open badges for certification of lecturers and universities

1 S C I E N C E n P A S S I O N n T E C H N O L O G Y

u www.tugraz.at

Open Badges for Certification of Lecturers and Universities

21.12.17 Master‘s Thesis, Robert Hafner

2 2 Outline

•  Concept •  Research Questions •  Open Badges •  Open Educational Resources (OER) •  Project •  TYPO3 •  Implementation •  Conclusion •  Future Work

21.12.17 Robert Hafner

3 3 Concept

Starting Point •  Working Group „Open Educational Resource“ of

Forum Neue Medien in der Lehre Austria (fnm-austria)

•  Create a label to certify lecturers and Austrian universities with Open Badges

•  Central authority •  Parts and levels •  Certification system •  Specification Open Badges v.2.0


4 4 Certification System

Requirements •  Self-developed Open Badge issuer system

•  Open Source Software •  Modules or Extensions •  Long Term Support (LTS) •  Active community

Content Management System TYPO3


5 5 Research Questions

Q1: What are the aspects of a successful Open Badges system? Q2: Is TYPO3 a suitable technology for Open Badge issuing to certify lecturers and Austrian universities?


6 6 Open Badges

Definition: “Open Badges communicate skills and achievements by providing visual symbols of accomplishments packed with verifiable data and evidence that can be shared across the web.” Source: Badge Alliance, https://openbadges.org/about/ , last accessed 13.12.2017

Image (PNG, SVG) + Metadata = Open Badge Method: baking


7 7 Open Badges Ecosystem

•  Issuer: Awards Open Badges •  Recipient aka. Earner •  Displayer: Platform for displaying Open Badges •  Consumer: Employer, social organisation, community, … •  Backpack service: Stores Open Badges for Recipients, connects Displayers,

and Recipients


Source: Erik Knutson, Concentric Sky, licensed CC-BY

8 8 Open Badges Vocabulary Specification v2.0

JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) JavaScript Object Notation-Linked Data (JSON-LD) Core Data Classes:

Validation and verification


Source: https://www.imsglobal.org/sites/default/ files/Badges/OBv2p0/faq/index.html IMS Global

9 9 Conclusion Q1 1/2

•  Conventional institutions have problems setting up an ecosystem

•  Acceptance increases by reducing the formal level of institution

•  Inclusion in existing social environment •  Internal endorsement works better than external

endorsement •  If the ecosystem competes with alternative information

sources - badges did not succeed Source: Hickey, Daniel T, J Willis, and J Quick “Where badges work better”, 2015



Gamification •  Recipients need to be informed about the current

position and how to reach the next level •  The closer a recipient is to the next level, the higher

the steering influence of the issuer Source:Anderson, Ashton, Daniel Huttenlocher, Jon Kleinberg, and Jure Leskovec „Steering user behavior with badges”, 2013

Incentives •  The incentives are less effective if the number of

awarded badges increases Source: Easley, David and Arpita Ghosh, „Incentives, gamification, and game theory: an economic approach to badge design”, 2016


11 11 Open Educational Resources

Definition: “Open Educational Resources are defined as technology-enabled, open provision of educational resources for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes.” Source: UNESCO, „Forum on the Impact of Open Courseware for Higher Education in Developing Countries”, 2002


12 12 Open Educational Resources

Metadata standard for learning material •  IEE Learning Object Metadata (LOM)

•  9 categories and 60 elements •  Dublin Core

•  15 elements •  Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI)

•  17 elements •  CreativeWork, AlignmentObject, EducationalRole

Source: Rensing, Christoph „Standards für Lehr-und Lerntechnologien-Metadaten, Inhaltsformate und Beschreibung von Lernprozessen”. 2013


13 13 Project

•  Stakeholder – all involved persons and organisations •  Actors-Roles

•  Lecturer •  Inserts data metadata

•  Austrian university •  Inserts data

•  Central Authority/Administrator/Editor •  Checks input and issue Open Badges

•  Consumer •  Visitors of website


14 14 Modularisation

•  Generate and maintain content (text, news) •  Module for client input data (lecturer and universities)

- without login •  Verify the input and maintain the conditions •  Open Badge issue system


15 15 TYPO3

CMS: application to manage, create, store, edit, and distribute content (files, images, and media) for the web •  Certifications

•  Editor, Integrator, Developer, Consultant •  Structure

•  Core system, Extensions •  Front End, Back End, TypoScript

•  Long Term Support


16 16 TYPO3 Extension

Inbuilt principles: •  Object Oriented Programming •  Coding Standard •  Domain Driven Development •  Model View Controller Pattern •  Test Driven Development Front End, Back End Plugin


17 17 Implementation/Content


Robert Hafner, CC-BY

18 18 Implementation/User Input

SYS:Form Domain Model


Robert Hafner, CC-BY Robert Hafner, CC-BY

19 19 Implementation/Conditions

Lecturer: input is serialized and inserted into the domain model University: input is inserted into the domain model by the Editor



20 20 Implementation Open Badges Issuer System

Five Open Badges




•  Editorial Content •  Perfect

•  Data Input •  SYS:Form

•  Conditions •  Depends on programming language



Open Badges issuer system •  Domain modeling made by extension_builder

•  fails if number of models increases significantly •  real_url extension is needed for verification of the

linked Data Classes •  collapse of the TypoScript


23 23 Future Work

•  Login System for lecturers and universities (Campus Management System) •  Backpack services

•  Careful implementation of gamification •  Dashboard with charts

•  Extension class for the Open Educational Resources metadata

•  Blockchain Badgechain


24 24 Alternatives

•  Web application framework such as Zend framework, Spring MVC, Django, etc.

•  Provider of Open Badges issuer system (Open Badge Factory) and a Web Content Management System

•  Fork the server of Open Badge issuer system Badgr-Django


25 25

Thank you for

your attentation!
