Using game-design pedagogies to embed skills in the law or social science curriculum - a 1 day conference held at Staffordshire University on behalf of the Higher Education Academy (HEA).
“Open badges for digital skills: Opportunities and Challenges” By Julie Adams, Academic Skills Tutor (IT), Information Services
Session outline: This session will look at some of the opportunities offered by open badges to recognise skills and competencies both inside and outside the curriculum, as well as some of the challenges to overcome when considering their adoption. It will explain how the Academic Skills Know-how team at Staffordshire University are planning on extending their use of open badges to recognise students’ digital literacy skills. Some of the tools available to ensure badges are well designed and credible will be outlined.
1. Open Badges for digital skills:
Opportunities and Challenges
Julie Adams,
Staffordshire University
2 June, 2014
2. What badges used to be…
Image from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/5238425/in/
3. Digital badges:
“ an online representation of
a skill you’ve earned”
Open Badges take the idea further:
– skills are verified through
a credible organisation.
4. Open Badges
Led by Mozilla
Organisation
Open, online
standard
Images with
Metadata hard-
coded into them
Recognise
formal or
informal
learning
Badges from
multiple sources
stored in single
backpack
Share through
social networks
6. Ultimately, a badge is just one credential,
one assertion of what we know. But,
added together from different contexts
across society, they tell a story about us
that’s backed by a lot of people, and
says, “this is what I can do.”
Mozilla Blog, 12 February 2014
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/02/12/how-were-making-education-more-like-
the-web/
7. Types and granularity of badges
“Smaller”
badges
Motivation and
feedback
Less time-
intensive
behaviours or
achievements.
“Larger”
badges
Can be used for
certification
purposes.
More rigorous or
defined
assessments
Basic or
foundational
badges
Entry-level
framework for
acquiring skills.
Prerequisites for
higher level
badges
Intermediate
and expert
level badges
Provide
pathways and
milestones to
guide learners
Unlocking higher
levels can help
motivate
engagement.
Higher-level
“meta
badges”
Aggregate of
multiple badges
Represent more
complex
literacies or
competencies
Based on information from http://openbadges.org/faq/
10. Recent developments
• Endorsement of badges:
– External party recognises value of the badge
and the rigour of processes applied in
developing and issuing it.
• Badge Alliance:
– Independent of Mozilla
– Brings together organisations and individuals
to take the badge ecosystem forward.
11. What we are doing at Staffs
• Up to now:
– InfoZone: Library and IT induction
– Attendance at TeachMeets
• From September 2014:
– Pilot project in conjunction with ‘Get a better grade’
workshops.
12. Get a better grade…
• Addresses digital skills:
– Library/research, IT, academic study skills
– Developmental programme throughout the year
• Align to Staffs Graduate Attribute:
– “technologically, digitally and information literate”
– Complementary to curriculum
• Badges for successful workshop assessment
– Individual badges
– Meta/”gold” badges if attend given number
13. The process
Planning essential!
Be clear on what
you want to
achieve: what
badges and
why?
Define
criteria/definition
of achievement
in order to earn a
badge
Decide on look
and feel for your
badges -
consistent
branding
Decide
mechanism for
designing/
awarding badges
14. Some tools to help
• Jisc Open Badge Design toolkit
http://www.jiscrsc.ac.uk/media/421718/jiscopenbadgesdesigntoolkit-print_1.pdf
15. • Indiana University Design Principles documentation
http://iudpd.indiana.edu/HomePage
• Card deck
• Design principle strands for
Learning with digital badges
– Recognising
– Motivating
– Assessing
– Studying
16. How?
Plug-ins for existing systems
e.g. WordPress, Moodle, Blackboard
Mozilla BadgeKit: http://badgekit.openbadges.org/
Some others:
Badges for all: https://badges.forallschools.com/
Credly: http://credly.com
Cloudworks: http://cloudworks.ac.uk/badge/badge_list
17. Open Badges and Blackboard
• Achievements Building Block: badges or
certificates
– Instructors create
badges in courses.
