Presented at the 15th Annual Conference on World Wide Web Applications, Cape Town, September 2013 The University of Cape Town offers a co-curricular Global Citizenship programme providing students with opportunities to engage critically with contemporary global debates and reflect on issues of citizenship and social justice. The required learning activities include writing blog posts on the course site, participating in voluntary community service and creating small campaigns on campus. While there is enthusiastic engagement with activities, it remains challenging to monitor and assess student participation. Additionally these learning experiences are sufficiently different to academic courses that students remark on the difficulties in knowing what is being required. Over the past four years we have developed a successful learning environment for the programme and now needed to consider a redesign. A widely discussed strategy to acknowledge skills and achievements developed through informal learning involves the use of badges and related gamification ideas. Badges can provide a focus and motivation, and provide a mechanism to help compile a portfolio of evidence. Gamification involves using game-thinking and game mechanics in a non-game context to engage people. These are typically employed to increase motivation and participations. We draw on experience redesigning a Global Citizenship short course to explore the emerging design process and the possible applications and limitations of gamification to recognise informal learning in a university context. The Appreciative Inquiry stages guided the engagement with tutors and lecturers to enhance what is already being done well in the Global Citizenship programme.

1. Andrew Deacon
Centre for Educational Technology, University of Cape Town
Janet Small & Nicola Pallitt
Centre for Open Learning, University of Cape Town
Global Citizenship Badges
using gamification to recognize
non-formal learning in a university context

2. Outline
• Global Citizenship programme at UCT
• Reimaging after 4 years
• Badging and gamification
• Designs as Enhancement vs Problem-centric
• Discovery – Dream – Design – Delivery
• Towards digital portfolios
• Conclusions

3. UCT Global Citizenship Programme
Global Citizenship: Leading for Social Justice
– Three short courses:
Continuing Education
certificate
– Each year involves
over 200 students
from all faculties
– Students becoming
citizens rather than
simply learners

4. Goals of Global Citizenship Programme
1. Knowledge: Exposing students to global
citizenship and social justice issues beyond degree
and discipline
2. Skills: Developing capacity for leadership on
contemporary social justice issues by improving
active listening and critical thinking
3. Values: Promoting awareness of themselves as
future global citizens motivated to work for social
justice through community service

5. GC Media and Branding
GC marketing

6. GC classesGC class activities

7. GC service daysGC reflective writing

8. GC Course Website on LMS (2012)

9. Reimagining GC course site (2013)
After four years:
• Redesign to be more student-centred
• Actively promote course completion
• Draw on tutors to inform the redesign
• Imagine new possibilities:
– Supporting badges and gamification elements
– Creating portfolios of reflective writing

10. Badges: Physical vs Digital
• Badges in the physical world:
–Physical representing a rank or
accomplishment
• Badges in the digital world:
–Digital ‘clickable’ portfolios or
collections
–Accomplishment linking evidence
to criteria
http://www.flickr.com/photos/conner395/

11. Gamification: Not games
Using game-thinking and game mechanics
in a non-game context
to engage people and solve problems
- Sebastian Deterding (2011)

12. Gamification of education?
• Do universities use game elements?
– Students get “points” for completing assignments
– Points translate to “badges” for passing courses
– Students performing well “level up” at year end
– Best performs get on the Dean’s “leaderboard”
• Not really…

13. Learning Design Thinking
A complex, iterative process
of problem-defining and problem-solving
of ill-defined learning needs
that requires a creative and analytic
approach through iterative prototyping
based on formative feedback

14. Macro-level
becoming a global
citizen
Meso-level
reflective writing
Micro-level
coherent course
website
Learning Design
Education - Technology
Gap

15. Taxonomy of Design Problems
New Design
Problems
Enhancement
Problems
Selection
Problems
Tuning
Problems
Crises
Intractable problems

16. Generic Design Cycle
Conceiving and giving
form to something
that addresses
a problems
User
experience
design
plan
produce
gap
(for problem-centric designs)

17. Discovery
Dream
Design
Delivery
Decide what to learn about,
who to involve,
and how to involve them
Conduct the inquiry,
share insights
Envision the ideal
impact or outcomes
for those involved
Develop principles to
guide the changes
Innovation,
improvisation and
more inquiry
Appreciative Inquiry
(for enhancement–centric designs)

18. Discovery: Activities in GC2
Activities Evidence Interface cues
Attend class sessions
x8
Signed register Acknowledge
completion
Community work days
x2
Signed register or blog Badges
Post reflective blogs
x4
Blog post on LMS Badges
Submit essays
x2
Submission on LMS Acknowledge
completion

19. Dream: Dashboard options

20. Design: GC2 choices made
• Interface communicates
completion requirements
• Simplify reflection expectations
• Tutors participate in design
• Include feedback on progress
• Badges (link evidence & criteria)
• Students compile a portfolio

21. Delivery: GC2 Dashboard (2013)

22. Delivery: Dashboard lightboxes

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Monitoring (‘game mechanics’)
Falling behind
with blogs
Catch-up or
starting next blog
Blog done
on-time
previous blog
deadline

24. Digital Portfolios
• Broad interest to
– Enable students to create portfolios
– Develop reflective writing skills
– Repurpose for others courses, CVs, …
• Practical challenges
– Difficult to anticipate student future needs
– Difficult to curate and manage

25. Mozilla OpenBadges
• Mozilla Foundation project
– Provides infrastructure for hosting badges
– Control rests with badge recipient
– Shares success stories
• OpenBadges
– Criteria: URL with description and name of issuer
– Evidence: URL to digital artefact meeting criteria

26. Mozilla OpenBadges: Backpack
Portfolio collection title
Evidence (with URL)
Criteria (with URL)

27. Conclusions
• Appropriateness of badges
– If not in Global Citizenship, then where?
– Fun and appreciated by students
– Help align more formal structuring of reflection
– Feedback on progress
– Link criteria and evidence
– Moving towards digital portfolios
• Of course, designs should be mindful of
– Appreciating what is working well
– Side effects and social contracts