ON LI NE LEARN ING
Open Badges: Novel Means to Motivate, Scaffoldand Recognize Learning
Jelena Jovanovic • Vladan Devedzic
� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014
Abstract This report is centered on the emerging concept and technology of Open
Badges (OBs) that are offering novel means and practices of motivating, scaffolding,
recognizing, and credentialing learning. OBs are closely associated with values such as
openness and learners’ agency, participatory learning and peer-learning communities. This
report points to the distinctive features of OBs and how they have positioned OBs as
suitable candidates for addressing some of the pressing challenges in the context of lifelong
learning, including (but not limited to) (1) recognition of learning in multiple and diverse
environments that go beyond traditional classrooms; (2) recognition of diverse kinds of
skills and knowledge, including soft and general skills; (3) support for alternative forms of
assessment; (4) the need for transparent and easily verifiable digital credentials. The report
also offers an overview of the major issues and challenges that might delay or even prevent
widespread adoption of this emerging technology.
Keywords Digital badges � Open badges � Alternative assessment � Recognition �Digital credentials
1 Introduction and Description of the Emerging Technology
An important and relatively new technology that facilitates recognition and credentialing
of different skills and learning achievements and can further increase learning motivation
is that of digital badges, and more specifically Open Badges (OBs). A digital badge is a
validated indicator of accomplishment, skill, competency, quality or interest that can be
earned in various learning environments (Carey Carey 2012). It is an ‘‘online record of
achievements, tracking the recipient’s communities of interaction that issued the badge and
the work completed to get it’’. (The Mozilla Foundation and P2PU 2012).
J. Jovanovic (&) � V. DevedzicFaculty of Organizational Sciences, University of Belgrade, Jove Ilica 154, Belgrade, Serbiae-mail: [email protected]
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Tech Know LearnDOI 10.1007/s10758-014-9232-6
OBs take the concept of digital badges one step further. They allow learners to verify
their skills, interests and achievements through credible organizations. The information
about the badge issuing organization, the criteria for issuing the badge, the date when the
badge was issued, and the evidence of the accomplishment are attached to the badge image
file, hard-coding the metadata for future access and review.
OBs are based on an open technical specification, called Open Badge Infrastructure, or
OBI (Mozilla Open Badges 2012). OBI defines the badge issuer as a learning provider or
an employer awarding an OB for completing a certain task (tasks) and/or attaining a certain
goal (goals). The issuer creates the criteria that the badge earner needs to fulfill in order to
win the badge. Badge earners can combine multiple OBs from different issuers, display
them on the Web, and share them for employment, and/or further education. OBI comes
with a set of open application programming interfaces (APIs) that allow developers to
integrate OB services with existing applications, Websites, and social networks.
OBs support a new approach to knowledge assessment and recognition by giving
prospective employers, professional groups, community groups, schools, instructors and
learners a more complete picture of badge earners’ knowledge, skills and abilities (Badge
Alliance 2014). They enable gathering and keeping in one (digital) space badges that
originate from different sources, as well as combining selected badges into custom profiles
(Glover 2013). Since they carry all the information one would need to understand and
value the achievement/status they refer to, and since that information is encoded in a
standard (OBI-compliant) machine-processable format, OBs significantly ease the transfer
of credentials across different contexts and institutional boundaries.
Technology for developing OB systems is already available, and much of it is open-
source and free. BadgeKit (https://badgekit.org/),a badging platform designed and devel-
oped by Mozilla Foundation, helps individuals and organizations to create, assess and issue
OBs. In addition, through the exposed APIs, it can be easily connected with the user’s
Website and services/tools that display digital badges such as Mozilla’s Backpack (http://
backpack.openbadges.org/) OB display tool.
Among other currently popular badging platforms are also:
• BadgeOSTM (https://badgeos.org/), a free plugin for WordPress that allows users of a
WordPress-powered Website to complete learning tasks, demonstrate achievement, and
earn badges
• Passport (https://www.openpassport.org/), a Purdue University hosted platform that
allows for designing OBs, connecting badges with course objectives, setting challenges
(i.e., learning tasks) for badge earners, assisting students while working on those
challenges, and assisting instructors in following each student’s progress
Badge Platform Options for Schools (http://blog.makewav.es/2013/08/05/open-badges-
for-schools-what-are-the-options/) and Platforms for Issuing OBs (http://bit.ly/platform-
chart) offer a comprehensive overview of the available platforms for development and
hosting of OB solutions.
