Lessons Learned from a Decade of Badging

As a result of this workshop, participants can expect to be able to:

• Discuss successes and failures in the badging movement
• Evaluate areas digital badges work best
• Identify best practices in badge system design and implementation
• Identify strategies to use as they develop framework and governance documents to support their digital badge strategies.
• Reflect on what works, what doesn’t and when to rethink!
• Prepare for emerging trends in badging

As individuals secure their learning from multiple sources across their lifetimes, communication and certification systems are evolving to enable the efficient and verifiable documentation of skills. Digital badges, while a seemingly new, untested credential, have actually been around for at least a decade and is recognized globally as a verifiable credential. Here in the U.S. most, most believe it was the  Mozilla/MacArthur funded projects which propelled digital badging into the educational realm. While it is nice to think the U.S. is a leader in this space, globally there are thousands of badge ecosystems which are doing quite well. Audience members will gain valuable knowledge about how their institution and companies can empower individuals through recognition of achievements demonstrated both inside and outside of traditional education while maintaining compliance with accrediting agencies.  As we discuss best practices in the development of a digital badge ecosystem, we will engage audience members in exercises to identify areas for potential digital badges and to design appropriate metadata to document skills and applied learning. Audience members will engage in discussions about the emerging role digital badges could play in one's career and educational pathway. As leaders in the digital badge space, we will use examples of how different institutions, 2-year and 4-year, create scalable and sustainable digital badge ecosystems which encourage badge earners to claim digital badges as one component in their education to work pathway. We will disseminate additional badging models which have success in informing program development in both credit and non-credit course design.  

Outline of Presentation:

1. Engagement (5-7 minutes)—

   1. Introduction

      1. History of digital badges

   2. Timeline of development

      1. Mozilla’s work in 2010 and Badge Alliance

      2. LearningTimes’ working 2010 with NYC

      3. MacArthur Foundation competition in 2011

      4. Open badges

      5. BadgeOS as open source

      6. Other providers

      7. DigitalMe support of open backpack

   3. IMS’ involvement

      1. Current state of OB v. 2.0

2. Explanation & Exploration (15-20 minutes)

   1. Discuss successes and failures in the digital badge movement

      1. Equity, access, social movement, free range learning, etc.

   2. Lessons learned

      1. Skills and Competencies

      2. Empower Earner/Learner

      3. Stakeholder Education

      4. Motivation-Gamification

      5. Pathways

      6. Professional development

   3. Highlight best practices for badge development

      1. Framework and governance documents

      2. Case Studies

      3. Pathways

   4. Address the challenges of introducing badges in a traditional higher education setting

   5. Credit vs. non-credit

      1. Transcript or not

      2. Scalability

      3. Sustainability

   6. Revenue generation models

3. Elaboration & Closing (5-7 minutes)—

   1. Future of badges

      1. The marriage of badges and blockchain

      2. Work with credential engine

      3. Continued acceptance with talent management

      4. More integrations with tools

   2. Brainstorming: audience suggestions for use of badges within their own institutions

4. Q & A