Digital Badging 

Digital badging is an online visual indicator of a task, skill, accomplishment or quality that is earned and validated. The impact digital badges have is generally widespread and well-respected in many venues as we will discuss later in this chapter. This will be uncovered by the use of interviews, journals, and multimedia sources to reflect the potential of Buckeye Badges at The Ohio State University. The leader and founder of Buckeye Badges, Dr. Tim Rhodus, is interviewed and gives incredible insight as to what is, was, and is to come with digital badging. These sources help answer the question: “How are undergraduate programs using Digital Badges and what is their acceptance rate at the Ohio State University?”. Other universities and organizations share Buckeye Badge’s passion for digital badging and will be cross-examined in this section of the book. This chapter will briefly unpack the process of verifying and displaying digital badges along with employers’ perspectives of them. Then we will discuss where digital badging is going and provide a general, all-encompassing answer to our posed question. Being that it’s not a simple answer, this will summarize our findings with key points and demonstrations of its validity.

Badges take different forms according to their context: “When used in social media, badges may simply mean, “I was present.” In online gaming, badges may indicate a specific game level or an earned tool or privilege. For educators, however, digital badges acknowledge that an earner has demonstrated declarative knowledge or skill in a content area as well as intellectual, social or behavioral growth.”(Gibson, D., & Ostashewski, N., 2015) To better demonstrate this, please view the following video as it reflects what digital badges provide within the educational field:

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Badges stretch the confines of test scores and certificates. They show accomplishments, skills and abilities. Typically, a badge earned falls into one or more of the four following categories:

Buckeyes have been badging since 2014. This was when Dr. Rhodus began badging for three of his own classes. In 2015, Buckeye Badges began with the inclusion of the badging system, backpack program and a public website. This was created around two undergraduate programs: Horticulture and Crop Science. It consisted of 10 instructors and 13 classes. During the first year, 1,723 badges were awarded. 839 badges were awarded through the Denman (undergraduate research) and 884 from courses and pilot badges. The program is now through its piloting phase and has added new partners in 2016-2017. These partners include:

Fisher College of Business
Chemistry
Middle Eastern Studies
Psychology

The next steps for Buckeye Badges includes adding more partners and younger university students to use (and claim) badges.

Question: What is Dr. Rhodus’ view on digital (Buckeye) badging?

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Scan code OR click here for more info on Buckeye Badges.

Badging is a growing and overall widely accepted concept by students and professors across Columbus and other universities alike. The following statements are from subject matter experts within the digital badging field:

“Badges in higher education have gained currency among early adopters. One such effort is the award-winning badge system developed at the University of California, Davis. In the interdisciplinary major of sustainable agriculture and food systems, students can complement their coursework with badges for workshops, projects, and internships. Badges also play a part in edX, an online learning effort sponsored jointly by MIT and Harvard University. Both institutions will offer online courses free via edX with “certificates” (badges) available for a modest fee to those who complete the coursework” (Gibson, D., & Ostashewski, N., 2015)

In 2014, Oregon State University began offering about 40 different digital credentials aimed at a wide range of students—from attorneys and others seeking to earn additional professional certifications to hobbyists looking to broaden their skills in gardening and other pursuits. (Zalaznick, 2015)

“Rather than rely on the credibility of an institution, the digital badge allows the consumer to interrogate the information contained within.” Computer coding is likely to be one area in which professionals will seek badges. “The University of Wisconsin is also focused on offering credentials in leadership, problem-solving, communication and other soft skills now demanded by employers” says David Schejbal, dean of continuing education at University of Wisconsin-Extension. (Zalaznick, 2015)

Badges link to information that can provide employers with more details about the specific skills a student has acquired. A traditional college transcript may list only the credits earned, says Daniel Hickey, an Indiana University learning sciences professor who studies badges. (Zalaznick, 2015)

Purdue’s Passport platform consists of two apps: The Passport app allows instructors to set the steps, or challenges, a student must achieve to earn the badge. The app also allows an instructor or adviser to create a badge by choosing from several templates.
“We’re looking for up to 200 instructors and up to 10,000 students outside of Purdue to test the app,” Kyle Bowen, director of informatics in Information Technology at Purdue says “There’s no charge for instructors to use the app, but we would like feedback on how it was used in the classroom and suggestions on how to improve the application.”  (Tally, 2012)

Badges are currently in use or in development at institutions such as MIT, Carnegie Mellon, the University of California-Davis and Seton Hall. Organizations outside of higher education are issuing badges, too, including NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, The U.S. departments of Veterans Affairs and Education, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and the movie studio Disney-Pixar. (Tally, 2012)

These are all promising steps forward for digital badging and another reason why Buckeye Badges will continue to gain traction as time goes on. Although there are many factors that determine the speed of this process, we believe from our conversations with Dr. Rhodus that Buckeye Badges will grow and expand to several other departments in the coming years. Once it is exposed to students and they see the benefits of digital badging translating into better opportunities, the feedback should also improve from its current status. In the meantime, students are still seeing the benefits of digital badging in its early stages at Ohio State.

