101 What are Open Badges?

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Task Navigation 

Read up on Badges.


Complete all 11 tasks in order to get more acquainted with badges.

  1. Read the Mozilla Open Badge announcement made in September of 2011: http://blog.mozilla.com/blog/2011/09/15/openbadges/
     
  2. Visit http://openbadges.org/ and comb through all of the information available. Pay particular attention to the 'About' page and the organizations teaming up with Mozilla.
     
  3. Read up on the Open Badges Roadmap: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/roadmap
     
  4. Check out Planet OpenBadges for regular posts about everything the Mozilla Open Badges team is up to.
     
  5. Follow the Open Badges Resources Decision Map (thanks to Doug Belshaw for this resource!)
     
  6. Learn more about the Open Badge validation process from Jon Buckley: http://jbuckley.ca/2012/01/validating-open-badges/, who works at the Seneca Centre for Development of Open Technology (CDOT).
     
  7. Read about the Higher Ed/Open Badges debate in the NYTimes: Beyond the College Degree, Online Educational Badges.
     
  8. Onboarding docs: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Issuer#G._Verification (thanks to Sunny Lee from Mozilla for this resource!)
     
  9. Assertions Wiki: https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges/wiki/Assertions (thanks to Sunny Lee from Mozilla for this resource!)
     
  10. Check out Educause’s "Things you should know about badges": http://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ELI7085.pdf (thanks to Liz Renshaw)
     
  11. Susbcribe to Audrey Watters, http://hackeducation.com/, a technology journalist.

 

What resources did you find helpful? What other resources have you found? Post your answers to the forum below.

Task Discussion


  • Richard Siegel said:

    I'm thinking about badges in three contexts:

    1. As an adjunct assessment tool for the MA program I'm directing in Jewish Nonprofit Management.
    2. For a "Concious Eldering" project that my wife and I are developing
    3. On the broadest level, trying to conceptualize a totally new, revolutionary way of looking at Jewish education... which is essentially informal, affective education.

    I've tried linking to the flow-charts described, but the links aren't working.  Are there better ones?

    Thanks, this is really fascinating.

    on Nov. 13, 2012, 1:22 a.m.

    katiecwilkie said:

    Richard,

    Your projects sound really great. I'm glad to see people are wanting to implement badges for all sorts of learning. Badges can be really motivational. I'd be interested to hear more about the badges you might implement for the MA program and the project you and your wife are working on. If you have any questions about creating the actual badges, I'd be happy to let you know what resources I have been using.

    Katie

    on Nov. 13, 2012, 1:31 p.m. in reply to Richard Siegel

  • Shawn Kasulka said:

     

    Should note Carla Casilli’s blog 'Persona' (the team lead on the Mozilla Open Badges) shares some insights around badges systems design and open education. 

    Shawn

    on Oct. 27, 2012, 10:42 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Thanks Shawn. Carla's blog is tied into the new Planet OpenBadges site I just posted, along with the other Mozilla Badges folks. :)

    on Dec. 28, 2012, 10:11 a.m. in reply to Shawn Kasulka

  • EllieRH said:

    I'm interested in how badges might be integrated into higher education (I'm trying not to assume that they are necessarily unbridgable silos). Here is something Purdue is trying:

    http://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/releases/2012/Q3/digital-badges-show-students-skills-along-with-degree.html

    Ellie

    on Oct. 22, 2012, 3:16 p.m.

    Liz said:

    Thanks for the resource.  I am working on a presentation on badges for my online class and this really helped.

    on Jan. 22, 2013, 1:28 p.m. in reply to EllieRH

  • katiecwilkie said:

     

    I agree with you on this, larajla. At this point I am interested in exactly how to bake the badges and how to sponsor them (become an issuer). Some of the reading on here makes me feel rather small in the larger badges movement! It seems to be a continuing suggestion that large universities and organizations are good candidates for issuing, and that they can use a company such as BadgeStack to support their system.

    Unfortunately I am not the head of an organization or university, don't have the funds to pay for BadgeStack's services, and I don't even code. :) I won't get discouraged though! Hopefully I can still figure out a way to create a modest badge system as an experiment. Maybe what I learn can be of use to others in a similar position to me who want to sponsor badges. It's all in beta right now, right? 

