Open Badge Primer
Earn your first open badge
1. Learn
Learn about badges
Here you can learn about Open Badges and be awarded a badge for learning about badges! If you're here, it may well be your first ever Open Badge, but if not it's still a chance to earn a new one.
Read about Open Badges below, answer the few simple questions and you will be awarded your badge.
What are open badges?
Open Badges are an initiative by the Mozilla Foundation, allowing anyone to earn badges for learning done anywhere. Like digital versions of Cub Scout badges, they allow all sorts of skills and achievements to be verified, stored and shared that might not normally be recognised.
A digital badge is an online representation of a skill you've earned. Open Badges take that concept one step further, and allows you to verify your skills, interests and achievements through credible organizations. And because the system is based on an open standard, you can combine multiple badges from different issuers to tell the complete story of your achievements - both online and off. Display your badges wherever you want them on the web, and share them for employment, education or lifelong learning.
Mozilla Foundation, from their Open Badges site
Who can award open badges?
Anyone can award an Open Badge using free software and the Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI), developed by the Mozilla Foundation. You can find out more about issuing badges on the Open Badges site.
Where can I keep my badges?
Once a badge is earned, it is stored in your Mozilla Backpack, which is a free, online area where you can save your badges. When you earn your first badge below, you will be asked to sign up for, or login to, your Mozilla Backpack.
What goes into an open badge?
An open badge is just an image file (.png) with associated information about the badge. The badge will include:
- Recipient: Who earned the badge, identified by email address. It must be the same email you use to login to your Backpack. Email addresses are hashed, so they will not appear in plain text and are secure.
- Badge: The badge image - basically just a .png file. See some examples from the Chicago Summer of Learning here: http://chicagosummeroflearning.org/earn
- Name: The name of the badge, eg "IT Wizard".
- Description: A description of what you did to earn the badge.
- Issued on: Date the badge was issued.
- Evidence: A link to evidence showing what you did to earn the badge. For this example, your badge will link to this page.
- Criteria: A link to The learning outcomes that needed to be met to earn the badge.
- Issuer: Information about the issuer of the badge, such name, email address, website etc.
2. Earn
Quiz
Now you've read a bit about open badges, answer the questions below to earn your first badge:
