Post on 16-May-2015
Open Badges – Moodle as Issuer, Mahara as Displayer• Project Goals, what are we trying to achieve?• Why?• How?• When?• What might happen afterwards?
Richard Wyles – July 2012Totara Learning Solutions
Why is the Open Badges initiative a good thing?
What’s new? Happens now, right?
Open Badges InfrastructureWhat’s the purpose? An indicator of accomplishment, skill or quality Networked = portability. Broader than classrooms
and universities Learners have multiple pathways to build their
skills, experiences and gain competencies Connected learning – the web enables increasing
access to information and to each other Can be more micro – e.g. align badges to
learning modules (self contained, structured learning with explicit learning outcomes and assessment)
Capturing the learning path
Illustrates the learning path rather than aggregated assessments
Badges can be more granular, aligned to a specific achievement
Portable, alternative certification model
Visual recognition of achievement, and metadata links to validation Perceived value will differ based on the “use
case”, or community. A wide variety of badge systems will emerge;
Formal education Professional bodies Peer to peer recognition Corporate, workplace learning
Infrastructure to support diversity of contexts with better robustness and connection to Issuer.
Metadata
Who was the Issuer? Issue date Brief description of how badge was earned URIs to artefacts, testimonials etc.
i.e. the e-portfolio Web service for verification.
“Did the Issuer issue the badge?” “Is it still valid?”
OBI Risks and Benefits
Infrastructure for alternative credentialing Modern society demands new and dynamic skills
and literacies. Requires innovation and flexibility in learning environments
Anyone can issue accreditations about anything? Won’t this lead to badge “bling” and therefore badges become meaningless? Badges need credibility but it’s within context Only some will gain credibility
Moodle as Issuer, Mahara as Displayer Core Project Principles
Open source Generic solution Infrastructure
approach = Sustainability
Why Moodle?
130+ active developers Massive use - 68,000+ registered sites serving
58m users, 75+ languages Most popular learning management software
globally 160,000+ downloads per month
Our solution is Open, not custom Core infrastructure in world’s most
popular LMS
Why Mahara? Designed for flexibility: reflective
learning, assessment, certification, and showcase for employment.
Includes social networking, resumé/CV builder
“Sister” app to Moodle Badges are more than static
images – value comes from metadata and linking to further evidence
See www.mahara.org
More than a badge More than a small button with
metadata – OBI provides an open infrastructure that will underpin presentation portfolios
A badge / portfolio combination enables you to click through to more detailed levels of evidence and explanation—documents, assessment results, testimonials, awards won, video, and more. i.e. verifiable evidence.
Why Totara? Totara LMS is a distribution of Moodle, designed
for workplace learning (in contrast to education);• Learning depends on roles, business unit,
strategic change etc.Individual development plansTeam managementCompetency managementLearning paths
Great alignment between badges and recognition for workplace learning
Moodle and Totara
Moodle is at the heart of Totara Totara stays in lock step with Moodle You can upgrade from Moodle to Totara and
vice versa Totara contributes innovations back to Moodle
Open Badges functionality is a good example
A brief history
Why Us?
How?
Technical Solution- Moodle
Leverage Moodle Activity completion to issue Badges – enables very flexible criteria; E.g. viewing a web page or a learner self-marking an
item as complete. Starting online discussions or replying to a specific
forum post. At the more formal level, activity completion, and
therefore the generation of a badge, may be set by achieving a certain score.
Technical Deliverables Overview
1. Rewrite Certificate module, dispense Open Badge PNGs instead of PDF files.
2. Web service approach (using Moodle’s web services API) will enable any displayer to verify badges issued by a specific Moodle site. (including social media).
3. Create a new block for Moodle that users will be able to place badges on their profile page.
4. Use the Moodle Portfolio API to push badges to Mahara. 5. New Mahara blocks display either a single badge or a collection
of badges. New portfolio ‘artefact’ will be created so that PNG files that have badge metadata will be identified as badges (and available to be selected by the new block).
6. Verification – separate library, permissive license (e.g. Apache v2)
When?
What might happen afterwards?
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structures
July August September October November December January February March April May June
Q3 - 2012 Q4 - 2012 Q1 - 2013 Q2 - 2013
Totara 2.2
Totara 2.3
Moodle 2.3
Totara 2.4
Moodle 2.4
Badges Project
Totara Cloud
Totara Social
Moodle 2.5