Advice for issuers on planning, requesting, creating and managing new open digital badges. What are the benefits of open digital badges? Image Open digital badges have benefits for both earners and issuers. Benefits for issuers include: motivating earners to continue learning and engaging in an activity providing an easy way to share validated skills and achievements with potential employers verifiable, embedded metadata (information) that goes beyond the limited information provided on a certificate, report or simple image verifiable metadata which makes a digital badge hard to fake, forge or copy Who can issue a University open digital badge? University of Edinburgh schools, programmes, service groups and staff can use the BadgEd service to issue agreed digital badges to both University students/staff and to external learners undertaking University courses or activities. How could I start issuing a University digital badge? If you have an idea for a new digital badge, the process begins with planning the badge. It is essential to consult our planning guidance and your local digital badge Champion during this part of the process, as they can advise on next steps. In some cases, you may also wish to organise a workshop with the BadgEd team to help you explore and clarify the proposed use case and next steps. Your conversations with your Champion about your badge idea are a key part of the planning and request process. Once your plans are fully developed, your Champion will help you complete the relatively simple request form. It's important to take the time to develop the wording on the form, as this will be the wording that appears publicly in your badge information. After you've submitted your new badge request, the Governance team will evaluate your request, giving feedback and suggestions. Please allow 4-6 weeks for the entire review process. After your new badge is approved, you will receive your Canvas Credentials login and further technical guidance on how to actually issue the badge to your earners. As an issuer, you are responsible for confirming all award criteria have been met before issuing a digital badge. Image Digital Badges Champions Image Open Digital Badge Champions will be your first point of contact for any questions or issues. They assist with the open digital badge applications, and they can also help manage the creation and issuing of badges for their School or professional service group if needed. You can find the list of current Champions below. If your School or Deanery is not listed, or if you are unsure who to contact, please raise a call to the IS Helpline who will be able to help further. Contact IS Helpline about Champions Expand all Collapse all Champions in the College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences Business School: Alison Christie, Alison.Christie@ed.ac.uk Business School: Eli Appleby-Donald, Eli.Appleby-Donald@ed.ac.uk School of Social and Political Sciences: Jennifer Sato, Jennifer.Sato@ed.ac.uk Champions in the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine Usher Institute: Matt Sanders, Matt.Sanders@ed.ac.uk Royal (Dick) School of Veterinary Studies: Gordon Littlejohn, Gordon.Littlejohn@ed.ac.uk Champions in the College of Science and Engineering Bayes Institute: Fraser Pullar, Fraser.Pullar@ed.ac.uk Champions in the Information Services Group Digital Skills: Satu Kapiainen, Satu.Kapiainen@ed.ac.uk ISG: Delia Georgescu, delia.georgescu@ed.ac.uk Champions in the University Secretary's Group Edinburgh Award and Careers Service: Kirsty Stewart, Kirsty.Stewart2@ed.ac.uk Champions in Edinburgh Innovations Christina Starko, Christina.Starko@ei.ed.ac.uk Expand all Collapse all Questions to consider: Support and guidance for potential badge issuers In the section below, you can find resources and guidance to support you in the process of planning, requesting and creating a new University digital badge. This includes important questions to consider when planning your badge. These questions centre around: badge value and the effort required to earn the badge (i.e., not just attendance) why digital badges are a good choice for your idea how you will support awarding digital badges, including assessing whether earning criteria are met and communication with earners. If you are considering creating a new badge, please take a look at the questions below. Considering these will help you create a valuable badge and will simplify the request process. Expand all Collapse all Why is it important to consider badge value? All Open Digital Badges need to demonstrate they have value, both for the earner and the University. Much of that value will relate to the amount of effort that it takes to earn the badge, and that effort may not always be measured in hours. The more the earner values the badge, the more likely they are to share their badge. The ability to share is one of the key advantages of digital badges. Often issuers are keen to see their badges shared, which is why it is important that, as an issuer, you try to make sure that the value of the badge is clear. Can digital badges be used to reward learners for basic things like attendance? All our existing open digital badges have value and are valued. In order to maintain UoE badge value and quality, all new badges need to be valuable too, both to the earner and to the University. For this reason, each badge needs to require effort to earn it, so that the earner will value the badge and be motivated to share it. So, you probably wouldn’t want to award a badge for simply attending an event. But, you might find a way to plan a badge that rewards the value that the earner created (for themselves or others) by attending the event. Can digital badges be used in order to help publicise a course? Publicising a course will only happen if digital badge earners share their badges widely. Earners retain control over their digital badges, including when, how and where they share them. If you want earners to share their digital badges, make sure the badge is appealing and valuable, so earners are motivated to earn and share it. Can badges be used to encourage earners to retake a course regularly or to update their skills? Yes, though keep in mind that the most important way to achieve this will be to build an engaging course that learners want to retake. An earner's digital badge will have the date they earned it in the metadata, which is visible when they share it. If an earner chooses to retake the course in the future, they can earn a new badge with a new date, which will show others how recent their knowledge is. You can also give the badge an expiry date, after which the badge will display as no longer current. Earners would then need to retake the course to earn a new, up-to-date badge. Can badges be used as an alternative to issuing certificates in order to save time? As with certificates, issuing digital badges involves looking at evidence and judging if it is sufficient for the award. In most cases, issuing a digital badge will require a similar amount of time and effort as issuing a certificate. If earners choose to use the University badge management system, it is possible for an earner to print a certificate from their digital badge. What does an issuer need to do to assess whether earning criteria have been met? Prospective digital badge issuers will need: a way to gather and store (or link to) any evidence from the prospective badge earner criteria to compare the evidence against (to see if it is sufficient for awarding a badge) someone to make this comparison and decide if a digital badge should be issued What does an issuer need to communicate to earners about a digital badge? Prospective digital badge earners will need to know the following: a clear description of what it takes to earn the badge. For instance: the activities they need to take part in (and which are essential or compulsory) the evidence they need to collect (and format, if important) instructions on how to submit the evidence (where to send it or who to alert to its presence) any timings involved. For instance: if they need to gather the evidence within a certain time If they need to submit the evidence badge before a certain date how long it will take between submitting evidence and hearing if they have been awarded the badge (and, if they are successful) receiving the badge someone to contact if they have questions about things like understanding criteria, meeting the deadlines or submitting evidence. We already issues badges on our own system. What would moving our existing badges to BadgEd involve? To bring in any of your existing digital badges, requests for each would have to be submitted. The badges would also need to be made consistent in terms of look and content with other UoE BadgEd badges. Edinburgh’s Open Digital Badges have a consistency in how they look and the kinds of information they contain, which is in the interests of earners and issuers. You are welcome to continue issuing your own badges using your own platform, if you prefer. What style should a University digital badge have? Image Edinburgh’s Open Digital Badges have a consistency in how they look and the kinds of information they contain, which is in the interests of earners and issuers. Using BadgEd would mean conforming to the set style. You can view the University of Edinburgh's BadgEd repository of digital badges that are currently in use in the catalogue. BadgeEd catalogue Note: The catalogue is hosted by our partner Canvas Credentials. Alternatively, these are examples that may help as a guide to the type of information that would be displayed on the badge image and in the badge metadata. Biomimicry in Architecture Conference Volunteering Experience Expand all Collapse all Information and guidance for current issuers If you are a current issuer or issuer administrator and are looking for more information, support or guidance, please visit our Guidance and Support page for current issuers. Guidance and support for current issuers Further information Contact the IS Helpline with as much detail possible about your question: Contact IS Helpline This article was published on 2024-10-08
