OBSA Workgroup would like to assist L&D practitioners to start creating Badging Frameworks for their learning programmes.

1. Open Badges South Africa
Badging Guidelines

2. Overview
• What is an Open Badge?
• Purpose of Badging Guidelines
• Target Audience
• Badging Opportunities and Uses
• The OBI process
• Establish a common language
• How to create a badging framework
• How to create a badge
• How to issue badges
• How to earn and display badges
• How to consume badges
• Templates Section

3. Open Badges South Africa Workgroup
OBI Infographic

4. WHAT IS AN OPEN BADGE?
“Are all Badges created equal?”

5. Open Badges
• A badge is a representation of an outcome or
achievement.
• Badges often get used in contexts like learning,
scouting, gaming, social sites and rankings of
authority.
• Open Badges refer specifically to badges that
adhere to an open standard being led by Mozilla
for recognizing and validating learning.
• Thus, Open Badges are… secure, web-enabled
credentials that contain granular, verified
information consumers can use to evaluate
earners’ potential.

6. • The value of Open Badges comes from the information
(metadata) attached to it!
Who issued the badge
When: The issue date
What: Hyperlinks back to
artifacts or
testimonials
demonstrating the work
that lead to earning the
badge
How:
How the badge was
earned
Authentication back to
the issuer

7. Types of Badges
Milestone
Member
Accredited
Competent
Participated
Completed
Attendance
Donated
Member
Master
Subject Matter
Expert
Sponsored
Qualified
Verified
Requirements Met

8. PURPOSE OF BADGING
GUIDELINES
“Why should I use these guidelines?”
“Why can’t I just start creating badges for my different
courses?”

9. Adding Real Value
• Ensure sustainability – badges to become
micro-credentials
• Build Open Badges for consistency,
dependability and market worth
• Avoid introducing badges as the ‘flavour
of the month’
• A system filled with junk badges have far
less integrity than one filled with micro-
credentials awarded by reputable
organisations

10. Considerations for consistency
• Establish a common language
• Give guidance wrt to establishing:-
– A framework for ‘levels’ and clear
pathways within a system
– Badge criteria and assessment
– Badge design principles

11. Considerations for market
worth
• Establish an ecosystem that
– Recognises and supports professionals on
a more granular level
– Avoids linking professional development
and salary structures only to macro-
credentials (e.g. degree)
– Empowers the work force to pursue new
skills and knowledge in a more
personalised way

12. Read on….
• Now that you understand what OBSA
members want the SA industry to
achieve by using these guidelines,
• Please read on….

13. TARGET AUDIENCE
Who should use these guidelines?

14. Target Audience
• Badge Creators:
– Instructional and/or Curriculum Designers
– Learning Infrastructure Specialists
– Learning Administrators
• Badge Consumers:
– Line Managers
– Recruiters
– Talent Managers
• Badge Earners

15. BADGING OPPORTUNITIES
How can Open Badges support life-long learning?

16. Micro-Credentialling
Life-long Learning
• Through visible mapping of learning
outcomes (competencies and skills)in
badge framework design
• By tracking the professional and personal
development of staff during performance
management
• Enable the recruitment quest to find the
best match for a position
• Integrate credentials represented by
badges into HR Systems
• Effectively display and use earned
badges to map skills and competencies
to career paths.

17. In a nutshell…
• Motivation & Recognition
• Show case knowledge and skills
• Consolidation of various learnings
• Professional membership &
CPD points
• Informal Learning on radar screen
• Supplement NQF credentials
• Recruitment enhancement – profiling of
applicants

18. OBI SUMMARISED
Open Badges Infrastructure

21. ESTABLISHING A COMMON
BADGING LANGUAGE
Let’s all use the same words!

22. Badging Terms
• OBI – Open Badges Infrastructure
• Open Badges
• Metadata
• Baking Badges
• Publishing Badges
• Assertions (Issued Badges)
• Backpacks (Badge Repositories)
• Consuming Badges (Following the links
baked into the badge to view the criteria
for earning the badge)

23. HOW TO CREATE A
BADGING STRATEGY
“Where do I start? “
“Can’t I just create a badge or two?”

24. Designing my Badges for
consistency and market worth
• What do I want to achieve by this
badge / set of badges?
– Recognise completed learning
– Recognise acquired competencies and
skills
– Motivate earner to complete the learning
path?
– Promote different levels of membership
– Recognise service / sponsorship

25. Recognise completion of learning
intervention
• Instructional designer to
– Develop the outcomes of the learning
initiative
– map sets of learning outcomes to a series of
badges for micro-credentialling
– Map learning to competencies & tasks and
duties
• Milestone on learning path = badge
• Use Badge Design template to document
all the relevant info (refer to Templates
Section)

