OPEN BADGES – THE MISSING LINK IN OPEN EDUCATION

OPEN BADGES
THE MISSING LINK IN OPEN EDUCATION
Prof. Dr. Ilona Buchem
Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin
@mediendidaktik
#RIDE2016 | UNIVERSITY OF LONDON | 11-04-2016 | CC BY-SA
Photo: unsplash.com

12 500 students
8 departments, 70 BA and MA programs
Member in Virtual Universities Association

Output 1: Open Badge Network Framework & Leadership
Output 2: Open Badge Network Infrastructure
Output 3: Open Badges for Individuals & Organisations
Output 4: Open Badges in Territories
Output 5: Establishing Open Badges at Policy Levels
Output 6: European Open Badge Network
Output 7: Research, Evaluation and Quality
http://www.openbadgenetwork.com/
#RIDE2016 | UNIVERSITY OF LONDON | 11-04-2016 | CC BY-SA | ILONA BUCHEM
OPEN BADGE NETWORK / ERASMUS+

OPEN MOVEMENT - ACCESS REVOLUTION
Open Licence
(use of work)
Open Access
(research outputs)
Open Source
(source code)
1998
OpenContent
(David Wiley)
1998
2001
OpenCourseware
(MIT)
2001
Suber (2012)
2002
Open Edu Resources
(UNESCO)
2002

OPEN MOVEMENT - CREATIVE DISRUPTION
Open Learning
(community)
Open Coding
(skills)
2009
Broekman et al. (2014)
2011
Open Syllabus
(Jim Groom)
2010
MOOC
(Siemens & Downes)
20082007
Open Data
(knowledge)
Open Badges
(Mozilla)
2012

MIT OPENCOURSEWARE (OCW)

OPEN EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES (OER)

OPEN CURRICULUM
http://viral.trinity.duke.edu/

OPEN (ONLINE) UNIVERSITIES

MASSIVE OPEN ONLINE COURSES (MOOC)

https://www.futurelearn.com
O
P
E
N
?
“After all, traditional college diplomas
look elegant when hung on the wall, but
they contain very little detail about what
the recipient learned.” (Young, 2012)

REDESIGNING CERTIFICATES
Source: http://opencourseware.weblog.tudelft.nl/

“The Web has blown documents apart. (…)
What once was literally a tightly bound
entity has been ripped into pieces and
thrown into the air.
-Weinberger (2003)
Small Pieces Loosely Joined. The unified theory of the Web.

REINVENTING (DIGITAL) CREDENTIALS
“Mozilla Open Badges are Web-enabled tokens of learning and accomplishment
Casilli & Hickey (2016)
Image: http://sportthieme.scene7.com/
Open Badges form a loose federation of many small digital credentials.

“ Mozilla Open Badges is an initiative exploring
alternative ways for learners to receive recognition
for skills and achievements gained outside of the
school environment, such as open credentialing
and accreditation for all types of learning, including
informal and interest driven.
-Knight & Casilli (2012)
Gamification

REINVENTING (DIGITAL) BADGES
Open Bades Technical Specification defines the metadata required for interoperability
Image: DigitalMe
“90% of the badge system is not visual”
Klein, J. (2013)

OPEN BADGES INFRASTRUCTURE
OBI is the underlying technology supporting badge issuing, collection, and display.

SOCIOLOGY OF CREDENTIALISM
“Credentials are (a) monopolized by competing
occupational status groups as exclusionary status, cultural
entry barriers to positions and (b) used by hiring parties as
measure of candidates’ trustworthiness in positions that
embody discretionary powers.” Brown (2001)

Open Badges can be issued
not only from
teacher to student,
but also
peer to peer,
student to teacher,
student to university,
teacher to university,
employer to employee,
employee to employer,
or even
me to myself.
Student
Employee
Teacher
University
Employer
DISRUPTING CREDENTIALING PRACTICE

Open Badges can help
learners to connect
diverse
learning contexts,
learning episodes,
learning outcomes,
by assembling
learning evidence
and creating
learning pathways.
CONNECTING LEARNING
Casilli (2013)

CC BY-SA Alec Couros (Flickr)
CONNECTED LEARNER
Connected Learning Alliance

“Some observers see a darker side,
though, charging that badges turn all
learning into a commodity, and thus
cheapen the difficult challenge of
mastering something new. Rather than
dive into an assignment out of curiosity,
many students might focus on an endless
pursuit of badges.” Young (2012)
OPEN CHALLENGES

“Combined data of multiple badges could
be used by web crawlers or data
companies to build individual profiles of
learners, including what content they
would like to purchase, what specific
skills could be utilised in the workforce,
or how future content might be developed
to attract similar learners”
Willis, Quick & Hickey (2015)
OPEN CHALLENGES

