Digital Badges / Open Badges Taxonomy

Working on the taxonomy of digital badges / open badges is an interesting empirical and conceptual endeavour. I have been looking into different types of badges as part of the “Discussion Paper on Open Badges and Quality Assurance” on which I have been recently working in context of the European Project “Badge Europe” (Erasmus+, Strategic Partnership). Before the first draft of the discussion paper will be open to public for comments and edits, I would like to share the first draft of the taxonomy of digital and open badges. I have proposed a classification based on three categories – (1) content-related: what the badge represents, (2) issuer-related: who issues the badge, and (3) process-related: how the badge was achieved.

This is just a first attempt and I would be very glad to get your feedback on this. Thank you to the authors who inspired my work in this area – Carla Casilli, Hans Poldoja, Grant MacDonald (follow the links to find out more about their typologies), and Nigel Lloyd who is working with us on the “Badge Europe” project.

So here is the first list ready for your comments, extensions and examples in this Google Table!

This taxonomy with examples from practice can be also viewed in SlideShare:

http://www.slideshare.net/ibuchem/open-badges-taxonomie

TAXONOMY OF DIGITAL BADGES / OPEN BADGES
1 Content-related categories (what the badge represents)
1.1 Achievement badges (demonstration of achievements)
1.2 Competence badges (demonstration of knowledge, skills, competence).
1.3 Potential badges (indicators of future performance)
1.4 Participation badges (evidence of participation, e.g. events)
1.5 Membership badges (represents membership, e.g. club)
1.6 Commitment badges (attitudes, values, beliefs)
1.7 Encouragement badges (good work stamps)

2 Issuer-related categories (who issued the badge)
2.1 Organisational badges (issued by university, employer)
2.2 Team badges (issued by teams, groups)
2.3 Expert badges (issued by an expert)
2.4 Social badges (issued by peers, communities)
2.5 Endorser badge (endorsed by an organisation, expert etc.)

3 Process-related categories (how the badge was achieved)
3.1 Activity badges (based on single measurable learning activity)
3.2 Mission badges (based on a series of activities)
3.3 Assignment badges (based on completing a single assignment)
3.4 Composite badges (achieved by completing multiple assignments)
3.5 Progress badges (based on the progress on a given task)
3.6 Grade badges (based on formal grades)
3.7 Level badges (based on several levels)

Digital strategies in higher education

I am proud to announce that we are one of the winners of the digital strategy competition by the Stifterverband and Heinz Nixdorf Stiftung! As one of the 8 winners selected out of from 99 submissions from all over Germany, we will be developing educational digital strategies in all of our faculties at Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin. Beuth University is a university of “educational climbers” (e.g. 55% of our students come from non-academic families) and so the goal of our digital strategy is to use digital media to improve the study process and occupational perspectives, helping “educational climbers” become “educational winners”.

The focus of our digital strategy development is supporting diversity of students in all phases of the student life-line, which is a concept we developed to outline the different pathways students take before and with entering the university until leaving the university and beyond (e.g. alumni relations). Our three guiding principles are:

• Using digital media to enhance educational quality, especially in terms of personalisation and development of self-competence, providing opportunities for building individual capabilities;
• Using digital media to support diversity of students, especially in terms of diverse social, economic and cultural backgrounds, diverse competency levels and life circumstances;
• Using digital media to help students prepare for connected digital life, especially in terms of the new requirements and conditions in digital economy and digital work.

An interesting part of designing digital strategies at Beuth University will be the Design-based Research (DBR) methodology to conceptualise and implement digital strategies iteratively in natural settings and at the same time to generate new scientific insights and frameworks for designing digital strategies in higher education.

You can find out more about the digital strategy competition by the Stifterverband and the 8 finalists here.

We will soon set up a website with more information about the process and outcomes of digital strategy development at Beuth University. You can view the films about the diversity of students at Beuth University on YouTube.

Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future

Learning and Diversity in the Cities of the Future was the focus of the 4th PLE Conference, which I was happy to host at Beuth University of Applied Sciences in Berlin. Now we the paper copy of the proceedings published by Logos Verlag Berlin can be ordered online.

The conference addresses the issue of smart cities, one of the key research priorities worldwide. The relatively new concept of “smart cities” has triggered a number of research and development programs, including the Horizon 2020 strategy of the European Commission, which has emphasised inclusive and sustainable growth as well as security and citizenship in the cities of the future. Discussions around smart cities have so far revolved around smart urban technologies and infrastructures targeting energy efficiency (e.g. alternative energy sources), smart transport (e.g. new mobility concepts), enabling technologies (e.g. nano-science, bio-science), but also understanding social, economic and cultural issues that are involved in the transformation of urban spaces into smart cities.

Since smart cities can be viewed as smart learning environments supporting people in their daily lives in a proactive yet unobtrusive way, learning and diversity of the citizens in the cities of the future becomes one of the key issues in relation to citizens operating in and shaping these smart technology-enhanced environments.

The papers included in the proceedings provide rich and valuable theoretical and empirical insights into learning and diversity in the cities of the future from the perspective of ever evolving Personal Learning Environments which may be conceptualised as smart urban learning environments.

