Wikimedia UK and Open Badges

By January 2015, Open Badges have been a subject of discussion for well over two years in the Wikimedian community. Wikimedia UK is now looking at ways we can make some actual progress on this.

Meeting our Goals

• Strategic goal G2a.3: Open Badges provide a structure in which we can acknowledge the skills and capabilities of our volunteers in an evidence-based fashion.

Situation in January 2015

Recent initiatives:

Sweden

• Our colleagues in Wikimedia Sweden have started using Open Badges in October 2014.

On translatewiki.net (scroll down a bit and you will see the badges described in English). Also see Utveckling (Development) which is in English. translatewiki.net is a web-based translation platform used to enhance Mediawiki

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  Idea for Open Badges for students editing Wikipedia.

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  How a set of badges can visualize key tasks for educators when integrating Wikipedia in the curriculum.

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  Wikipediapedagog badge, for educators who have used Wikipedia in education in 2014

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  Sample image of the badge on translatewiki.net

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  Pilot Badge of activity with Wikimedia Sweden

See Sara Mörtsell's blog, Using P2PU to Badge Swedish Educators’ MOOC

IdeaLab

• Open Badges for off-wiki credentials, a proposal initiated in the IdeaLab in November 2014

Historic discussions

2013 discussion

A discussion about Wikimedia UK using Open Badges took place in July 2013. It has been archived here

2012

• EduWiki Conference 2012

Panel discussion: Assessment and accreditation in an age of open learning
Doug Belshaw (The Mozilla Foundation), on Open Badges

Notes

Methods of verifying/issuing

• Expert / Mentor
• Peer
• Self-Assessment
• Algorithmic / programmatic
• Stealth (through Backpack)

Types of badges

• Affiliation
• Participation
• Skill / Activity
• Cumulative
• Badge system
• Endorsement
• Early adopters
• Mentors
• Silly / playful
• Soft skills / non-cognitive
• Hard skills / cognitive
• One-offs

Related links

• Program:Peer to Peer University/Writing Wikipedia Articles (2013 Q2) - Awards WIKISOO Burba badge which is OBI compliant.
• Wikipedia - Mozilla Open Badges - "The ability to issue badges was integrated into TotaraLMS for the 2.4 release[3]and Moodle for the 2.5 release"
• Open Badge Designer
• Digital Me Badge Canvas
• Graeme also created a very useful mindmap. This can be seen here.