    Thanks, Leah, for the great reading. It was helpful. Here is a long list of the other resources I have collected in my badges research:

    http://kcwdigitized.blogspot.com/p/badges.html

    on Oct. 3, 2012, 12:27 a.m.

    Richard Siegel said:

    Thanks for sharing your list of resources.  It opens up a lot of lines of further inquiry... and answers a lot of questions.

    Richard

    on Nov. 13, 2012, 1:08 a.m. in reply to katiecwilkie

    katiecwilkie said:

    Oh! I just gave you the link to this from the Google group, too. Haha. Glad you found them. Sunny's badges flow chart is pretty helpful, as well.

    Katie

    on Nov. 13, 2012, 1:34 p.m. in reply to Richard Siegel

    Clichtman said:

    This is amazing!  I' going to look at it on my computer tomorrow so I can see it better, but I can say I love it.

     

    cathy lichtman

     

    on Feb. 6, 2013, 10:33 p.m. in reply to katiecwilkie

  • larajla said:

    There are a lot of interesting stories and information. I'm hoping for a more "I"m not a programmer" stuff. 

    I love the idea, I just need to implement.

    on Oct. 2, 2012, 4:51 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Stay tuned Larajla- we are developing more courses about badges now with seperate tracks for the 'non-programmers', organizations, and programmer-types. :)

    on Dec. 28, 2012, 10:13 a.m. in reply to larajla

  • NancyJ said:

    Hi all. This is my first time on P2PU. I'm doing research on Badges for a university and thought it would be great to try this out and see what else I could learn. I've seen several of the links that were provided, but some were also new information. Thank you!!

    Since I'm looking at badges in an academic setting, I was interested to see readabout.me where universities post badges for students.

    My former perfession was in meeting planning and I asked a collegue if badges were being used in meeting planning (for the profession) or in meetings themselves for attendees. Meeting planning hasn't really jumped into this idea yet. Would make sense if they did, they would open up the idea of badges to a huge group of diverse professions.

    on Sept. 6, 2012, 4:22 p.m.

  • Anonym said:

    These guys are using Badges, too. Are they OBI?

    http://www.codecademy.com

    on Sept. 5, 2012, 9:56 a.m.

    doomydot said:

    Codecademy is not using openbadges at this time, no info has been released whether they intend to in the future either.

    on Sept. 6, 2012, 4:42 p.m. in reply to Anonym

  • John Miller said:

    Design Your Own badges From Girlscouts

    https://www.gsmakeyourown.com/

    on Sept. 1, 2012, 5:53 p.m.

  • Dirk said:

    Great intro.  I didn't mind the technical articles, as they showed me how adaptable this platform could be.  I'm already thinking of a few ways to integrate this into a few of our systems.

    Found this article in my reading.  http://chronicle.com/article/A-Future-Full-of-Badges/131455/

    on Aug. 8, 2012, 2:54 p.m.

  • Selim said:

    I am reading through the material - some of it seems to be rather technical.  I can push my way through understanding this stuff with patience.  Badge "earners" wouldn't need to know all of this stuff right?  I want to make sure that my students are happy to get a "hypothesis hero" or "graphing guru" badge and not have to worry about how computer literate they are.

    on July 13, 2012, 4:43 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Yep, we noticed that too. If you push down in this forum a bit, you will see similar comments. We are working on open badges 102 right now, which will break down those barriers a bit and make the temrinology and technology accessible to 'laypeople', as I describe them. Stay tuned!

    on July 20, 2012, 12:06 p.m. in reply to Selim

    EllieRH said:

    Happy to see this update, as some of the readings in this module were pretty far beyond my current technical knowledge base, and I'm trying not to be scared away by that! Ellie 

    on Oct. 22, 2012, 3:09 p.m. in reply to Leah MacVie

    Leah MacVie said:

    Believe it or not Ellie, I fall on the end of the non-programmer and really pushed for tieing in 'laypeople', as I call us, on the community calls. I think you'll be pleased with our progress on the School of Badges curriculum once it unravels.  Here's is more specific info: http://leahmacvie.com/2012/11/the-school-of-open-badges-aka-the-evolution-of-open-badges-101/ and the redesign info here: http://leahmacvie.com/2012/12/open-badges-graphic-redesign-attempt-2/

    on Dec. 28, 2012, 10:16 a.m. in reply to EllieRH

  • Christopher Kobayashi said:

     

    Wow, great resources Leahsmiley. Thanks for putting together this course.
     