The electronic version of the proceedings is available as PDF under CC BY-NC-SA here:

v5.0_PLE_Conference2013_ResearchReport_BeuthUniversity_MonashUniversity

 

Open Badges for Online Reputation

The January 2015 eMadrid Seminar at Universidad Carlos III was dedicated to “Badges for the Recognition of Learning in the Digital Age”.

I was honoured to be one of the speakers together with Michael Amigot (IBL Studios Education), Daniel T. Hickey (Indiana University) and José Cuerva (Instituto de Tecnologías Educativas y de Formación del Profesorado). You can view the eMadrid Semianar program here.

My talk focused on using Open Badges for the recognition of learning and online reputation in context of my recent projects:

• Beuth Badges, in which we develop a badging system for Beuth University,
• Credit Points, in which we have applied Open Badges to recognise learning and enhance online reputation of migrant academics,
• Badge Europe, in which we develop a network of stakeholders,an Open Badge MOOC and a European infrastructure for Open Badges.

Based on the rationale that Open Badges can be used to recognise and communicate learning which takes place not only in formal settings (which is believed to make approx. only 10% of all learning) but also in informal and non-formal settings (which makes most of learning), I discussed badges as the missing link in the “open education ecosystem”. My argument was that Open Badges may provide value added to the current credentialing system especially in view of  the demand of unique skills and talents on the occupational market place.

You may view the recording of my talk on Vimeo.

Below are also my slides from SlideShare:

Open Badges for Recognition of Learning and Online Reputation from Ilona Buchem

CfP: Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning

I am glad to announce the following Call for Papers:

Special Track on Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL)
at the Immersive Learning Research Network Conference iLRN 2015
July 13-14, 2015, Prague, Czech Republic
http://immersivelrn.org/ilrn2015prague

 

Topic of the Special Track

Wearable technologies – such as smart watches, smart glasses, smart objects, smart earbuds, or smart garments – are just starting to transform immersive user experience into formal education and learning at the workplace. These devices are body-worn, equipped with sensors and conveniently integrate into leisure and work-related activities including physical movements of their users.

Wearable-technology Enhanced Learning (WELL) is beginning to emerge as a new discipline in technology enhanced learning in combination with other relevant trends like the transformation of classrooms, new mobility concepts, cyber-physical systems and the transformation of industries like logistics and industrial production.

This special track is the off-spring of the new SIG WELL in the context of the European Association for Technology Enhanced Learning (EATEL). The SIG would like to use the opportunity to present itself as a new platform for scientific and industrial knowledge exchange. It is supported by EATEL and major EU research projects in the field like Learning Layers and Tellme.

List of Topics

• Industry 4.0 and wearable enhanced learning
• Learning Analytics for Wearable technologies
• Wearable technologies for health and fitness
• Wearable technologies and affective computing
• TEL applications of smart glasses, watches, armbands
• Learning context and activity recognition for wearable enhanced learning
• Body-area learning networks with wearable technologies
• Data collection from wearables
• Feedback from wearables
• Learning designs with wearable technologies
• Augmented Reality Learning
• Ad hoc learning with wearables
• Micro learning with wearables
• Security and privacy for wearable technology enhanced learning
• Collaborative wearable technology enhanced learning

Dates

• Full paper submission: March 1, 2015
• Notification of authors: April 15, 2015
• Full paper submission: May 15, 2015
• Date of the conference: July 13-14, 2015

All accepted full papers will be published with IOS Press as part of the workshop proceedings of the Intelligent Environments conference (IE’15). All other accepted contributions will be published as online proceedings linked to an ISSN number. Authors of selected papers will also be invited to extend their contribution and to be published in a special issue of the Transactions of Future Intelligent Education Environments journal (TOFIEE).

Track chairs

Ilona Buchem, Beuth University of Applied Sciences Berlin, Germany

Ralf Klamma, RWTH Aachen University, Germany,

Fridolin Wild, Open University, UK

Special Interest Group

The EA-TEL Special Interest Group on Wearable-Technology Enhanced Learning

Please visit us on: http://ea-tel.eu/special-interest-groups/well/

Europortfolio German Chapter

The Europortfolio German Chapter was launched on 3rd December 2014 during the international conference Online Educa Berlin 2014.

We invite everyone interested in ePortfolios to participate in the German ePortfolio community and contribute to its further development. The German Chapter as a Community of Practice of ePortfolio stakeholders intends to:

• Popularise ePortfolio in Germany as an approach to support lifelong learning;
• Gather and visualise information on ePortfolio uses and use forms including technical, conceptual and educational issues related to ePortfolios development and ePortfolio implementation,
• Bring together different stakeholders interested in ePortfolios to discuss related issues,
• Foster interdisciplinary communication and collaboration between various stakeholders,
• Map the hitherto developments and work conducted as part of the ePortfolio movement in Germany,
• Increase transparency of initiatives, projects and research on ePortfolios in Germany,
• Jointly develop research questions and initiate research on ePortfolios,
• Initiate research and development projects related to ePortfolios,
• Increase the number of publications on ePortfolios,
• Foster international networking and exchange in German speaking countries, EU and beyond.

