This document summarizes a presentation on open badges and their use in education. Open badges provide a way to recognize achievements and skills earned through both formal and informal learning. They use a shared, universal metadata standard to provide information about the badge, criteria for earning it, the issuer, and evidence of completion. Badges can represent micro-credentials and be combined to show competencies and qualifications over a lifetime of learning. The presentation discussed how open badges are being used in higher education programs and credentials as well as their potential to recognize skills and prior learning for competency-based education. Accreditors view badges positively if they represent high-quality learning experiences and institutions ensure academic oversight of badge programs and acceptance policies.
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open badges standard
endorsement
workforce
higher ed
messaging
globalization
policy
digital / web literacy
research
cities
educator badges
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Competency introduction
and instructions
Badge Host
Practice exercises to help
reach the competency
Access to content and
resources about PBL
Opportunities to connect
and collaborate on PBL
Worked examples of PBL
Criteria for earning the
badge
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=
M.S. in Educational
Design & Technology
=
M.S. in Teaching &
Learning
Graduate
Certificate
in Assessment
Strategies
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5 Badge Design Tips
• Beware of badges as biscuits.
• Create great criteria.
• Make the badges mean something.
• Make the badges mean something beyond your
classroom/school.
• Value OBI.
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The Open Badges Ecosystem
Anne Derryberry, Sage Road Solutions
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26. No badge is an island.
Open badges exist
within a complex
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ecosystem.
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PD and Badging
• Signaling and tracking engagement
• Wayfinding and career pathing
• The personal brand (developing and showcasing new areas of
competence)
• Leadership signals
55. WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies (WCET)
• Founded in 1989 for WICHE states.
• Now 332 members nationally, all sectors of higher ed,
nonprofits, corporations.
• Members include technology innovators from U.S. and
Canada.
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What exactly is competency-based education?
Educause: Competency-based education (CBE) allows students
to advance based on their ability to master a skill or
competency at their own pace regardless of environment. This
method is tailored to meet different learning abilities and can
lead to more efficient student outcomes.
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CBE Cont
• Increases access.
• Increases completion.
• Flexible.
• Meet President’s 2020 Goal “America would once again have
the highest proportion of college graduates in the world.”
http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/education/higher-education
• Prior Learning Assessment - enables learners to gain
credentials for work/military experience.
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Why Badges for CBE?
• Badges represent knowledge/skill attainment that employers are looking for.
• Verify that a competency has been achieved.
• Badges are an increasingly accepted form of credential.
• Badges rely on competency frameworks and use industry standards.
• Valid assessment strategies
• Portable - the student can bring their badges to different institutions and
employers.
• Valuable to the student, inst., and employer because the metadata shows what
level of competency has been achieved.
• Demonstrate competencies and substantiate with evidence.
• Empowers learners.
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Accreditors Views
• Pat O’Brien, NEASC
– Is credit involved? Accreditation is concerned with credit-bearing
experiences, link to financial aid.
– Quality - Is the ed. experience for what is being earned of high quality?
How do you know?
– Who awards the badges/accepts prior learning credit that a student
brings in in the form of a badge? Oversight and faculty participation are
fundamental in assessing the quality of the educational experience.
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Accreditors views cont.
• What about the student who brings badges to my institution?
– Most accreditation agencies leave to the institution the number of
credits that can be transferred in that are “credit for experimentation or
non-collegiate sponsored learning.”
– Student must demonstrate academic content is tied to the experience.
– Transparency- students need to know clearly what will happen to the
badges, i.e. credit acceptance, credit limits.
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Megan Raymond
Manager, Events and Programs
WCET
303.541.0233
mraymond@wiche.edu
@meraymond
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Thank you!
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• Please provide feedback for this
session:
1) Select “Schedule” icon in
BbWorld14 Mobile App
2) Find “Badges: New Currency
for High Value Credentials”
3) Click “Tap here to take a survey.”
Editor's Notes
As a part of our commitment to learning on the web, Mozilla Foundation is creating the open badge infrastructure. We hope this infrastructure will extend the value of badges from each issuer across the entire badge ecosystem, making it easy for learners to collect and combine badges across various websites, networks and applications.
Badge title
Badge description
Badge criteria
Badge image
issuer
issue date
recipient
expiration date
evidence URL
Badge title
Badge description
Badge criteria
Badge image
issuer
issue date
recipient
expiration date
evidence URL
As a part of our commitment to learning on the web, Mozilla Foundation is creating the open badge infrastructure. We hope this infrastructure will extend the value of badges from each issuer across the entire badge ecosystem, making it easy for learners to collect and combine badges across various websites, networks and applications.
