First assignment for the Badges: New Currency for Professional Credentials MOOC. We were asked to: Consider an industry or community of practice where you anticipate that badges could have a positive impact. -- Describe the ecosystem of this industry or community and provide an overview of how it currently works. -- Describe the roles of the primary stakeholders in this ecosystem: learning providers, job seekers, and employers. -- Create personas/archetypes that represent each of the stakeholders. -- Write one or more “before badges” user stories that articulate specific problems or areas needing improvement in this ecosystem.

2. Employee
needs certain
number of PD
hours per
year
Employee
seeks out and
attends
training
opportunities
Supervisor
reviews
evidence of
PD on annual
review

3. Stan is an entry-level employee in an accounting firm.
Employees at the firm are responsible for making sure they
complete a certain number of professional development
hour per year. Some are required, others they seek out for
themselves. In order to prove they completed the required
number of hours, employees keep copies of seminar
descriptions, certificates of attendance, receipts, whatever
artifacts they can, and hope they are accepted. He often
thinks he learns as much from online resources, but he can’t
prove it, so he attends often boring and uninformative
workshops, just so he can get the certificate of attendance.

4. Anna is the owner of a small company that offers
workshops and seminars for a variety of businesses.
Each company seems to want something different in
terms of verification of participant attendance. Some
just want a certificate of attendance, others want some
sort of test, and others just want a receipt for payment.
She gets frustrated when attendees just show up for
the credit, talking, texting, or even sleeping, no matter
how engaging she tries to make her workshops.

5. Barbara is Stan’s supervisor. She reviews and approves
PD activities, but generally has to just trust her
employees.The certificates of attendance don’t prove
they actually learned anything, and she doesn’t know if
employees attended sessions at conferences, or just
socialized in the lounge. And conferences are
expensive! Sometimes it seems like off-site PD is just a
nice way to get out of the office, not really try to
develop skills.

7. www.bethcase.com
delizabeth@gmail.com