2 Relevance for Learning, Instruction, and Assessment
The available academic literature, project reports, numerous case studies, and personal
experiences reported by educational researchers and practitioners indicate the following as
the main roles that OBs might have in the educational domain (Jovanovic and Devedzic
2014):
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OBs as a motivational mechanism: in this role, OBs act as rewards for learners’
engagement and/or achievements. In addition, they have the potential to motivate learning
by supporting novel learning practices, those based on participatory learning approaches
and peer-based learning communities (Williams et al. 2011). Even though important, this
role of OBs should not be overemphasized and OBs should not be equated with a ‘ga-
mification’ instrument. The reason is that apart from leveraging game mechanics to
motivate learners’ engagement, OBs are often adopted for other affordances they provide
(as explained below).
OBs as a means of supporting alternative forms of assessment: OBs promise to be a
(part of the) solution for the rising dissatisfaction with standardized tests as presently the
dominant approach to knowledge assessment. This is especially emphasized when it comes
to appropriate assessment and recognition of not only subject-specific skills and compe-
tences, but also of generic competences and soft skills. For instance, they can support the
peer-assessment process where learners do not just receive badges but are requested to
comment on them, share evidence around them, recommend their peers for accreditation,
and even become accreditors themselves (as an example of this practice, see, for instance,
Peer2Peer University: https://p2pu.org/).
OBs as a means of recognizing and credentialing learning: OBs enable the recognition
of diverse kinds of learning accomplishments achieved in different parts of decentralized
learning environments, i.e., Networked Learning Ecosystems (Ito et al. 2013) such as
Global Kids (http://olpglobalkids.org/). Moreover, OBs neatly meet the ever-increasing
workplace demands for ever-evolving and tailored skills and competences, thus ‘beating’
formal degrees from higher education institutions that are slower in adapting to the market
needs (Sullivan 2013). The growing open education movement, including massive open
online courseware (MOOC), is also contributing to the demand for alternative certification
and recognition mechanisms such as OBs. For instance, Udacity (http://udacity.com), a
well-known MOOC provider, has recently announced the introduction of nanodegrees, a
form of micro-credentials very similar to OBs (Shen 2014).
OBs as a means of charting learning routes: through the associated badge-earning
criteria and entitlements (i.e., privileges and responsibilities opened up by earning a
badge), OBs enable teachers to scaffold their students in the exploration of the learning
space. In other words, by acting as ‘signposts’ through a curriculum, OBs offer learners
some guidance, but at the same time sufficient freedom in choosing their own path.
OBs as a means of supporting self-reflection and planning: by enabling learners to
continuously track what they have learned, and by offering them insights into what the next
steps might be, OBs support the tasks of self-reflection and planning of learning activities.
These meta-cognitive activities are key to the development of self-regulation skills, highly
desirable for life-long learners.
3 Emerging Technology in Practice
3.1 Projects and Initiatives
A number of projects and initiatives have adopted OBs as a core enabling technology for
motivating, recognizing and credentialing learning achievements:
• Badge the UK project (http://www.digitalme.co.uk/badgetheuk) is making use of the
DigitalMe OB platform (http://www.digitalme.co.uk/) to raise the value of authentic
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learning, skills and talents of young people in the context of their education, jobs and
personal fulfilment.
• Makewaves (https://www.makewav.es/mwhq) is a community of thousands of schools
(junior/primary and high schools/college) and a social learning environment where
young people learn together and share learning resources. Learning is made more
exciting with learning missions where learners’ achievements are recognised and
awarded with OBs.
• GRASS (http://grass.fon.bg.ac.rs) is a recently started EU project that investigates the
use of OBs as a means of supporting the development, assessment and grading of
learners’ soft skills (such as problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, com-
munication and the like).
• MOUSE Squad (http://mousesquad.org/), a US national educational program aimed at
improving students’ digital media and technology knowledge and skills, uses OBs not
only for the recognition of students’ successful completion of learning modules, but
also as a way of mapping students’ pathways and learning trajectories.
• Pathways for Lifelong Learning (http://www.mypasa.org/news/2014/03/19/case-study-
pasas-open-badges) is an initiative launched by the Providence After School Alliance
and the Mozilla Foundation, aimed at enabling high school students to receive aca-
demic credit—in the form of OBs—approved by the local school system, for after-
school learning experiences and achievements that took place outside the classroom
(e.g., participation in the city debate club, or an art course at a local museum).