Below are comments and reviews made by students regarding their current use of digital badges within The Ohio State University:

The information below reflects the types of Buckeye Badges at Ohio State and their acceptance rates within the department and semesters:

The inaugural semester of digital badging yielded 123 badges claimed and 603 badges awarded.

Spring badge acceptance declined from the previous semester. Many of the classes which are issuing badges are upper level classes. This leads to having a student population that is further along in their collegiate experience. With the badging program being so new, most upperclassman felt less incentive to claim a badge due to the lack of badges in their portfolio to have after graduation. The expectation is to start badging with younger students who can then build their ‘backpack’.

Although there are great advances in the digital badging over several universities, including Buckeye Badges, there are some school settings in which digital badging is still improving. For instance, a study at the University of Michigan stated that a majority of students were unaware of digital badges and the significance within their career. The following graphics demonstrate this based off of familiarity and usefulness of digital badges:

^{(chart source: https://www.slideshare.net/stevelonn/using-digital-badges-to-recognize-cocurricular-learning)}

This confirms that not all institutions and departments are utilizing digital badges in the same way and there’s a lot room to grow, however, the movement towards additional potential pilots and partnerships within the field are promising with digital badges. The key point here is due to the faculty’s implementation of digital badges and the definitive examples of how digital badging benefits a student. Almost half of the students who earned a badge advised that it would be ‘Somewhat Useful’ in their conversation with future employers. What was really surprising was there were more students who didn’t earn a badge and thought it would be ‘Very Useful’ to have the badge. The following video continues to confirm that awareness and benefits for the student would be the main area in which digital badging must grow to gain more traction:

Once the badges are earned, students are encouraged to then create an e-portfolio to collect and display their digital badges to share with a third party, like an future employer, to review the skills acquired outside of the general “degree earned” from an institution. To further explain this, we asked Dr. Rhodus how these digital badges are displayed and translated into information employers can understand:

(Dr. Rhodus discussing implementing National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) career readiness standards into his Portfolio class)

On the basis of these considerations, HSGG has instituted Skill Qualifications (SQs) that reward professional development. This program began July 1, 2013.”

Example SQ’s

Explorer

• Map the spatial pattern of a geophysical variable using at least 100 observations. If topography, it must be 1000 observations.

Qualifiers: Matthew Vaughan, Maziar Kandelous

Digger

• Collect 12 sediment cores of at least 6’ (or 2 m) depth.

Qualifiers: Maziar Kandelous

Tenacious Observer

• 12-week, daily summer observation campaign (normal work hours).

Qualifiers: Maziar Kandelous

“This also avoids the issue of the badge coming to mean something on its own; it is instead always a pointer to more information.”

“In designing a badge system intended to motivate participants, although rapid and early feedback is important, the badges that remain the most respected and are the longest lasting are those that require significant sacrifice.”

“Displaying badges on a personal webpage, electronic portfolio or a social website is a way to establish and share a part of one’s identity and reputation—particularly what one knows and is able to do.” This is a very important aspect of the credibility of a digital badge because if someone receives the badge, but has no way of displaying the badge for an observer, then the badge will have no significance. This is similar to receiving a college degree but not placing it onto your resume. The e-portfolio is the resume to the skills or knowledge obtained and verified through digital badges.

Managing the digital badges earned entails storing them in “e-portfolios,” online tools that enable users to store the badges that they earn in a single digital, portable repository that accompanies them wherever they go. Such a system should allow for managing and sharing a holistic view of students, not only their learning-related accomplishments.

Closing Comments

In conclusion, the crucial part of this concept is trusting how the recipient, issuer, and observer will use and view the Buckeye Badge. The significance and purpose of utilizing digital badges will grow in value when all three parties are working together to further enhance the digital badge. We believe that this is being done and can be enhanced once it is aligned to a state or national standard. Similar to educational standards, the digital (Buckeye) badge will have accreditation when it can be compared across the nation or across the world! 

Works Cited: