This document discusses integrating open badges into learning environments. It begins by introducing open badges and their potential benefits for motivating learners. It then describes different approaches for integrating badges, including modifying source code, using plugins, add-ons, or web applications. The document presents a prototype for automatic badge issuing in the iMooX learning platform based on user actions and assessments. It evaluates the prototype based on its use in a MOOC with over 400 enrollments, finding it could issue badges relatively easily. The conclusion is that open badges are an important topic that can benefit learning if integrated properly.

1. 1
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
S C I E N C E  P A S S I O N  T E C H N O L O G Y
u www.tugraz.at
Open Badges for Learning
Environments
Mario Wüster
Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dipl.-Ing.Dr.techn. Martin Ebner
October 22, 2015

2. 2
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
2
u
1. Research Question
2. Learning Environments
3. Open Badge (Infrastructure)
4. Motivation
5. General Approaches for Integration
6. Prototype
7. Evaluation
8. Conclusion
Contents

3. 3
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
3
u
Research Question
How to integrate Open Badges in Learning
Environments [and to enable automatic badge issuing
based on defined criteria] ?

4. 4
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
4
u
Learning Environments
• Online learning platform supporting:
• Users with different roles
• Courses
• Course management
• Corresponding course material
• A set of tools for communication, content creation and
E-Assessments
 Learn Management Systems (LMS)
 Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC)

5. 5
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
5
u
• Micro vs. Meta Badge
• Incentive vs. Credential
• Digitally signed  JSON Web Signature (JWS)
WHOM?
WHICH?
WHY?WHO?
Assertion
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/FAQs
(In cooperation with the P2PU and funds of McArthur Foundation)

6. 6
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
6
u
Open Badge Infrastructure
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Issuer

7. 7
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
7
u
Motivation
• Hard to motivate learners to actively participate in
non-formal and informal educational systems if they
do not get any recognition for their achievements
• Mostly no recognition at all for gained skills if a
course has not been completed
• Just summative feedback
• No common standard for acknowledgements
• Certificates are not digitially signed
 Open Badges could help to diminish or even resolve
those issues
• Formal: organized, structured, supported, intentional & certified
• Non-formal: formal, but not in edu. institutions & w/o certification
• Informal: through made experiences, independent of the context

8. 8
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
8
u
- Modify Source Code
- Plug-In
- Add-On/Add-In
- SaaS
- Own Web Application
General Integration Approaches
 Source code has to be known
 High risk on introducing errors in the
base system
 Base system updates could harm the
badging system
 No community that maintains code
 Fast
 Highly customizable
 Time (=Money)
 Programmer
 Support
 API needed
 High customization
 Fast bug fixing & integration of new
features
 Full control over student & badge data
 Typically not free of charge
 Data has to be transmitted to an
foreign server
 Limited customization
 What happens if subscription gets
cancelled sometimes? How to
backup/transfer data ?
 Most simplest way to use OpenBadges
 Complete solutions (issuing, managing,
displaying)
 Professional support
 Reliable system
 No need to have programming skills
 Base system has to provide API.
 Limited customization
 Dynamically loaded
 Does not influence core system
 Huge community
 Mostly compatible to multiple base
systems
 Compatible to certain system only
 One has to have knowledge of the base
system’s infrastructure
 Add-Ins (typically) cannot be removed
without harming the base system
 Nevertheless – legit option

9. 9
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
9
u
Prototype

10. 10
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
10
u
Prototype - Features
1. Badge management (CRUD + control availability)
via backend (pw protected .htaccess)
2. Assert badges manually
3. Assert badges automatically - triggered by the
iMooX user
4. Display rudimentary awarding statistics
5. Currently, supporting 2 different types of badges
i. Quiz-Level Badge
ii. Course-Level Badge

11. 11
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
11
u
Prototype

12. 12
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
12
u
Automatic badge issuing

13. 13
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
13
u
Evaluation COER15
• Started on May 11, 2015 (6x units)
• 6x Quizzes + final evaluation required to pass the
course
• 432 distinct enrollments
• 124 active users (tried at least one quiz)
• 208 theoretically earned badges
• 137 actually generated badges

14. 14
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
14
u
Conclusion
• Prototype:
• Web application worked well from the functional point of
view
• Just a few design issues have been reported by some
badge earners (filename, email, criteria design)
• General:
• Badge issuing can be implemented relatively fast and easy
( thus relatively cheap  )
• Hot topic on various E-Learning focused conferences (e.g.
oeb 2015 (http://www.online-educa.com/programme),
ALT Conference 2015 (https://altc.alt.ac.uk/2015/activity/open-badges/ ) )
• So it`s not just me who believes Open Badges are
great 

15. 15
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
15
u
Thanks for
your attention !

16. 16
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
16
u
Sources/Important Links
• Bernhard Hoisl, Wolfgang Aigner, and Silvia Miksch. Online Communities and Social
Computing. Ed. by Douglas Schuler. Vol. 4564. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin
Heidelberg, 2007, pp. 362–371. isbn: 978-3-540-73256-3. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-73257-0 (Slide 6).
• Mozilla‘s Open Badges http://openbadges.org/
• Open Badges Specification https://openbadgespec.org/
• iMooX http://imoox.at/wbtmaster/startseite/
• Moodle https://moodle.org/
• edX https://www.edx.org/home
• Coursera https://www.coursera.org/
• Udacity https://www.udacity.com/
• Iversity https://iversity.org/de
• Blackboard http://de.blackboard.com/sites/international/globalmaster/
• Open Badge Passport https://openbadgepassport.com/
• JSON http://json.org/

17. 17
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
17
u
Sources/Important Links
• Credly https://credly.com/
• Open Badge Factory https://openbadgefactory.com/
• OpenElms http://openelms.org/
• Canvas http://www.canvaslms.com/
• Apache Tomcat http://tomcat.apache.org/
• jQuery https://jquery.com/
• Bootstrap http://getbootstrap.com/
• MySql https://www.mysql.de/
• Hibernate http://hibernate.org/

18. 18
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
18
u
Badge Assertion & Badge Class Example

19. 19
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
19
u
Issuer & Criteria

20. 20
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
20
u
Backpacks

21. 21
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
21
u
Badge concept
• How to define criteria
• Which competencies should a user gain to earn the
badge ?
• Which behavior should that badge suggest ?
• How to proof gained knowledge ?
• How should it look like (badge design) ?
• Which tags to use (for searching) ?

22. 22
u Open Badges for Learning Environments
22
u
Automatic badge issuing
• Highly depens on the context
• Mostly triggered by user-events:
• Click events: Navigation, resource watching (video, e-paper...)
, downloaded resources (papers, videos, images ... )
• Submissions: File, text, algorithm, source code ...
• E-Assessment: Open- and closed tasks like T/F, Selective,
Sorting and Short/Long texts, subsets or clozes.
 Badging system has to be aware of those events!
• Realization therefore depends on selected integration
approach
Visiting each page Starting, time
True/false, amount of
different downloads...
Automatic checking,
word count, text
analysis
Automatic testing