    As a potential badge issuer I'm pondering about the types of badges that should be sent out to the backpack. I think there will be more motivational types of badges versus the accomplishment based ones. Should both be sent in to the backpack? We don't want to clutter it, but at the same time as a user I want single place to list all of my achievements, even though they are 'minor'.
    on June 27, 2012, 7:39 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

     

    I have to agree Chris- I've thought about this myself. You can earn various badges in your efforts, but should all of them be sent out to the backpack or only the ones that represent larger achievements?
     
    Perhaps this is where the 'groups' comes into place in a backpack....possibly these should be renamed 'binders' to carry on with the theme. Then you could have a 'binder' for 'acheivement' and another for 'participation', and so on.
    on June 29, 2012, 9:27 a.m. in reply to Christopher Kobayashi

    Peter Rawsthorne said:

    Great thinking Chris... and I agree badges will be created for many accomplishments (large and small). I also like your thinking around motivation... In the end I think every badge a person has earned should be in their backpack. They should choose what should be displayed and what should not. As Leah points out, this is why the backpack has both the ability to group badges and set a public / private attribute on the group. I also think, long term, a person should have every badge they have earned in their own backpack. This is so if an issuer disapears they still have "record" of their accomplishments with that issuer. Learning never really goes away. I think this is where the idea of the endorser will come in... even if an issuer has disappeared the badge will still be recognized. Still early times... great to be thinking about all this... thanks for the prompt.

    on June 29, 2012, 11:13 a.m. in reply to Christopher Kobayashi

    Liz Renshaw said:

    To me, the word ' backpack' conjures up images of all different size, shapes, colours, etc

     This would be how my backpack would look if it wasnt a virtual object. So, Im in agreement with Peter, people must be able to pack, store and display all their earned badges, as they desire, across time and spaces.

     I think the challenge with categorising badges into 'binders' is what will be the approach if with  badges that fit into multiple binders? Will this all mean creating 'indexes' of badges?  Whatever ways are used to organise and display badges keep it simple pls...

     

     

     

    on June 30, 2012, 1:51 a.m. in reply to Peter Rawsthorne

    Leah MacVie said:

    Hi Liz, 

    I guess in my experience with categorizing pins on Evernote or even Google Bookmarks is the concept of a tag- I see Binders as categories of tags. Yes, there may very well be a badge that applies to more than one tag- just as you assign multiple tags to your bookmarks and pins. However, all great designers know that confusion isn't a result of the tagging process, it's really a result of the medium being pinned. So the 'simplicity' should already be set in the badge itself--- clearly defined in the 'fancy' code area.

    I think we should avoid simplicity in terms of NOT having any categories--- I could see a whole backpack arranged alphabetically, giving the impression to the employer or institution that all badges have equal value- when they won't, just like degrees. It'll be important to categorize the badges in terms of effort, topic, and skill level. 

    I'd like ot hear more from you about this Liz, and also Peter. Perhaps the folks at Mozilla are already discussing it. 

    :)

    on June 30, 2012, 11:07 a.m. in reply to Liz Renshaw

  • fboss said:

    I'm with Liz too regarding the over-abundance of code in some of the articles above - but it it has whetted my appetite to learn more also. Have heard a lot about GITHUB, sao I paid it my first visit through the link above.

    I've got my backpack up and running and would like to take a look at creating a badge myself (at a later date though).

    Here's an interesting few links from Doug Belshaw's weekly email that I subscribe to:

    Design your own badges.

    Validity of badges.

    OK - off to the next part of this challenge.