THE MISSING LINK
“A missing link would possess the "in-between" evolutionary properties of both the
ancestors' original traits and the traits of the evolved descendants, hence showing
a clear connection between the two.” (Melina, 2010)
?
Open Education

RESEARCH @BEUTH
BeuthBadges initiative:
Bachelor and Master Thesis:
Programs for migrants:
Perceived
usefulness to
employers
Competency
assessment for
Open Badges
Design
requirements for
Open Badges
Awareness
campaign for
students
Policy
recommendations
from Germany

OBN RESEARCH
• Use cases: Eliciting requirements for OB design, delivery and exploitation
• Competency repository: Aligning OB standard with Competency Frameworks
including auto-detection of badges relating to same competencies
• Policy survey: Eliciting policy recommendations for the uptake of OB in Europe
• Quality survey: Investigating quality aspects of Open Badges and guidelines
• Pilot studies & guidelines: OB for individuals, organisations and in territories
• OBN MOOC: Focus on transformative change – employability and education
Research in the Open Badge Network / Erasmus+ project

READING 2016
http://www.springer.com/us/book/9783319154244
https://www.routledge.com/products/9781138857605
• Badges as Professional Credentials
• Badges and Motivation to Learn
• Instructional Design Considerations
• Design Frameworks for Badges
• Digital Badges in MOOCS
• Open Badges and E-Portfolios
• Badging as Micro-Credentialing
• Learning at Scale and Big Data
• The Value of Digital Badges
Some of the topics:

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
• Educational questions, e.g. How are OB transforming academic credentialing
and educational assessment? What is the impact of OB on motivation?
• Design questions, e.g. What designs appeal to targeted audiences? What is the
impact of OB on user engagement? How to create value proposition by design?
• Technical questions, e.g. How to embed trust mechanisms in the OB standard?
How to use Big Data to provide meaningful and useful metrics?
• Ethical questions, e.g. What are the risks of digital transparency and ethical
issues at the intersection of learning analytics and the data contained in OB?
• Community questions, e.g. How to grow global and local OB communities?
What approaches are effective in enhancing self-sustainable communities?

FUTURE RESEARCH
Design for learning with OB:
•For students, e.g. reflections on badges, learning pathways & playlists
•By students, e.g. peer feedback, e-portfolios, community learning
OB technologies for learning:
•Extending the Open Badge Standard (OB Extensions)
• Designing OB Backpack compatible systems and applications
Using OB to enhance the student experience:
•Learning experiences focused on and recognising passions & interests
• Making open learning/open education verifiable and credible with OB

“ Thank you!
@mediendidaktik
@OpenBadgeNet
#OpenBadges

REFERENCES
➤ Carla Casilli & Daniel Hickey (2016) Transcending conventional credentialing and assessment
paradigms with information-rich digital badges, The Information Society, 32:2, 117-129.
➤ Casilli, C. (2013). Badge pathways. Retrieved from https://carlacasilli.wordpress.com/2013/03/25/
badge-pathways-part-1-the-paraquel
➤ Broekman, P., Hall, G., Byfield, T., Hides S. & Worthington, S. (2014). Open Education. A Study in
Disruption. Rowman & Littlefield International, Series: Disruptions.
➤ Ito, M., K. Gutierrez, S. Livingstone, B. Penuel, J. Rhodes, K. Salen, J. Schor, J. Sefton-Green & Watkins,
S. C. (2013). Connected learning: An agenda for research and design. Irvine, CA: Digital Media and
Learning Research Hub. Retrieved from www.dmlhub.net/publications
➤ Klein, J. (2013). Design feedback for badge systems. Jess Klein. Retrieved from http://
jessicaklein.blogspot.com/2013/01/design-feedback-for-badge-systems.html
➤ Melina, R. (2010). What’s the Missing Link? Livescience. Retrieved from http://www.livescience.com
➤ Suber, P. (2013). Open access. MIT Press essential knowledge. Retrieved from https://mitpress.mit.edu
➤ Willis, J. E., Quick, J. & Hickey, D. T (2015). Digital Badges and Ethics: The Uses of Individual Learning
Data in Social Contexts. In: D. Hickey, J. Jovanovic, S. Lonn, J.E. Willis, III (eds.): Proceedings of the
Open Badges in Education (OBIE 2015). New York, USA. Retrieved from http://ceur-ws.org
➤ Young, J. R. (2012). Badges Earned Online Pose Challenge to Traditional College Diplomas. The
Chronicle of Higher Education, 1-7. Retrieved from http://chronicle.com/article/Badges-Earned-Online-
Pose/130241/

OPEN BADGES – THE MISSING LINK IN OPEN EDUCATION

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