what counts as learning: open digital badges for new opportunities

Mozilla Open Badges Community CallWednesday, November 19, 2014http://etherpad.badgealliance.org/CCNov19

• What are the three most important things you would share with another organization just getting started?

• What are the three main challenges to widespread adoption of your badge system for your organization?

• What are three things have you learned about badge system design?• What would you do differently if you were to start over?

Building the team

• Average core team size was roughly 5 to 6 people.

• Teams were as large as 10 people, especially for those with content and multimedia experts, and for those who built custom-designed badge systems.

• Choose your team wisely.

Who are my stakeholders?

• Stakeholders will define the boundaries of your system.

• Every stakeholder group represents a boundary that must be navigated and crossed.

• Don’t skip the process of identifying stakeholders, no matter how tempting it may be to do so.

Teachers are stakeholders

• Engage teachers and faculty as co-creators in the design of the system.

• Train teachers first, and well, and make this training an ongoing process.

• Think carefully how teachers will be involved in the badge-issuing process.

Find a common language

• Identify terminology specific to badges.

• Make sure everyone working on the system can understand the language of badges.

• Communicating design ideas from content experts to design experts to programming experts is hard.

• Have early conversations with the web development team.

Explain badges early

• Give all of your stakeholders time to become familiar with the concept of badges.

• Get started before the badge system design process begins.

• Create a shared understanding among anyone who will have a stake in the system.

• Develop strong stories about how badges work.

Design for relevance

• Map your badges to whatever your community finds valuable.

• Ask your learners what they value — avoid assumptions as much as possible.

• Same for other stakeholders, including faculty, administrators, and external stakeholders.

• Think early about data. What can your badge system tell you?

Build external partnerships

• Build value and relevance at the beginning of the design process.

• Define your trust network.

• Think hard about what gives your badges “weight” with external stakeholders.

Trust networks

• Answer the “so what?” question.

• Have meaningful answers that go beyond badges as an aspect of a learner’s identity.

• Foster the collective belief in the value of your badges.

Iterative design

• Fail fast.

• Put all aspects of the system in harm’s way and test with real users.

• Release smaller parts first instead of big chunks.

• Engage all users in the design process early.

Learning pathways

• Designing learning pathways is more complex than developing curricula and defining course requirements.

• Create shared assessment criteria so that badges can be connected between different programs.

• Align badges to standards where possible.

• Think about tagging badges so others can find them.

User experience

• Check your assumptions about navigation!

• The system will fail if you don’t get this right.

• A “clunky” platform will make understanding, earning, and sharing badges difficult.

• Without a seamless user experience, learners may not even share their badges.

Visual design

• Do not underestimate the design elements of the badges.

• Simpler designs are better.

• Think how badges will display on different screen sizes.

• Distinguish single-lesson achievements from more significant achievements.

Number and type of badges

• Experiment early. Start small.

• Keep things simple.

• Consider using other features to increase engagement and chart progress.

• Carefully consider learning outcomes and values.

Badge system technology

• Hire the most experienced programmers possible.

• Focus early and hard on the technical side of badge system design.

• Prepare for complex technical challenges if you are integrating with legacy systems.

Questions?