    Fred.

    on June 25, 2012, 1:49 a.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Great links here Fred-- the Design your own Badges might be the first resource I've seen with screen shots and a nice how-to that breaks things up. I am very interested in developing resources that break down the concept and implementation of badges for 'laypeople' who don't know a thing about code---- teachers, employers, etc. From having worked with programmers, sometimes this is something they miss. They speak a completely different language than us and think people will be able to figure it out by reading the directions. But, that doesn't work in reality. People need step by step directions and visuals, such as screen shots and videos!

    on June 27, 2012, 10:59 a.m. in reply to fboss

    johnRedden said:

    After reading all of the links for this challenge I was a bit overwhelmed.  The Design your own badges link you posted really pulled things together for me!  Thanks.

    on Sept. 27, 2012, 11:40 a.m. in reply to fboss

  • Liz Renshaw said:

    Might not be the right place but im sure someone can direct me there... so

    Taking the Hackasaurus Get your navigators badge and just cant get challenge 2.... Im copying and pasting the text correctly but it wont accept it. Im using Firefox..... where is the best place to go for help on this one??

     thanks in advance.

    on June 25, 2012, 1:36 a.m.

    fboss said:

    Hi Liz,

    HAve yet to try that challenge out, so not much help unfortunately - did you try to Google the answer?

    Fred.

    on June 25, 2012, 1:49 a.m. in reply to Liz Renshaw

    Karen said:

    ah yes, I had that problem as well....

    right clicking for copy and paste didn't cut it,

    until I did the old fashion ctrl c, then ctrl v .

    (ctrl c for copy and v for paste)

    Worked like a charm!

    on July 16, 2012, 12:39 a.m. in reply to Liz Renshaw

  • Liz Renshaw said:

    A great start to understanding Open Badges101 however I must totally agree with all the comments about the need for Open Badger for the layperson to be readily accessible. Whilst a really appreciation the skills and expertise of the programers all the coding references only serve to send a rush of fear to my heart. Being an educator, means the techno talk really leaves me cold and all I can see is a widening divide between the badging techno experts and the end users. However badges are a terrific concept and will really bring about a revolution in the whole learning world.

    Doug's decision making map is a really good resource for non technical people. I also enjoyed the news articles. Having recently been involved in a 36 week MOOC I think the skill I really demonstrated was resilience and stickability so I'd award myself a ' STAYING POWER" badge. yes

    The language of badges is very new and will take some getting my head around but I guess familiarity will assist me here. Also I might need to develop a new mindset about badges as in my world badges were what girl guides got for making campfires, doing knots and reading maps. off to the next tasks......to learn some more. 

    on June 19, 2012, 12:08 a.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Hey Liz, 

    To your first point, I actually brought this point up at the last Mozilla Badges call (every Wed at 12). Carla from Mozilla assures me they are doing everything they can to make the info accessible to 'laypeople'. What we really need is a simple guidebook to explain: what it is, how to use it, how to implement it. 

    I give you credit for sticking around in that 36 week MOOC- ug! I couldn't even get through a 5 week one! And did I mention I'm an instructional designer....:) Pretty horrible right? Well, I go back to school in July so I won't have much time for doing anything like that for a while...

    Thanks for participating!

    on June 19, 2012, 10:12 a.m. in reply to Liz Renshaw

  • Sunny Lee said:

    Leah, really great stuff!

    I would also suggest a couple additional resources to stay up to date on how badge verification is being handled:

    - onboarding docs on our wiki: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Issuer#G._Verification

    and

    - the assertions wiki page on the github: https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges/wiki/Assertions

    Jon's post is super helpful but a little dated.

    Thanks for putting this together!

    on May 23, 2012, 10:16 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Sunny, 

    Thanks so much for stopping by! Wow- a real Mozilla Badge Manager saying my course is great--- well that just made my day!!

    I've added your links to this task- thanks so much for sending them over. If you think of anything else that's helpful, please send it my way. I am trying to understand more about how laypeople (noncoders) can implement them, and the $10K quote I just got back from BadgeStack doesn't reassure me that there will be an affordable solution for us.

    Also-- YouTube videos would help us more than code on a page.. "where does the code go"...If I could see that, then this layperson would be very happy. :)

    on May 24, 2012, 3:31 p.m. in reply to Sunny Lee

  • Doug Belshaw said:

    There's *so* much about Open Badges to read and learn! Thankfully Sunny Lee from Mozilla has put together a resource decision map. Helpful!

    http://bananigans.tumblr.com/post/22715178511/resource-decision-map

    on May 19, 2012, 5:27 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    You bet Doug! Now there is...the information out there has really grown over the past few months. I'll add this one to the list!

    on May 21, 2012, 9:56 a.m. in reply to Doug Belshaw

  • Peter Rawsthorne said:

    Great introduction to badges course you have created, Looking forward to finishing it and then continuing on by developing more modules... the other resource I found very useful is the github wiki put together by the development team. And the recent contributions by others who are building widgets for the Open Badges Infrastructure (OBI).