We welcome everyone interested in ePortfolios to connect and work with us!

Here is a link our kick-off webinar on Thursday, 29th January 2015, 6.00 – 7.30 pm CET in Adobe Connect:

https://webconf.vc.dfn.de/europortfoliode (please log in as “guest”)

We will introduce the German Chapter and our first ideas about community activities in 2015.

Join us to discuss and plan together! 

The founding members of the German Chapter:

Prof. Dr. Ilona Buchem

Prof. Dr. Matthias Rohs

Timo van Treeck, M.A.

Jörg Hafer

Sibylle Würz

Christian Kleinhanß

Photo by Darren Cambridge CC NC-BY-SA

What is Europortfolio? 

Europortfolio is a not-for profit association being developed with the support of European Commission as a central part of EPNET project, dedicated to exploring how ePortfolios and ePortfolio related technologies and practices can help empower individuals, organisations and wider society. Europortfolio provides a network for those doing ePortfolio and related work across Europe; to build the use of e-portfolios across communities, and to provide opportunities for future partnership working.

You can find out more about the Europortfolio here.

Digital Literacy and Education

In 2014 Wikimedia Deutschland e.V. hosted a series of events on “Digital Competencies”. The fifth and final event of the series took place on 17th November 2014 and was dedicated to the digitisation of education. The question of the event was “Digital learning on your own – How do we deal with changes in learning?”. Even if I had barely time to prepare as I was invited last minute to substitute for a colleague, I enjoyed the podium discussion with: Simon Koehl, Nina Lindlahr and Axel Krommer,

The common denominator of the discussion was that there is still much to be done in formal education as far as digital literacy of teachers and students is concerned. Also everyone tended to agree that digital media will keep on playing an important role both in formal and informal learning, which will contribute to diminishing of boundaries between different learning contexts as well as between teaching and learning, eventually leading to new hybrid forms of learning.

You can find the notes from the event including video recordings in Wikimedia Blog.

Photo by S. Horn Dasch (WMDE), CC-BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Digital Learning and Open Badges

My participation in “Digital Learning” event by Wikimedia Deutschland came as a surprise and turned out to be an interesting panel and discussion session on digital learning and digital competencies in formal and informal education. Some of the issues raised where how to bring informal and formal learning together and what competencies will be necessary to engage in digital learning or learning in digitised conditions in the future. As far as the integration of formal and informal learning is concerned, one of the most promising approaches to me are Personal Learning Environments and Personal Learning Networks, as they are both very useful in supporting learners in connecting different spheres of learning. As far as the future competencies for leaning in digitised environments, I think that “knowing yourself” and “learning how to learn” will be crucial for self-directed learning in environments abundant with data, media, resources, means of communication and means of expression. What role can Open Badges play in all this? As “knowing yourself” and “learning how to learn” also include self-reflection and self-assessment, we could think about how Open Badges may support self-reflection and self-assessment (e.g. What are my strengths? How do I learn best?) in the process of mutual awareness-building in open learning environments.

Here are my slides and here the recording of the live stream.

Thanks Axel Krommer and Simon Köhl for a good session!

Mobile Learning and Open Badges

I have been invited to give a presentation on Mobile Learning and Open Badges at the Mobile Learning Day X(tended) 2014 at Fernuni Hagen (Germany). It has been a good impulse to start thinking about how open badges can be used in mobile learning scenarios and whether there is any difference to non-mobile uses and platforms. Will there be anything like a mobile badge in the future? Or are open badges already mobile because the very OBI infrastructure enables to issue and display badges across systems, contexts and people? During the Mozilla Festival 2014 event of our new EU project on open badges – Badge Europe – we have discussed future visions and scenarios on open badges and the idea of a digital badge card, similar to the electronic ticketing such as oyster card, emerged from this discussion. The idea is that one day we could have a digital card with different digital artefacts on it, including badges, we we could sweep at terminals to convert badges to something different, be it an entrance to a workshop, a lecture, coaching or consulting. Yet again this idea considers the mobility of a badge based on its exchange across systems, contexts and people.

I wonder if the mobility of a badge could be also considered on a different level. Any thoughts on this?

Below are my slides (in German) on open badges and mobile learning, where I have given two examples of mobile communities (busuu & foodzy) which already apply badges, not open badges though.

Mobile Learning & Open Badges from Ilona Buchem

Serendipity, diversity and creativity in learning

Last week I gave a keynote presentation on serendipity and diversity in learning at FH Dortmund (Germany) as part of the KomDiM project related to Competency Development in Diversity Management in Higher Education. I enjoyed dwelling on serendipity and serendipitous learning a lot. Since my first article on serendipitous learning, followed by the book chapter in 2012, there have been a number of publications related to serendipity citing my work (e.g.  Saadatmand & Kumpulainen; Timo van Treeck & Martin Ebner; Aladjem & Nachmias). This years’ presentation explored the links between serendipity, diversity and creativity in relation to education and learning. You will find the slides in SlideShare (in German).

It could be the right time to work on a serendipity follow-up article in 2015 🙂

Serendipity & Diversity from Ilona Buchem