Open Badges – Moodle as Issuer, Mahara as Displayer• Project Goals, what are we trying to achieve?• Why?• How?• When?• What might happen afterwards?

Richard Wyles – July 2012Totara Learning Solutions

Why is the Open Badges initiative a good thing?

What’s new? Happens now, right?

Open Badges InfrastructureWhat’s the purpose? An indicator of accomplishment, skill or quality Networked = portability. Broader than classrooms

and universities Learners have multiple pathways to build their

skills, experiences and gain competencies Connected learning – the web enables increasing

access to information and to each other Can be more micro – e.g. align badges to

learning modules (self contained, structured learning with explicit learning outcomes and assessment)

Capturing the learning path

Illustrates the learning path rather than aggregated assessments

Badges can be more granular, aligned to a specific achievement

Portable, alternative certification model

Visual recognition of achievement, and metadata links to validation Perceived value will differ based on the “use

case”, or community. A wide variety of badge systems will emerge;

Formal education Professional bodies Peer to peer recognition Corporate, workplace learning

Infrastructure to support diversity of contexts with better robustness and connection to Issuer.

Metadata

Who was the Issuer? Issue date Brief description of how badge was earned URIs to artefacts, testimonials etc.

i.e. the e-portfolio Web service for verification.

“Did the Issuer issue the badge?” “Is it still valid?”

OBI Risks and Benefits

Infrastructure for alternative credentialing Modern society demands new and dynamic skills

and literacies. Requires innovation and flexibility in learning environments

Anyone can issue accreditations about anything? Won’t this lead to badge “bling” and therefore badges become meaningless? Badges need credibility but it’s within context Only some will gain credibility

Moodle as Issuer, Mahara as Displayer Core Project Principles

Open source Generic solution Infrastructure

approach = Sustainability

Why Moodle?

130+ active developers Massive use - 68,000+ registered sites serving

58m users, 75+ languages Most popular learning management software

globally 160,000+ downloads per month

Our solution is Open, not custom Core infrastructure in world’s most

popular LMS

Why Mahara? Designed for flexibility: reflective

learning, assessment, certification, and showcase for employment.

Includes social networking, resumé/CV builder

“Sister” app to Moodle Badges are more than static

images – value comes from metadata and linking to further evidence

See www.mahara.org

More than a badge More than a small button with

metadata – OBI provides an open infrastructure that will underpin presentation portfolios

A badge / portfolio combination enables you to click through to more detailed levels of evidence and explanation—documents, assessment results, testimonials, awards won, video, and more. i.e. verifiable evidence.

Why Totara? Totara LMS is a distribution of Moodle, designed

for workplace learning (in contrast to education);• Learning depends on roles, business unit,

strategic change etc.Individual development plansTeam managementCompetency managementLearning paths

Great alignment between badges and recognition for workplace learning

Moodle and Totara

Moodle is at the heart of Totara Totara stays in lock step with Moodle You can upgrade from Moodle to Totara and

vice versa Totara contributes innovations back to Moodle

Open Badges functionality is a good example

A brief history

Why Us?

How?

Technical Solution- Moodle

Leverage Moodle Activity completion to issue Badges – enables very flexible criteria; E.g. viewing a web page or a learner self-marking an

item as complete. Starting online discussions or replying to a specific

forum post. At the more formal level, activity completion, and

therefore the generation of a badge, may be set by achieving a certain score.

Technical Deliverables Overview

1. Rewrite Certificate module, dispense Open Badge PNGs instead of PDF files.

2. Web service approach (using Moodle’s web services API) will enable any displayer to verify badges issued by a specific Moodle site. (including social media).

3. Create a new block for Moodle that users will be able to place badges on their profile page.

4. Use the Moodle Portfolio API to push badges to Mahara. 5. New Mahara blocks display either a single badge or a collection

of badges. New portfolio ‘artefact’ will be created so that PNG files that have badge metadata will be identified as badges (and available to be selected by the new block).

6. Verification – separate library, permissive license (e.g. Apache v2)

When?

What might happen afterwards?

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structures

July August September October November December January February March April May June

Q3 - 2012 Q4 - 2012 Q1 - 2013 Q2 - 2013

Totara 2.2

Totara 2.3

Moodle 2.3

Totara 2.4

Moodle 2.4

Badges Project

Totara Cloud

Totara Social

Moodle 2.5