A simple introduction to Open Badges

1. A simple introduction
to Open Badges
Created by
Bob Price

2. There are many academic studies online about
Open Badges. This is not one of them.
This e-book is designed to be a simple
introduction to the subject of Open Badges and
how they can be used. It is UK focused because
that is where I live and work, but can be applied
to countries globally.
At the end of the book are links to all the
websites and apps that are mentioned and one
or two resources that may help you learn more.
This is version 1 of this book and it will evolve as
the whole process evolves - and the process will!
Enjoy
Bob Price
Cardiff
UK
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3. What?
Digital Badges, Digital Credentials, Open Badges ? In the world
of learning there seems to be a lot of ‘buzz’ surrounding the
subject, with it being a feature of many learning conferences in
recent times.
Today a lot of that ‘buzz’ has translated into actual applications
with badges becoming a part of the learning process for
schools, colleges and work places.
Open Badges started as a project involving the MacArthur
Foundation, HASTAC and Mozilla and has continued to function
as an open, collaborative approach.
The open source principles means that many groups and
organisations are looking at the standards and making them
work.
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4. At its heart an Open Badge is a graphic file which has an
embedded a chunk of code. This code gives the badges its
credentials and includes:
Badge name
Description
Criteria
Issuer
Evidence
Date issued
Standards
Tags
The heartbeat of a badge
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5. Badges provide evidence
that the competences the
badge was awarded for has
been fulfilled
CVs are a
bunch of
claims
Badges
are a
bunch of
evidence
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6. The
Process
Issue
Collect
Store
Display
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7. Issue
Issuing badges? Take your pick!
The open principles behind Open Badges have resulted in the
development of a range of issuing methods.
The two largest learning management
systems used in the UK have badge
issuing built into their architecture.
Therefore any organisiation using Totara
or Moodle, or a developed version of
either (for example the DLE from
Learning Pool) has a badge issuing
system to hand.
If you don’t want to make use of an in house solution, there are a
number of dedicated sites available to use.
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These include: Open Badge Factory
(which includes a free trial), Digital Me
and Makewav.es. The latter system is
aimed strongly at education and offers
schools a free social learning
environment from where badges can be
earned and stored.

