This document describes the Open Badge Factory (OBF) project, a cloud-based platform that provides a centralized framework for organizations to implement and manage open badge systems. The OBF was developed by Discendum, a Finnish eLearning provider, and several partner organizations to help users avoid issues like badge inflation and fragmentation across platforms. The OBF allows users to issue badges from various systems like Moodle and Mahara and manage them centrally, provides tools for badge creation and awarding, and tracks badge data and user feedback. An initial version was released in January 2014 with piloting through June 2014 and a final version planned for December 2014.

1. Open Badge Factory
Maximize the potential of the
Open Badges you create and issue
Eric Rousselle
Discendum Oy

2. About Discendum Inc.
• Finnish eLearning service provider
• Our clients: educational, vocational establishments and
companies
• Our services:
– Optima and Totara LMS
– Kyvyt.fi ePortfolio based on Mahara
• Mahara and Totara partner
• Coordinator and main developer of the Open Badge Factory
project
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3. OBF Project Partners and Founder
• Discendum (development and coordination)
• The Teacher Training School of Turku University (piloting)
• Kokkola University Consortium Chydenius (research and
consulting)
• OK Study Center (piloting)
• IlonaIT Oy (piloting)
• Raisoft Oy (piloting)
• The Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation
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4. What is Open Badge Factory?
A cloud-based platform that provides a
centralized quality framework for organizations
so that they can implement and manage
meaningful, consistent and sustainable badge
systems.
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5. OBF helps organizations to deal with the
following issues
• How to avoid badge inflation and inconsistent badge systems?
• How to avoid the fragmentation of our badges in several
platforms?
• How can we manage who in our organization is authorized to
create badges and who is only allowed to issue them?
• How can we evaluate the impact of our badges on our earners
and on the people who open them? (consumers)
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6. Issue Your Open Badges Anywhere,
Manage Them in One Place
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7. The Open Badge Factory’s architecture
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8. The OBF plugins
Issuer plugins
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Moodle 2.2 – 2.5
Totara LMS
Discendum Optima
Mahara
Displayers:
• Facebook
• Mahara
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9. The Open Badge Factory Features
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10. Main Features
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•
•
•
•
•
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Member organization authentication / certification of badges
Users’ rights management and teamwork supporting features
Badge creator tools (badges and metabadges)
Issuer tools (awarding, self-assessment forms)
Tracking system and reports
Badge earners’s feedback system
OBF Member community (sharing and endorsement of
badges)
• OBF Badge backpack federated with the Mozilla’s backpack
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11. The OBF Project Schedules
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Started officially on 1.8.2013
Release of the first version 15.1.2014
Piloting period from January to June 2014
Release of the final version December 2014
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12. Further information!
• www.openbadgefactory.com (released on the 15.1.2014)
• info@openbadgefactory.com
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