Badges

Pre-Planning

Prototyping

Beta deployment

Full deployment

Draft
This is an overview of the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure Project.
Please help edit and improve!

The Open Badge Infrastructure Project is platform for learners to gather badges from independent issuers, manage badges and then display them across the web.

New communications assets in development

• One-pager. Including 5-sentence summary. (DRAFT ONLY)
• Napkin sketch. Illustrating the user experience. (DRAFT ONLY)
• Frequently Asked Questions (F.A.Q.) (DRAFT ONLY)
• User stories. Everyday examples of badges in the real world. (DRAFT ONLY)
• Technology diagram. Tech overview for developers & partners. New graphic design coming.

The project in 5 sentences

1. Learning no longer looks like it was traditionally imagined - learners are learning across all contexts, across ages, across time and across the Web, but we do little to support that learning at this point.
2. We need to empower learners to capture learning as it occurs and be able to carry it with them across contexts, and translate it back to things like formal schools or job interviews.
3. Mozilla, P2PU, MacArthur and others are exploring badges as this alternative route to certification and accreditation - learners can earn badges across learning experiences to demonstrate skills, achievements, qualities and affiliations.
4. To truly support learning anywhere, we need an infrastructure to allow learners to earn badges from independent issuers, collect them to a single identity and carry them with them and share them across the web.
5. Mozilla is building an Open Badge Infrastructure with standards based only identity tools as a way to support this broader vision.

Get involved

• Check out screen caps of badge backpack prototype here.
• Read the working badge paper here
• Check out the School of Webcraft badge pilot here
• Give us feedback through the mailing list
• Share your own ideas, tools and resources through our mailing list.

The Open Badge Infrastructure

Description

In order to enable people to earn badges from wherever they are learning across the web, there needs to be a way to allow for individual badge issuers. Any learner could collect badges from multiple sites, tied to a single identity and then share them out with various sites like a personal blog or LinkedIn. This infrastructure should be open to allow anyone to issue badges, and each learner to carry the badges with them across the Web or other contexts.

Prototype

A prototype of the infrastructure was built at Drumbeat Festival in Barcelona. The prototype was updated and advanced in early January 2011. A more complete and working prototype will be used for the January badge pilot.

Screencapture from the prototype:

Diagram of the Open Badge Infrastructure

More Information/Documentation

• Background work: Josh's work on badges infrastructure, which plays into assessments http://joshuagay.org/blog/
• Other

Related Tools

• Mozilla Hub identity systems
• Badger badge issuing system
• Others?

Context: Badges For Learning

Working Badge Paper

• We have written a foundational paper to capture our current thinking: read the badge paper

Use Cases

There are a number of use cases that we are building the badge infrastructure to accommodate. They include:

• Open Education Training/Courses
  • Example: Web Developer Training
  • Partner: Mozilla/P2PU - School of Webcraft
• Informal Learning outside of schools
  • Example: Afterschool programs, museums and libraries
  • Partner: The MacArthur Local Learning Networks + You Media Centres
• Formal Education
  • Example: Badges for learning and achievements in and across formal HE courses
  • Current Implementations: Badges for courses at Quinnipiac University, ASU is including badges on transcripts in addition to completed courses and final grades
• Community Affiliation and Reputation
  • Example: Earning badges within a local art community to signify identity and reputation in that community, can then carry across communities
• Others? Let us know!

Example: School of Webcraft Badge Pilot

The School of Webcraft (SoW) is a joint initiative between Mozilla and Peer 2 Peer University, offering free, peer-driven courses and study groups on open web development. This pilot will give us a chance to test the infrastructure in its prototype form.

We are piloting an assessment/badge effort in the January-March session of SoW sessions.

The Assessment and Badge pilot is the introduction of assessments and associated badges into the School of Webcraft. There are a number of skill (Javascript, PHP) and value (Accessibility) assessments that Webcraft learners can submit to to earn bdages, as well as peer-to-peer badges (Good Teammate, Peer Mentor, etc.), that learners can give one another. The pilot is a joint effort between P2PU and Mozilla.

More information/Documentation

• Dedicated Assessment and Badge Environment
• Assessment and Badge Plan
• P2PU wiki page
• Pilot Summary for SoW Course Organizers
• Background Work: Starting point
• Background Work: Deep dive on concrete examples
• Background Work: Initial SoW Badge Planning

Project Tools

• Mailing List
• roadmap: draft in progress here
• presentation deck: (coming soon)
• issue tracker: (coming soon)
• source code: (coming soon)
• community calls: Thursdays 8am PST/11am EST, Call details and notes
• Drumbeat project page:
• wiki page: wiki.mozilla.org/Drumbeat/Badges
• chat room (IRC): coming soon

Team

• Erin Knight, Badge and Assessment Lead, Mozilla and P2PU
• Brian Brennan, Open Badge Infrastructure Tech Lead, Mozilla
• Philipp Schmidt, Executive Director, P2PU
• Pippa Buchanan, School of Webcraft Community Lead, Mozilla and P2PU
• Matt Thompson, Education Lead, Mozilla