For a more comprehensive review of other related projects, see http://goo.gl/r2wIBB.
3.2 A Closer Look at Current Practices and Experiences
Due to their recency, OBs are still unknown to many teachers and educational practitio-
ners, while those who have learned about this new technology are often faced with
numerous questions related to the actual design and deployment of OBs in their curricula.
These questions are sometimes accompanied by hesitancy and concerns, as some teachers
might (mistakenly) perceive the introduction of OBs as a disruption of their teaching
practices. Therefore, it is important to emphasize that the use of OBs in a curriculum
should not be seen as a replacement for traditional forms of grading and certification; OBs
are rather an additional means of tracking individuals’ achievements and progress over
time; they go beyond the traditional grading and recognition mechanisms built into a
course structure. Furthermore, the design and deployment of an OBs system are tightly
connected to the curriculum objectives and the teacher’s chosen pedagogical approach;
they can be seen as a technical affordance that facilitates the implementation of the chosen
pedagogy.
The two above stated points are well illustrated in the OBs system developed for the
Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems Major (SA & FS) at University of California at
Davis, USA (UCD 2014).This OBs system has recently been initiated as a complement to
the existing portfolio system, in order to provide additional support for experiential
learning—the pedagogy of choice at SA & FS for over a decade. Their initial experience
with the deployed badge system shows that an important precursor to launching a badge
system is to have a well-defined instructional design (e.g., to determine the right mix of
self, peer and expert assessment for any given badge). In addition, OBs should be aligned
with the program’s learning objectives and requirements. An important part of the SA &FS
pedagogical approach was to motivate students to reflect over their learning objectives and
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learning experiences. Accordingly, the students were also given a chance to design badges
and in doing so to think about all the steps and requirements for earning a badge, thus
focusing on the process of earning the badge, rather than on the pure act of ‘winning’ the
badge.
Only in rare cases OBs are used as an alternative grading and certification mechanism
for a part of regular course requirements. An example of this way of building OBs into the
curriculum comes from Borders College, Scotland (JISC RSC 2013). They have initiated
Supporter2Reporter (S2R), a project-based learning program, with the focus on skills and
confidence development through sports reporting. Through S2R, Borders College students
studying sport and exercise have been given an opportunity to participate in Sports
Journalism as an alternative to attending the Communication Units. The latter used to be a
requirement for course completion, but has received low attendance and completion rates
for years, since sports students often struggled to see its relevance to their specific disci-
pline. An important lesson learned from the S2R project is that delays in implementing
such OBs initiatives can occur if a careful mapping between the badging program and the
course units (in this case, the Communication Units) is not developed on time and is not
approved by the corresponding authority (in this case, the Scottish Qualifications
Authority).
Besides the application in formal learning settings, OBs have been applied—even more
widely—in informal and semi-formal learning programs. For instance, in summer 2013,
the American Museum of Natural History ran a prototype of a digital badging system in
dozens of programs offered to youth aged from elementary through college (AMNH 2013).
The survey conducted with the learners who participated in one of the Museum’s programs
showed that learners were almost equally split between those whose opinion was that
badges had no effect on them and their learning (neither positive nor negative), and those
who reported slight or very positive effect. Those in the latter group perceived the positive
effect of badges on their motivation to learn, their overall experience of the learning
program, their ability to direct their learning trajectory and the feedback loop between
themselves and the instructors. Only a small number of learners reported that the badging
system motivated them through its peer effect (social competition or social capital) or real-
world effect (advances in the education or career within our outside the Museum). Learners
who opted not to participate in the Museum’s badging system were primarily those young
people who: (1) were highly intrinsically motivated and perceived OBs almost as a nui-
sance and/or as something that might diminish their enthusiasm for learning; (2) did not
recognize real-world value of the badges in terms of something that would provide rec-
ognition/credit outside the Museum.
4 Significant Challenges
Since the use of OBs as a means of motivating, scaffolding, recognizing and credentialing
learning is in its early stages, there are numerous open questions and concerns related to
their use in these roles. One of the major concerns is related to the validity or credibility of
an OB. This leads to the question of who should be able to issue and award badges (e.g.,
should it be open to any institution, or should the entities conferring badges be certified?).
