open badges ‒ a new way of recognizing and demonstrating the skills of students and staff online
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Open Badges – a New Way of Recognizing and Demonstrating the Skills of Students and Staff
OnlineJenni Meriläinen
AdviserLahti University of Applied Sciences
May 2, 20231
Lahti University of Applied Sciences (Lahti UAS)
Located in Lahti, 8th largest city in Finland
Over 5 000 students, appr. 400 staff members
Professional Bachelors and Masters Degrees
Study fields: business design and communication social and health care technology and engineering no longer student intake: fine arts,
music, hospitality management
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Lahti
Open Badge - an online representation of skills, abilities or achievements
Growing need to recognise learning taking place in informal and non-traditional environments
Evidence-based and verified digital representations of skills and achievements
The learner at the center: tokens of skills and achievements visible online and not tied to school systems
http://openbadges.org/about/
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Open Badge - digital image with linked metadata
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Image: CC BY Kyle Bowen http://classhack.com/post/45364649211/open-badge-anatomy-updated
Metadata detailing who issued the badge, and what skills the learner has acquired (evidence-based and verified)
Learners can share the badge on their e-portfolios, websites, social media
Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI) developed by Mozilla
Acts as a validator between issuers and earners The infrastructure is open, not dependent on a specific
operating system Anyone can set up an open badge management system
and issue open badges for example schools, companies, networks
Lahti UAS uses the cloud-based Open Badge Factory platform to manage and issue open badges
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Mozilla Backpack or Open Badge Passport can be used by the recipient to collect, manage and display open badges
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Images: http://backpack.openbadges.org
From the backpack/passport, badges can be displayed in websites, e-portfolios etc.
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The open badge concept is complex
Open badges can take on a number of meanings depending on their implementation and function. In educational context, open badges can be seen as a motivator for behaviour (related to gamification) a pedagogical tool (promoting particular learning
activities) an alternative or supplement to traditional credentials
such as diplomas The process of earning a badge is a form of feedback
well-designed badges can serve as signifiers of what knowledge and skills are valued
Ahn, Pellicone & Butler 2014
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Principles of employing Open Badges in Lahti UAS
For students as a supplement to the existing credential structure to illustrate skills and to promote particular learning as a way recognizing student achievements in a more
flexible and nuanced way For staff as a way of recognizing and validating staff
competence in strategically important areas of expertise For partners
recognizing skills acquired in cooperation validating learning in continuing education
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Open Badges for Students: Career planning, working life competence & communication skills
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Career Planning: valuable working life competence which otherwise did not fit clearly into existing credentialing schemes
Professional and Expert Communicator badges:
Students are encouraged to invest in developing their language skills more than the minimum required for earning the degree
Open Badges for Students: ICT Project Master
A set of badges to represent IT students’ project skills and understanding of different roles needed in IT projects
Taking different roles in IT projects constitute lower level badges
4 different lower level badges grouped together qualify for a higher-level 'Project Master' badge
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Recognising and validating staff competence:Open Badges for Teachers
a digital badge system was designed to recognise and validate the pedagogical and digital skills acquired in a professional development programme for teachers
The programme is closely connected to the implementation of the new curriculum. Teachers are required to demonstrate the acquired skills in their teaching and course implementations
A few teachers from all faculties trained to act as peer mentors The process of earning a badge is designed to be a form of
feedback making the objectives of the programme tangible and transparent
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The pedagogical and digital competence areas identified to be recognised with open badges are:
future orientated thinking co-teaching transformative teaching practices assessment and feedback designing and implementing a learning
process online utilising digital tools in face-to-face
classroom situations utilising digital tools in collaborative
work verifying skills online
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The acceptance of the badges can be monitored in the open badge management system (OBF)
Open badges have been issued so far mainly for students
The professional development programme for teachers will be implemented 2016-2017. The acceptance of open badges will be monitored and feedback will be collected to assess the outcomes
Conclusions An open badge strategy is needed to build guiding
principles for open badge creation and issuing in order to create a meaningful, consistent and sustainable badge system
Open Badges provide an opportunity for branding the university badges exclusively for only one organisation? develop badges in collaboration on
national/international level? Follow-up on the recipients of open badges is needed to
examine the processes through which badges become used as credentials and how learners and other stakeholders experience badges
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Thank you!
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[email protected]: @JenniMerilainen
https://fi.linkedin.com/in/jennimerilainen