26. According to the International Standard
Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08)
• The framework used for the design and
construction of ISCO-08 is based on two main
concepts:
– The kind of work performed (job)
– The skill required to do the job.
• Definitions of job and occupation
– A Job is defined in ISCO-08 as a ‘set of tasks and
duties carried out, or meant to be carried out, by one
person for a particular employer, including self
employment.’
– An occupation is defined as a set of jobs whose main
tasks and duties are characterised by a high degree
of similarity.
Recognise acquired competencies
and skills

27. According to the International Standard
Classification of Occupations (ISCO-08)
• Skill is defined as the ability to carry out the tasks and duties of
a given job.
• For the purposes of ISCO-88, two dimensions of skill are used to
arrange occupations into groups.
– Skill level is defined as a function of the complexity and range of
tasks and duties to be performed in an occupation.
• the nature of the work performed in an occupation
• the level of formal
• the amount of informal on-the-job training and /or previous experience in
a related occupation
– Skill specialisation is considered in terms of four conceptual
concepts:
• the field of knowledge required
• the tools and machinery used
• the materials worked on or with: and
• the kinds of goods and services produced.
Recognise acquired competencies
and skills (cont’d)

28. Motivate earner to complete the
development path
• Instructional designer to create
milestones and checkpoints for
development
• Milestone on development path = badge
– Expiring badges for micro credentials
– Permanent badge for the macro credential
– Encourage earners to strive beyond the
satisfying the current need (micro-credential
obtained).

29. Promote levels of membership
• Management team of the Professional
Body to design the hierarchy of
membership, e.g. “member”,
“professional” and “master”.
• Decide on time frames – a “master”
designation might be a lifetime award,
but “member” expires every year and
has to be renewed.

30. Recognise Service / Sponsorship
• Management team of the Issuing
Organisation to decide what they
want to reward, e.g. “Five Years of
Service”, “Twenty Years of Service” or
“Major Financial Contribution”.
• Does this badge expire?

31. Motivate earner to complete the
development path
<- Expiring Badges -> Non-
Expiring
Badges

32. HOW TO CREATE A BADGE
“What’s in a name?“
“Is a Badge more than a pretty picture?”

33. Design the badge images
• Involve the Corporate
Image team – for colours,
logo and branding
purposes
• Decide on inner and outer
shapes of badges.
• Finalise the legend on the
badge.

34. Design the badge metadata
• Figure out what skills and
knowledge are
represented by the badge
• Determine how to prove
that a person has the skills
and knowledge to earn
the badge.
• Document this information
about the badge:

35. Create the Badge
• Use a Image Editor (e.g. PhotoShop) to create
the badge image according to the Open
Standard:
– Size in bytes
– Dimensions
• Use the organisation LMS; or an open license
LMS like Moodle; or a bespoke Badge
Creation tool like Open Badge Factory to
– ‘bake’ the metadata into the Badge
– publish the badge.
• The published badge is now ready to be
issued to worthy earners

36. Badge Image Standards
• Image must be a PNG.
• Images should be square and not exceed 256kb. They
should have dimensions not smaller that 90 x 90.
• Image is provided as a URL to the image on the issuer
server, stored within the metadata.
• Mozilla will cache the image in at least two sizes.
• When a badge is displayed, it will be loaded from the
Mozilla cache to avoid extra burden on the issuer
servers. This also helps if the issuer is not available or the
link is broken.
• Issuers can design badges inside the Web app using a
graphical tool, or can upload images prepared
elsewhere.

37. HOW TO ISSUE BADGES
“Who can issue a badge?“
“When does one issue a badge?”

38. Role Player: The Issuer
• The organisation or individual who
issues badges into the OBI
• Determine whether someone meets
the criteria and are deserving of a
badge
• Issue a badge on our site,
• Prompt the Badge Earner to push the
badge into their Backpack

39. HOW TO EARN & DISPLAY
BADGES
“What do I have to do to earn a Badge?“
“What can I do with a badge I earned?”

40. Role Player: Earner
• A person storing their badges within the
OBI.
(Learners are one type of Badge Earners)
• They make an effort to acquire the skills
and knowledge that demonstrates their
mastery represented by the badge.
(They meet the criteria of the badge)
• Interact with Issuers to earn badges, then
manage and share these badges in their
Backpack

41. HOW TO CONSUME BADGES
“Why would I be interested in other people’s badges?

42. Consumption
• Click on the badge to open the
metadata (information baked into the
badge)
• Click on the links to view evidence (if
provided)
• Scrutinise the issuer details – the
reputation of the issuer will lend weight
to the badge

43. TEMPLATES SECTION
“Where can I find examples of badging designs?
“Right HERE!

44. Badge Design Canvas page 1 –
provided by Digitalme

45. Badge Design Canvas page 2 –
provided by Digitalme

46. Badge Catalogue
Sample p1

47. Badge Catalogue
Sample p2

48. Sample Badge Designs

49. For more information……