    I've started to build a step-by-step guide for open badges and would really like to talk with you on how we may collaborate in building more modules for open badges. Check out this post describing what i am thinking... http://criticaltechnology.blogspot.ca/2012/05/open-badges-step-by-step.html

    on May 18, 2012, 4:15 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Hi Peter, 

    Wow- great resources. I would definitely be interested in collaborating! You are right about the terminology and expertise divide- I requested a quote from BadgeStack recently because their Wordpress plug-in seems like the easiest way to implement badges. Neither I nor my institution can afford the $10k they quoted me.... all the information out there is even still over this instructional designer's head. I think this step-by-step guide is a great idea- please let me know how I can help! (Maybe we can make it another challenge here on P2PU and I can link people to that challenge from this one.) 

    on May 21, 2012, 10:03 a.m. in reply to Peter Rawsthorne

  • Jonas Backelin said:

    There are a lot of new perspectives built into the ideas with Open Badges; my experience tells me knowledge is still a performance in a social environment.  A musician interacts with other musicians and out comes beautiful music.  A chemist interacts with other chemists and out comes chemical solutions for healthy living and sustainable energy sources. 

    As a badge issuing NGO I’m still working on the required badge specifications “to get recognition for skills and achievements that happen online or out of school”

    on May 5, 2012, 2:19 p.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Great comments, Jonas. I think badges need to also need to transition to 'layman's terms' with a 'layman's setup'. I know that you have the experience to implement badges, however many do not have the coding experience and are still be left to hire someone to do such a thing. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing- badges can create jobs, but it would be nice to cut out the middle man and focus on coming up with some best practices. 

    In your quest, have you found any helpful resources along the way to add to our list?

    on May 8, 2012, 7:34 a.m. in reply to Jonas Backelin

  • Mark Focas said:

    Hi Leah,

    Thanks for getting this together. Before this I assumed Open Badges was similar to other gamification systems. It will be interesting to see how the whole process of showing evidence can be tied into the badges. Certainly readig resumes bores me, a resume for a job applicant says nothing to me, spo open badges looks like it has great potential.

    A project I am working on is implementing gamification at the moment using a proprietary SAAS solution. Baed upon what I have seen so far i think we should be implementing Open badges, probably using a trigger from our current system to make a call out to the Open Badge system.

    The main two challenges I think will be to work out what badges carry enough reputation to implement. The last thing anyone wants is for the open badge page to look like somebodys MySpace page. The second challenge is the confusion between and crossover of gamification systems. Gamification systems tend to offer badges early as a motivator, but these do not carry any weight or reputation so would have no place in Open Badges. Gamification systems really only carry this in higher levels and that is the point where Open badges would be brought in with our project,

    I am looking forward to learning more. Thanks for taking the inititive to create this mini course.

    on April 7, 2012, 5:12 a.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    These are great comments, Mark. Yes, resumes bore me as well. Typically I sit on search committees for teaching and technology positions. It drives me crazy that some applicants have been led to believe that black text on a sheet of white paper can actually represent them and their talents. 

    I agree that we don't want someone's backpack to look like their social media profile- but I think Mozilla will probably go minimal with the final backpack design (it looks pretty minimal right now). However, individuals can choose to share some or all of the badges they've earned on their social media profiles- not sure what this will look like yet!

    I am trying to stay as up to date as possible through the Google group, but I do get lost behind in some of the techy-talk. Sounds like you may have better luck at some of those translations! Thanks for checking out this challenge!

    on April 10, 2012, 9:13 p.m. in reply to Mark Focas

  • Christopher Crawford said:

    Great resources, I have checked out the Mozilla pages before. However, the others were new to me and very interesting. 

    on March 25, 2012, 4:38 a.m.

    Leah MacVie said:

    Hey Chris! Thanks so much for checking out my challenge. Let me know if you find any other open badges resources I can add to my list. These links were the strongest resources I came across. 

    on March 27, 2012, 10:28 p.m. in reply to Christopher Crawford