This document provides an overview of open badges, which are digital credentials that represent skills, interests, and achievements. It discusses how open badges can recognize both formal and informal learning through issuers who create badges that can be earned by learners and displayed on various platforms. The open badge standard developed by Mozilla allows for interoperability across systems and includes metadata about badge criteria and earners. The document considers implications of open badges for higher education institutions and potential uses for students in the Virginia Community College System.

1. Open Badges: A Primer
Future Technologies Group
May 14th, 2013
http://openbadges.org
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041,
USA.
Adapted from an openly licensed presentation by Doug Belshaw
http://www.slideshare.net/dajbelshaw,
http://dougbelshaw.com

2. http://www.lifebeforethedinosaurs.com/

6. How do we certify learning?

7. Grades
Transcripts
Diplomas
Certifications

8. Grades
A B C D F

9. Transcripts
Program of study, courses,
GPA, grades

10. Diplomas
Institution, area of study,
accolades

11. Certifications
Skills, skill level

12. What don’t these
forms of certification
tell you?

13. How do we acknowledge
informal learning?

14. How do we certify Art’s
learning?

15. What are badges and how
do they certify
learning?

16. Badges

17. Visual representations of
achievements, learning,
skills, and interests

18. Think Boy Scouts, the
military, or video games,

19. They can complement
traditional
educational practices

20. http://www.itap.purdue.edu/studio//passport/

21. They can accommodate
formal & informal
learning pathways

24. They can represent
hard & soft skills, peer
assessment, and stackable
lifelong learning

25. Open Badges
capture learning wherever
and however it happens

26. How It Works

27. Issuers & Endorsers
Earners
Displayers

28. after-school program free online course government agency

29. Issuers & Endorsers
Earners
Displayers

30. openbadges.org

31. Issuers & Endorsers
Earners
Displayers

32. DISPLAY SITES
personal web
site
social networking
profiles
WordPress / Tumblr
job sites

33. RESULTS
new
learning
unlock
opportunities
jobs

34. BADGE DISPLAY SITES
SUCCESS

35. Badge metadata spec
+ Issuer API

38. Mozilla’s Open Badge
Project is creating a shared
badge ecosystem &
infrastructure:
a universal standard.

39. Badges
convey more than info
about courses taken,
grades, GPA, degree
program, etc.

40. Badges
link directly to digital
products, portfolios,
detailed badge
requirements.

41. A Domain of One’s Own
In Fall 2013 every incoming student at UMW will have the opportunity to
choose their own personal domain and receive a web hosting account
with the freedom to create subdomains, install software, setup
databases, create email addresses, and carve out their own space on
the web that they own and control.
http://umwdomains.com

42. Open Badges:
What are the implications of
badges for institutions
offering degrees,
certificates, and diplomas?

43. Open Badges:
Are there some relevant
uses of badges that would
benefit VCCS students?

44. Open Badges:
How would we begin to
explore the efficacy of
badges in the VCCS?

45. A Domain of One’s Own
Should all VCCS students
and faculty have a domain
of their own?