Piloting a Badging Component in Arabic MOOCs to spur engagement. This project aimed at increasing learners’ engagement through integrating gamification elements into MOOCs

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Name: Ehab Abu Dayeh
Context: Education/Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Company: Edraak/Queen Rania Foundation for Education and Development
Bio:
Ehab has a B.A. degree in Computer Science from Princess Sumayya University and holds an
“MBA in Practice” certificate. He has over 10 years’ experience in e-learning and educational
technology through working as a lead instructional designer, content development team leader
and a project manager for several e-learning projects. Ehab continues to progress his passion
for e-learning as a Course Manager at Edraak, the Middle East’s first and largest platform for
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Edraak is an online learning initiative of the Queen
Rania Foundation that reaches almost 700,000 Arabic speaking learners. At Edraak, Ehab
continues to grow his interest and expertise in Gamification and its educational benefits.
Project: Piloting a Badging Component in Arabic MOOCs to spur engagement
Description of Piloting a Badging Component in Arabic MOOCs to spur engagement
This project aimed at increasing learners’ engagement through integrating gamification
elements into MOOCs. Through the first pilot of this project, we used the MOOC Project
Management Skills for Life. We developed four badges that were introduced to the learners:
“Almothaber” (the persistent), “Almobader” (the initiator), “Almonaqesh” (the discussant) and
Almotqen (the perfectionist). The badges element was introduced in the first week of the
course and was carried out until the last day of the final week.

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Badges Categories
(The Persistent) Learners completing of a
specific week’s video content
(The Perfectionist) Learners’ passing a
specific week’s quizzes and exams
(The Initiator) Learners posting new threads
on the discussion board
(The Discussant) Learners commenting on
the discussion board
Data Generation
Learners’ behavioral data was analyzed to identify winners of the badges. Results were
communicated to learners on a weekly basis via a bulk email and a forum pinned post. Badges
gained popularity over the course of the MOOC and became an area of competition and fun
between learners on social media channels.
The Talk’s Desired Topic

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Results of “Piloting a Badging Component in Arabic MOOCs to spur engagement”
The major breakthrough in implementing the badges element in the course was a perceptible
and significant increase in the engagement rate of course by 7% in comparison to the highest
previously recorded engagement rate on Edraak.org. More details in the table below.
Future Steps:
Gamification is a potentially promising direction towards increasing learner engagement, and
hence learning outcomes, in MOOCs. Our future gamification work in Edraak's MOOCs follows
the concept of an "impact matrix": With many possible badges (on one dimension), and many
learner engagement and performance variables of interest (on the other dimension), which
badges affect which variables? We plan to extend the set of badges Edraak offers, and use
randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to study which badges affect learner video, assessment,
and forum engagement as well as learner scores on quizzes and exams.

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Learners’ feedback on Badges