8. But I only want one!
For one off badges, such as
event badges, there are stand
alone websites such as
BadgeCub
The badges created will have a
reference to the site that you
use to issue them and are
time limited to 30 days, but
they are a great way to get
started.
Other methods of issuing badges include through plugins for
Wordpress, the blogging software.
There are more new and exciting ways to issue badges being
created, including links via xApi (TinCan). Watch this space!
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9. How do I make them?
Physically creating a badge needs a simple graphic editor that is
capable of saving a PNG file with a transparent background.
The size of the graphic ideally needs to be 90 x 90 pixels. Any
bigger and it may not display correctly.
If you have graphic designers to hand (school projects are good
for these) then you can create some very sophisticated designs.
However it’s not about the design but the reasons the badge is
being awarded.
To build a simple badge just
take a circle, add a second
unfilled circle with a large line
and centre the two.
Add a graphic, or text that
represents the subject that
your badge is being awarded
for.
Save the graphic as a PNG
file and you have your first
badge.
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10. Collect
Who is issuing badges? The list is getting longer every day.
This is just a snapshot from the UK:
Businesses:
IBM, Samsung, BBC, Barclays Bank, Newport
City Homes, Learning Pool
Higher and further education:
University of Sussex, University of Suffolk,
Borders College, Cardiff University, Nottingham
Trent University, University of Derby, Open
University OpenLearn
Schools:
Abbotsmeade Community Primary School,
Bernard Gilpin Primary School, Downlands
Community School, Kirkcaldy West Primary
School,
Other issuers include Digiskills Cymru, City and Guilds, iLM,
Shaw Trust, Skills for Justice and a number of local young
carers’ projects.
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11. Younger people may discover that their summer activities
make use of badges to recognise the part they took in an event.
These would supplement badges gained during their education.
Badges can be collected from multiple sources and combined into
one collection.
A user may gain badges from a workplace, add more from
studying on a MOOC and perhaps gain one or two from
conferences that they attend.
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12. Store
At the heart of Open Badges is portability. Badges that are
issued are done so to an open standard, allowing them to be
collected and displayed in a single place.
Therefore as part of the service offered by Mozila in supporting
the process, they have created the Open Backpack. This is a
cloud storage repository for Open Badges independent of the
issuing systems.
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13. The Open Backpack is free to sign up to and use. When creating
a Backpack make sure you use an independent e-mail address,
not a school or workplace one.
Once set up you can link your backpack to your learning
management system and your badges will easily upload.
Alternatively if you have stand alone badges, you can manually
upload them to your backpack.
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14. How do I organise my badges in my backpack?
Collection of badges can be created and made public. These are
used to display directly from your backpack or to import into
other display applications and websites.
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15. Display
The main aim of being able to collect Open Badges is to be able
to display them and share them for other people to view.
Built into the Mozilla Backpack is the ability to share collections
with the public. However the resulting url is long and complex and
needs a shortening site (ow.ly or tunyurl) to make it workable.
The resulting page layout is
also limited in its layout and
features. Therefore to
complement the backpack,
there are a number of other
methods to display your
badges.
Two in particular are relevant to different target audiences:-
Open Badge Passport and Badgr
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16. Badgr is an app that runs on Android and iOS which allows users
to store and display badges from any badge issuer.
As well as linking to a backpack, it also lists some of the
organisations who are issuing badges, helping to explore the
learning and badge-earning opportunities they provide.
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17. Open Badge Passport (created by Discendum Oy, the
developers of Open Badge Factory) is an online tool that allows users
to upload and import badges and display them using a variety of
portfolio pages.
The site also has a gallery of the badges earned by everyone who
has registered (though it is optional to display yours) and a set of
portfolio pages.
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18. Open Badge Passport users can create a page and add
badges, headings, text boxes and other files to create a full online
badge portfolio. It is possible, for example, to display your badges
and add a heading explaining where they were obtained. There are
themes that can be added to personalise the page, so that users
can decide on the style that suits their personality.
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19. How can these tools be used?
Open Badges can be used to accredit as part of
qualification frameworks or to recognise informal
learning and behaviours.
The open nature of badges means that it is up to
issuers to decide how they will best fit the end
users needs.
Therefore there is no ‘one size fits all’ badge,
instead each badge is unique to the end user and
the criteria by which it is earned.
Two of the following three examples are based on
scenarios of how they can be used in schools and
further education. This is followed by a real
example from the world of work.
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20. Lucy
Grade 2 in Literacy,
Grade 1 in Numeracy
Matthew
Grade 3 in Literacy,
Grade 2 in Numeracy
The picture without badges
Lucy
Grade 2 in Literacy,
Grade 1 in Numeracy
Matthew
Grade 3 in Literacy,
Grade 2 in Numeracy
Coder ->
<- PlaysRoller Derby
Sings ->
<- PlaysTouch Rugby
Reads ->
Blogs ->
<- Loves to
cook
<- Loves
Art
The picture with badges
Open Badges can be used to identify and recognise skills both
within and away from a curriculum. Badges enhance the overall
picture of a pupil and their abilities.
How can these tools be used?
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21. Having gained badges Lucy is keen to show them
off. She uses Badgr and is able to easily access
her collection and compare achievements with
her friends.
How can these tools be used?
The new
one
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22. How can these tools be used?
Mandy Griffiths is a further education student about to enter
University. Over the course of her two years studying A levels she
has collected badges for both academic and informal learning. She
has linked her backpack with a profile on Open Badge Passport.
Mandy has also created a portfolio using the re.vu portfolio site,
and created a professional network using Twitter. She has then
used an about.me page as a method of disseminating this
information.
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23. Awarding badges to develop employability
Newport City Homes (NCH) is a housing association working in the
city of Newport in South Wales. As part of its ongoing commitment
to supporting sustainable communities, they run a six month paid
work experience program called The Academy. Six to eight trainees
are employed by NCH, full or part time, to work, build experience and
gain skills.
Part of the learning that is carried out is recognised by awarding
badges to recognise their achievements.
The first badges are awarded on successful completion of their
induction and outlines what they have learnt during their first few
weeks. The essential training and safety training badges are then
awarded as they complete their e-leaning and classroom modules.
Subjects include welfare reform, social housing, fire safety and
manual handling.
Finally on successfully completing their six months with NCH they are
awarded an alumni badge.
These badges are stored in backpacks and Open Badge Passport
pages are created to allow their achievements to be promoted as
part of future job applications.
How can these tools be used?
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24. Badge
designs
Flat form
Badges are not dependent
on each other
+ =X Y Z
Dependent
Key badges are dependent
on other badges
Levelled
Graded badges with
increasing difficulty.
There are many methods of allocating badges to achievements and
competencies. These are three methods that are currently used in
different projects.
Which method you choose is all about designing your badging
ecosystem and how users can earn badges and what for.
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25. The
future
At the start of May 2015 the Badge Alliance, the group who oversee
Open Badges, released version 1.1 of the Open Badges specification.
This was aimed mainly at developers, but includes some exciting
potential developments that could extend the range of badges use
even further.
Extensions allow elements to be embedded such as the name and co-
ordinates of the place where a badge was issued. This would allow the
data to be extended to display sites, for example offering a map
showing where all users badges were earned.
Endorsement would allow companies or other organisations to
endorse a badge. For example a badge may be earned at a summer
coding meet, but could be endorsed by a large software company to
add kudos to the award.
These are just two of the proposed developments to badges, with
more to follow. The future for Open Badging is very exciting.
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26. Links
General sites
Open Badges openbadges.org
Badge Alliance www.badgealliance.org
Open Badge Factory openbadgefactory.com
Badgr info.badgr.io
Sites to collect badges
Barclays Digital Driving License www.digitaldrivinglicence.barclays.co.uk
OpenLearn
www.open.edu/openlearn/get-started/badges-
come-openlearn
Further reading
Slideshare
Two slideshare presentations on Open
Badges delivered in the past twelve
months
www.slideshare.net/learning_pool/creating-
learning-pathways-with-open-badges
www.slideshare.net/Huxleypiguk/preparing-for-
the-job-market-in-2015-using-open-badges
My ScoopIT! site with links to
badge projects
www.scoop.it/t/open-badges-by-bob-price-1
Doug Belshaw - lots of in depth
information about badges and
Digital Literacy
http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/
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27. Credits
The bit at the back to say how it all happened:
Font - cafe and brewery by Brittany Murphy Design, available from
dafonts.com.
Pictures - either created by myself or labelled as public domain for reuse.
Logos - all used with permission.
Created using Apple Pages on a Mac.
Copyright 2015, please ask before reproducing.
If you are using badges and you are not listed in the book, please let me know.
Contact via http://about.me/bob.price
Thanks to Gaynor and Cath for proofreading
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