– Learners can claim
badges
– Display learner badges
from Mozilla backpack
Overview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wr6DKgx4sH8
18. WordPress: Our current method…
• Set up blog to use for awarding badges
• Create images in liaison with Marketing
• Create Badge in WordPress
• Create Award for this badge
• Email sent to participants
• They click link to accept badge
• Go to Mozilla site
• Add badge to backpack (or create new one)
http://blogs.staffs.ac.uk/isbadges
19. What badges look like
OER-101 is an open-access, self-paced online "Community Course"
http://beta.openbadges.org/share/50b0176dea5e93e98986b9a0e9602222/
20. Some useful links
Earn a badge: http://openbadges.org/
What is a badge: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HgLLq7ybDtc
More about Open Badges: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges
Open Badges blog: http://openbadges.tumblr.com/
Badge the UK: http://www.digitalme.co.uk/badgetheuk/
JISC RSCs:
Scotland: http://www.rsc-scotland.org/?page_id=2223
Northern: http://www.jiscrscopenbadges.org.uk/northern/
21. Open Badges for digital skills:
Opportunities and Challenges
Julie Adams, Academic Skills Tutor (IT)/Teaching Fellow
j.f.adams@staffs.ac.uk
Hinweis der Redaktion
The Achievements tool allows instructors and course designers to designate criteria for issuing rewards to students in the form of both Badges and Certificates. Students can see which rewards they’ve earned and what is required of them to receive additional rewards, providing insight into learning progression toward defined competencies. Students are able to publish badges to the Mozilla Open Backpack, transporting evidence of their learning outside of Blackboard Learn. Instructors can easily see which students have reached learning milestones.
Achievements Description
The achievements description describes the achievement and identifies the criteria students must meet to receive a reward. There are three achievement types:
Course Completion – The Certificate reward is required; an additional Badge is optional.
Milestone –The reward can only be a Badge.
Custom –Badges, Certificates, or both are allowed.
Achievements is built upon the content Adaptive Release technology of Blackboard Learn. Criteria supported by Adaptive Release are supported for the awarding of an Achievement. This currently includes the following:
Attempts on test, surveys or assignments
Grades on tests, surveys, assignments, graded discussion boards, graded wikis, graded blogs, graded journals
Manual Grade Center columns
Marked Reviewed statuses on course content
Group membership or specific users
Starting date for earning the Achievement
Reward
Each achievement must have at least one reward identified during set up. The reward is the item awarded upon meeting the required criteria. It is given in the form of Badges and Certificates.
Digital Badges are an online representation of a mastered skill or completed educational milestone. It is a digitally signed and verified badge that can’t be copied and used by a different learner. The issuer, the organization granting the badge, maintains ownership of the badge and can remove it from the recipient’s backpack if it is no longer valid due to expiry or revocation. The description and criteria for earning the badge are digitally encoded in the badge so others viewing the badge can see how it was earned. To learn more about Open Badges and Mozilla Open Backpack, see http://www.openbadges.org/about/.
For Badges, a library of existing badges is available along with the option to upload a custom badge. For Certificates, a small library of certificate formats is presented; there is no option for a customized certificate format in this release.
Notification
Students are notified immediately if they have received an Achievement reward. This appears as an overlay notification at the top of the page they are currently viewing. It is possible the student will receive the reward when s/he is elsewhere in the course because an instructor graded an item or manually entered a grade. The overlay notification will appear wherever the student may be within the course.
If the student is issued the Achievement reward while not in that Blackboard course (they are offline or in a different course), the notification will appear upon next access of the course in which the Achievement reward was issued. They will also receive a new Update message in My Blackboard indicating that they have earned a new achievement in their course(s).
Within a course, the student can see all earned Achievements as well as those not yet earned. Instructors can look at each individual Achievement and easily see the total number and the names of students who have earned a reward or completed the course.
Sharing
When allowed, students can publish their earned Badges to their Mozilla Open Badges Backpack. To learn more about Open Badges and Mozilla Open Backpack, see http://www.openbadges.org/about/.
For earned Certificates, students can view and print the Certificate which displays the issuer name, the course title, their name, and the date earned.