Estonia
{hans.poldoja, mart.laanpere}@gmail.com
Abstract. Recent developments with personal learning environments and open
online courses have led educators to experiment with opening up their formal
higher education courses. In these courses, the online learning activities take
place in open learning environments based on various Web 2.0 tools such as
blogs. Although this type of courses have a number of pedagogical benefits,
they also raise issues related to private grading of students’ works and recogniz-ing
the learning of informal participants. This paper presents our exploratory
study on addressing these issues by introducing open badges to master’s level
course that takes place in a blog-based learning environment. Students’ perspec-tives
on using open badges were evaluated through focus group interviews. The
results of the study indicate, that badges could have a potential in formal higher
education, if they are used more widely and provide an explicit choice of per-sonal
learning paths for learners.
Keywords: open badges, assessment, blog-based courses.
1 Introduction
One of the recent trends in education is the blending of formal and informal learning.
This is supported by introducing social media, personal learning environments and
various open educational practices to formal higher education [1, 2]. Students can
enrich their learning experience by using open educational resources from other uni-versities
and taking part in Massive Open Online Courses.
In many cases, such developments have led university lecturers and professors to
increase the degree of openness in their courses. One approach is to move online
learning activities to open learning environments that are based on social media and
Web 2.0 tools such as blogs. The use of blogs in online courses provides a number of
pedagogical benefits such as motivating learners, enhancing the development and
expression of ideas, fostering interaction, collaboration and group work, inviting
feedback from other learners, and enriching the learning environment [3]. The use of
blog-based learning environments also allows educators to open up their course for
informal participants or members of professional communities who are not officially
enrolled to the course.
adfa, p. 1, 2011.
© Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011
Põldoja, H., & Laanpere, M. (in press). Exploring the Potential
of Open Badges in Blog-Based University Courses. In Y. Cao,
T. Väljataga, & J. K. T. Tang (Eds.), New Horizons in Web-
Based Learning - ICWL 2014 Workshops. Berlin / Heidelberg:
Springer.

12. Blog-based courses

13. Assessment issues in blog-based
courses
• Private grading in open learning environment
• Recognizing the learning outcomes of informal
participants

14. Badge design patterns?

15. Composite badges
Blog posts on each of the
13 course topics
OpenEd
Overview
Badge
In-depth blog posts on 3
selected course topics
OpenEd
Researcher
Badge
(Wiley, 2013)

16. Activity-based badges
N blog posts or tweets Activity
Badge
N received comments or
retweets
Quality
Badge
Completed milestone or
assignment
Result
Badge
(Santos, Charleer, Parra, Klerkx, Duval, & Verbert, 2013)

17. Grade-based badges
95% of points or more Gold Badge
85% of points or more Silver
Badge
75% of points or more Bronze
Badge
(Rughiniș & Matei, 2013)

18. Hierarchical badges
Course
Level
Badge
Project
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
Project
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
Lower
Level
Badge
(Randall, Harrison, & West, 2013)

19. Our proposal: outcome-based
badges

20. Advanced knowledge badges
Skills badges
Basic knowledge badges
Basic
knowledge on
learning
objects and
repositories
Basic
knowledge on
authoring tools
Basic
knowledge on
computer-based
assessment
Basic
knowledge on
new
technologies
Basic
knowledge on
copyright of
digital
learning
resources
Basic
knowledge on
quality of
digital
learning
resources
Content
package author
Assessment test
author
e-Textbook
author
Advanced
knowledge on
learning objects
and repositories
Advanced
knowledge on
authoring tools
Advanced
knowledge on
computer-based
assessment
Advanced
knowledge on
new
technologies
Advanced
knowledge on
copyright of
digital learning
resources
Advanced
knowledge on
quality of digital
learning
resources
Assignments
Blogging assignment 1 Blogging assignment 2 Blogging assignment 3 Blogging assignment 4 Blogging assignment 5
Group assignment on
developing a digital
learning resource
Blogging assignment 6 Literature review
Describing the
advantages and
disadvantages of learning
objects approach
Creating simple content
packages, tests and e-textbooks,
and describing
these with metadata
Searching for learning
objects from learning
object repositories by
metadata and licenses
Following copyright
principles for digital
learning resources
Evaluating the quality of a
learning resources using
an evaluation framework
Using one authoring tool
to create a more
comprehensive digital
learning resource
Analyzing the current
issues, research studies
and trends in one sub-topic
related to digital
learning resources
Learning outcomes

21. Students' perspectives on Open
Badges
• Main benefits: feeling of recognition and confirmation
about accepted assignments
• Badges would become more valuable, if they are used in
several courses, not as a one time experiment
• Students are interested in recognizing prior learning with
badges

22. Recommendations for future
courses
• Offer at least two levels of badges for each assignment
• Provide more choice of different badges / learning paths
• Visual aesthetics of badges is also important for learners

23. Food for thought
• Extending the badge metadata (“weight”, etc)
• Combining outcome-based badges with other types of
badges
• Student-designed and student-awarded badges for peer-assessment
• Combing personal learning contracts and badges

24. References
• Wiley, D.: Assignments: Introduction to Openness in Education, https://
learn.canvas.net/courses/4/assignments
• Santos, J.L., Charleer, S., Parra, G., Klerkx, J., Duval, E., Verbert, K.:
Evaluating the Use of Open Badges in an Open Learning Environment. In:
Hernández-Leo, D., Ley, T., Klamma, R., Harrer, A. (eds) EC-TEL 2013. LNCS,
vol. 8095, pp. 314–327. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2013)
• Rughiniș, R., Matei, S.: Digital Badges: Signposts and Claims of
Achievement. In: Stephanidis, S. (ed) HCI International 2013 - Posters’
Extended Abstracts, pp. 84–88. Springer, Berlin Heidelberg (2013)
• Randall, D.L., Harrison, J.B., West, R.E.: Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due:
Designing Open Badges for a Technology Integration Course. TechTrends.
57, 88–95 (2013)

25. Used Images
• Ellen Munro: Badges, https://www.flickr.com/photos/ellenmunro/5140522031/
• Class Hack: Open Badges Anatomy, http://classhack.com/post/
45364649211/open-badge-anatomy-updated
• Open Badges, http://openbadges.org/about/

26. Thank You!
• hans.poldoja@tlu.ee
• http://www.slideshare.net/hanspoldoja