improving the rigor of open badges
TRANSCRIPT
Enough with Weak Sauce Badges!
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Image by Shutterstock
Daniel L. Randall & Richard E. West
Badges as Legitimate Credentials
“When you first said badges, I had such a bad impression of what that would mean.”
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Merit Badges and Digital Badges
Boy Scout Merit Badges
Digital Badge
- Acknowledge accomplishment- Display skills gained- Motivation- Enable feedback/teaching from adult mentors
Typically not sharable -Acknowledge accomplishment -
Motivation -Gamification -
Enable feedback on specific skills -
Open Badges
Open Badges
Same Affordances as Digital Badges, Plus: - Uses Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI)- Display badges via web- Metadata (Criteria and Evidence links)
Open Badge Information
Mozilla Backpack
Backpack Collection
Multiple collections can be created.
Collections can remain private or can be made public and shared.
Badgers Talking with Badgers
Joseph (2014) argued the badging community needs to talk less with skeptics and more with each other—talking about how to improve the badging movement.
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Svenwerk on flickr
Value of Badges
CC BY-SA Class Hack http://classhack.com/post/39932478440/indianajones
A badge is only as good as:
The Rigor attached to it.
The process used to evaluate the learner’s work.
It’s usefulness to students and/or stakeholders.
How can we increase Badge Value?
Badge Types
Global vs. Local Systems
Badge “weight”
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Badge Systems
Local badge ecosystem - intended only for the person’s learning space
Global Badge ecosystem - stretches beyond learning space; allows badges to be used as a credential
“Badging systems can be designed to offer both types of values—value within an organization and value to those outside it—but, the required features and networks are different” (Joseph, para 6).
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Not
the
sam
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Badge Weight
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By Flickr user winnifredxoxo
Lightweight Badges
Badges issued for:
• attendance
• creating a login
• simply existing as a learner.
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Argument for Lightweight badges
• Casilli (2014) argued that accretion, or the layering effect of badges over time, produces value.
• Value to emerge in unexpected ways from the accumulated effect of many different lightweight badges.
• Thus, lightweight badges may not be as meaningful individually, but taken together they paint a fuller picture of the individual’s interests and activities (Knight, 2014).
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Badge Inflation
CC BY-SA Class Hack http://classhack.com/post/50915858999/carpetbadging
Mass awarding of badges with little or no assessment of work.
Or criteria so easy and short everyone earns the badge.
“Carpet Badging”
Counter Argument: The Challenge of Lightweight
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Accretion? Who’s got time for that?
Demotivating
Focusing on the wrong thing
Accretion
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How many have kept every completion certificate they have earned?
Accretion
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Jordan Crowe on flickr
DeMotivating
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Misplaced Focus
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The Problem with Lightweight Badges
Poor Public impression of badges
If the badging community does not show how open badges and their assessment processes can be rigorous and meaningful, then the badging movement may fade away.
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“Weightier” Badges
• Digital Promise
• Supporter to Reporter
“Substantial motivational power for students” (Tran, Schenke, & Hickey, 2014)
Badges as Legitimate Credentials BYU
Lots of Credentials in Formal Education
• Degrees only awarded after a long period of time or a great deal of experience
• Transcripts have lots of information, but how useful is that information?
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How Valuable are Transcripts?
• What does 200 mean? Is it equal to or less difficult than a 400-level class?
• Course name: what skills are covered?
• What does the grade B mean? – Average on everything?– Did really well on some things and poorly on others?
• If so, what things did they do well?
Course # Course Name GradeCS 200 Web Programming B
Badges as Micro-credentials
• Receive recognition for smaller chunks of learning
• Easier to communicate skills to employers and other interested parties
• Metadata makes data open, providing greater insights into person’s skills (viewer could even re-grade the submitted project if they wanted to)
• Removing metadata weakens the potential of badges
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Badges and Informal Learning
• Receive recognition skills gained in informal and non-traditional settings
• Combined with badges issued in formal education, badges provide a fuller picture of a person’s skills
• Vetted badges issued by others could be accepted by a professor or university, allowing the student to spend more time of topics they do not know, or provide a shorter path to graduation
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Proposed Solutions to Bolster Badging BYU
Badges and Gamification
• Use something other than badges to gamify learning (points, levels, ranks, upgrades, etc.)
• Reserve badges for achievements and skills that have value outside of the learning environment
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http://www.iamprogrez.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/i
nfographic_The_business_of_gamification.png
Badges and Gamification – 2 Types of Badges
• First type of badges (lightweight) is only used in the learning environment; are not exportable
• Second type (weightier badges) recognize significant work and learning; these are exportable
• Less desirable option, because– 2 Badge types could create confusion– Continues to proliferate lightweight badges
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Rigor of Badge Creation
• Criteria for earning the badge must have weight.
• Number of criteria and difficulty of each criterion.
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Rigor of Badge Assessment
• Assessment process should provide learners with specific, formative feedback that allows learners to reach the level of mastery.
• This is not only important for learning, but also gives the badge more credibility as a legitimate credential.
• If the criteria are rigorous, but the assessment process is not, it can still result in lightweight badges.
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Badge Consortiums
• Universities, professional organizations, and other trusted groups could join together to issue badges
• Could ensure badges issued through consortium had weight
• Greater number of badges issued, increasing brand Recognition
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Randall, D. L., Harrison, J. B., & West, R. E. (2013). Giving credit where credit
is due: Designing Open Badges for a technology integration course.
TechTrends, 57(6), 88–95.
Davies, R., Randall, D., & West, R. E. (2015). Using Open Badges to Certify
Practicing Evaluators. American Journal of Evaluation, 36(2), 151–163.
doi:10.1177/1098214014565505
West, R. E., & Randall, D. L. (in-press). The Case for Rigor in Badges. In L.
Muilenburg & Z. Berge (Eds.), Digital Badges in Education: Trends,
Issues, and Cases. Routledge.
Daniel L. Randall
Richard E. West
?Contact us with
Questions
Thank You
Daniel L. Randall
www.danrandall.com
@dan2randall
Richard E. West
www.richardewest.com
@richardewest