Track B2 - Open Badges: Capturing and Rewarding Hidden Learning

Dr Simon Best, Middlesex University, Business School

John Parkinson, Centre for Academic Practice Enhancement (CAPE)

John Parkinson, Senior Academic Developer (CAPE) and Dr Simon Best, Senior Lecturer in the Business School, teamed up to tell us about digital badges; what they are, the results of a pilot implementation on a module (MGT3193 Business Start Up) and how they might be used going forward.

We were introduced to the idea that digital badges share many of the attributes of traditional badges earned in organisations like the Scouts and Guides, to identify and promote achievements that can be developed through some type of process. They can be seen as a type of “credentialing system” arising out of research into gamification of learning.

A main driver for the use of digital badges has been the Mozilla Foundation. After working with major organisations, such as NASA, they launched the OBI (Open Badge Infrastructure) in 2011, which provides a common system for the creation, issuance and verification if Digital Badges across a variety of platforms. Then in 2013 Mozilla created the Badge Backpack, an online space where badge recipients can store and present their badges to others.

The badge itself is a 250 x 250 pixel graphic, which can be encoded with metadata, such as the awarding institution and information about the skill achieved. The challenge is to create a meaningful visual within this size restriction. If schools want to consider using the Middlesex logo going forward, the institution would need to consider what is going out with that endorsement.  An awarded badge gets added to users’ individual online ‘back-packs’ and these can link to social media, such as Linked In.

“So what about the pedagogy?” poses John; after reviewing around 50 papers, he found little literature so far for their use in education but there is some work emerging around self-efficacy via motivation and assessment. Possibly badges can be considered as signposts for learning, sitting alongside the curriculum.

After a step by step demonstration of how easy it is to create and administer badges in My Learning, John handed over to Simon Best for a run through of how the pilot was applied to MGT3193. This module is taught using disruptive learning methodology, whereby students are not provided with texts or reading lists but spend the first few weeks learning what is expected of them, in order to work through four linked, progressive assessments; a reflective essay, a group progress presentation, a business plan and a final presentation that involves contributions from each member of the group.  The working groups are carefully constructed based on a combination of Belbin’s roles, what the students are majoring in and the spread of skills and knowledge. Their assessment is not based on right or wrong answers but whether they can acquire and apply tools and skills to support/back-up their arguments. Badges were awarded for; leadership, research and communication and if they acquired all three, they would automatically receive the forth (group leadership).

Initially Simon and John began the pilot thinking that badges would be useful for employability but at this stage of the project evidence is still being collated on the affordances of badges for professional credentialing. However, they do feel that there is something around cognitive ability and supporting assessment to be reviewed and explored in the future.

Simon reflected that “we don’t assess or reward an enormous amount of skills that the students pick up”, which prompted a question about using badges to capture the learning between modules, for example, being a student voice representative or giving a presentation.

To find out more about this innovative pilot, please watch the video of the session or review the slides via the links.

Report by Louise Merlin, eLearning Content Manager, Centre for Academic Practice Enhancement (CAPE)