As a part of our commitment to learning on the web, Mozilla Foundation is creating the open badge infrastructure. We hope this infrastructure will extend the value of badges from each issuer across the entire badge ecosystem, making it easy for learners to collect and combine badges across various websites, networks and applications.
Badge title
Badge description
Badge criteria
Badge image
issuer
issue date
recipient
expiration date
evidence URL
As a part of our commitment to learning on the web, Mozilla Foundation is creating the open badge infrastructure. We hope this infrastructure will extend the value of badges from each issuer across the entire badge ecosystem, making it easy for learners to collect and combine badges across various websites, networks and applications.
We have developed this ecosystem model as a framework to ground and guide our conversation about badge system design and implementation.
At the heart of the ecosystem is the Learner or Student, or as we call the here, Job Seekers. We call them Job Seekers because, when all is said and done, they must persuade a prospective Employer that they have the competencies and attributes that the Employer is seeking. Open badges help them tell their story.
Many Job Seekers attain job-related skills and competencies through some form of education. They turn to Learning Providers of all descriptions (colleges and universities, community colleges, professional education programs, even – frequently – open education resources) to help them fill gaps and gain new knowledge and skills. As new competencies are acquired by the Learners/Job Seekers, they earn badges to reflect those new abilities.
But before the badge awards are actually made, the skills that those badges represent must be verified, not simply asserted by the individual. That verification happens through evidence-based assessment. In other words, not assessment based on a learner’s ability to recall information about how to do something – actual evidence that demonstrates the learner can do that thing.What this means is that badges are actually tied to assessment, not to learning. Badges don’t care where or how competencies are acquired, or what the curriculum is that the badge seeker is exposed to. As a consequence, assessment can be de-coupled from learning programs.
We’re seeing that some interesting business models will be evolving as a result of the focus on evidence-based assessment.
At the same time, Employers have specific requirements about the attributes and competencies they need among their employees, which are reflected in job descriptions, new-hire requisitions, performance reviews and other ways. Badges are the method for communicating those Employer requirements and, in turn, that a Job Seeker meets the Employer’s requirements.
To date, it has been difficult for Employers to determine that what a Job Seeker states in an employment application or resume is true. With metadata associated with a badge, as Carla described, and authentication technology, Employers have the means to authenticate that Job Seekers who present badges to substantiate their assertions of qualification are indeed the ones who earned the badges, and that the badges represent the skills and competencies that the Employer seeks.
The competencies that are called out by Employers often reflect regulations, industry standards and best practices as articulated by Standards Organizations. Standards bodies get input from academic research and employers about evolving best practices, and, in turn, provide guidance, even governance, over business practices.
The competencies defined by Standards Organizations inform and support a healthy ecosystem.
When badges are tied to assessments - that are themselves tied to industry standards and best practices - the likelihood of finding the right match between Job Seeker and Employer is greatly improved.
And, of course, this puts learning providers in a much better position to offer learning programs that align with employer requirements, and that give badge seekers the right foundation for providing evidence of competence through assessment activities.
Learning providers have traditionally relied on academic accreditation and reputation as validation of the value of their targeted learning outcomes.
Because, as I said earlier, badges are agnostic as to the mode of learning that learners employed to gain competencies, learning providers are identifying new ways to engage learners. This opens up the need for clear, transparent validation of learning providers and their methodologies, without which the value of their badges is questionable.
What is badging in a professional development context? (the professional association’s role in career progression; badging in adult professional development, talent and competency development and career advancement)
wayfinding and career pathing
supporting and developing your brand
new areas of competence and expanding body of knowledge
terminology - badging, micro-credentialing, etc.
some brief examples in HED
What is badging in a professional development context? (the professional association’s role in career progression; badging in adult professional development, talent and competency development and career advancement)
wayfinding and career pathing
supporting and developing your brand
new areas of competence and expanding body of knowledge
terminology - badging, micro-credentialing, etc.
some brief examples in HED
Awarded:
Awarded:
Awarded:
Awarded:
Awarded:
Badge activity is a measure of the total number of times a badge is seen, clicked, shared or viewed across Credly and all Open Credit enabled apps and sites. It is a metric for badge impact; a measure of impressions made. (Most of our badge activity is occurring via LinkedIn.
We don’t have a report on public versus private or not accepted badges overall. But if you drill down (e.g. click on Learning analytics SME badge) it seems that you can see who has accepted it. In this case, 13 of 32 have data in the “Credit from me” column.