1. Are Open Badges the
Future for
Recognising Skills?
facilitated by
Phil Barker, Doug Belshaw, Simon Grant
CETIS Conference, Nottingham
2012-02-23
1

2. Links to presentations
 For Doug Belshaw's slides, see
 http://www.slideshare.net/dajbelshaw/are-open-badges-the-future-for-recognition-of-skills
 For Simon Grant's slides, see
 http://www.slideshare.net/asimong/some-requirements-for-badge-systems
 Session page with many more links
 http://wiki.cetis.ac.uk/Are_open_badges_the_future_for_recognition_of_skills%3F
2

3. Scenario 1: formative
assessment in high-stakes field
 strengths  weaknesses
 continuous, expires if not  new therefore not trusted
renewed
 machine processable as
well as human-readable
 cumulative
 opportunities  threats
 works well with highly  perception of being trivial
competitive students  unwelcome addition to
 transfer between current systems
institutions
3

4. Scenario 2: badges in
communities of practice
 strengths  weaknesses
 recognition by community  lack of context
of practice  range, scope etc.
 transferability to other  people unwilling to dig into
communities detail offered
 unclear governance
 opportunities  proliferation
 currency outside the
community
 threats
 over-simplification
 could include qualifications
 brand recognition
 branding opportunity
dominates quality
 invitation to examine  issuing by inappropriate
evidence in detail
bodies
4