A related concern is about the interpretation of the meaning of a badge, i.e., inferring what
it actually says about a learner’s skills. The importance of this concern is expected to
increase as the adoption of OBs gains momentum and learners start obtaining many
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different kinds of badges from different issuers—the badges might be based on divergent
understandings of what the corresponding skills mean and how they should be measured.
From the perspective of their motivational role, the use of OBs raises concern that
students might focus solely on the accumulation of badges rather than on learning activ-
ities/materials associated with badges; this is why, for instance, the creators of the SA & FS
program at UCD were careful to design their badging system in a way that incites students
on learning rather than on earning badges (see the previous section). Likewise, there is a
concern of motivation displacement (Deterding 2013)—a situation when intrinsic moti-
vation (doing an activity for the sake of enjoyment) is diminished by introducing an
extrinsic motivator (in this case, a badge). Thoughtful design of requirements for earning
individual badges as well as chaining of badges in learning trajectories have been sug-
gested as a means of addressing both concerns (Rughinis 2013).
Venturing in practical development of badges and badge systems often reveals other
weaknesses and limitations of the available badging technology. For instance, Mozilla’s
BadgeKit is free and open to everyone, but not as an integrated, hosted badge development
platform. At present, only selected partner organizations can use the ‘‘private beta’’ of the
integrated hosted version. Others can download the current version from GitHub1 and host
it locally, provided that they have the skills required to deal with the intricacies of the
technology. On the other hand, everyone can use the full, integrated version of Passport
hosted at Purdue University, but the pedagogical and learning design options available for
developing challenges and criteria for earning Passport badges are limited. There is a bit
more variety to this end when using BadgeOS, but it is still not complete in terms of what
would be required for designing a pedagogically well-grounded badge system.
Badge discovery should be better supported, as well. Badge discovery refers to the
ability to find relevant badges to earn (i.e., competences and skills to acquire) from various
issuers. Current development efforts in the scope of Mozilla’s OB Discovery2 project take
this issue very seriously. Furthermore, sharing of the earned badges via Mozilla’s Back-
pack is not always that straightforward and frictionless, as reported in a study conducted by
an OBs initiative at University of Michigan, USA (Umich 2013). The GRASS project’s
initial experiences with BadgeOS badges indicate the same. In other words, although the
badge system technology is abundant, it is still not mature enough to allow for the ‘plug-
and-play’ use.
5 Conclusions
It is important to emphasize the misconception that the development and deployment of a
well-functioning badge system is easy. The group who implemented an OB system for the
SA & FS program at UCD confessed that they had to build their system twice—dealing
with many bugs, error messages, and most importantly with students’ and teachers’
reluctance and skepticism was anything but easy (UCD 2014). OBs are still a new tech-
nology in many communities, and it is a very long way from skepticism, to getting people
intrigued, and finally to getting support. Also, anyone who ventures in building a non-
trivial badge system will probably face a huge badge conceptualization problem: what are
the achievements in a specific case, what to badge/reward, under what conditions, and,
most importantly, how to chain and prioritize the achievements? Badge system developers
1 https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges-badgekit/.2 https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges-discovery.
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also have to consider legal issues related to the protection of privacy of students’ data
(learning traces and evidences of learning achievements). These are complex challenges
and it is always a good idea to clarify them before starting the badge system development
by consulting some recommendations and design principles derived from the existing
practices [see, e.g., (Hickey et al. 2014)]. In addition, the aforementioned and other
challenges related to the design, development, deployment and adoption of OB systems are
actively explored by an increasing number of researchers and practitioners who tend to
eagerly share their knowledge and experiences through (online) working groups and
communities. For instance, numerous and diverse working groups initiated by the Badge
Alliance3 offer a lot of possibilities for learning more about specific aspects of OBs and
engaging in the exploration and adoption of the OBs concept and the technology.
In summary, inspite of the above mentioned challenges, OBs have been increasingly
adopted by educational practitioners as well as education-oriented companies and non-
profit organizations. This level of interest and adoption indicates, on one hand, the real
necessity for a novel, less formal and more flexible recognition and credentialing system
(Staton 2014), and on the other hand, that many highly qualified individuals and organi-
zations are putting their efforts in resolving the above stated challenges, and thus leading
the OBs concept to its full potential.
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