Transcript Recognition and accreditation for DL with OpenBadges?

Recognition and Accreditation
for DL with OpenBadges?
Terry McAndrew
Academic co-Lead – Digital Literacies in
the Disciplines (HEA)
Advisor – JISC TechDis
Me, and why me?
• Incremental learner + willing substitute 
• Various University roles with technology
– Programmer, researcher, teacher (staff too)
– Part-time learner
• BA(Open), MSc, PGCLTHE  FHEA
– Subject centre ‘Techie’ (Bioscience) + Journal
– Discipline-based experience + ~200 ‘papers’
• The ‘guy down the corridor’ with tech
– Introduced networking and web, tactically.
• JISC #TechDis + Higher Education Academy
Digital Literacy (Fraser)
digital literacy = digital tool knowledge + critical
thinking + social engagement.
• It supports and helps develop traditional
literacies
• It's a life-long practice
• It's about skills, competencies and critical
reflection on how these skills and competencies
are applied
• It's about social engagement
Digital Literacy (Fraser)
digital literacy = digital tool knowledge + critical
thinking + social engagement.
• It supports and helps develop traditional
literacies
• It's a life-long practice
• It's about skills, competencies and critical
reflection on how these skills and competencies
are applied
• It's about social engagement
Problem Space
• Learning is everywhere
• Formal qualifications can lack specific
evidence for digital experience
• Digital world changes rapidly – often faster
than the curriculum
• Employers expect graduates to be up-to-speed
quickly in their duties, using tech effectively
• “It’s all about me” – presenting evidence of
experience and skills in a digital society
Digital Literacy – yet another analogy!
Enabling People and their organisations to drive
safely online – to reach a destination through an
optimal route by:
• Reading maps, signals, other user’s purposes
and intentions;
• Using operational skills (steering, signals,
gears (apps) etc.) and connecting them;
• Making decisions while recognising useful
information, without being distracted;
• Exchanging courtesies and support;
• Improving routes: our digital highways;
• Logging the journeys, and
• Arriving safe (and on time)!
LittleBox - driver
TeleMetrics
(admiral.com)
We have an objective – to get from status A to B
we encounter this…
We believe we can do this…
AGILITY
Blog posts?
…but it’s not always like that…
…and then we open our email.
So how do we obtain a ‘licence’?
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Do we need to have n silent “car-crashes” first?
Do we need better guidance?
Is it as intuitive as we think it is?
Can we evolve appropriate targets?
No simple ‘driving’ licence
• There is no ‘digital literacy’ exam standard
– The digitally literate graduate attributes vary by
purpose and role
– Rarely formally assessed directly
• Are modern graduate ‘digital natives’, now
‘residents’ in the domain?
– ‘Digital Natives’ (Prensky, 2001) was a convenience
(“old people don’t understand this stuff” was really
“old people actually developed this stuff”)
– ‘Visitors and Residents’ (White & LeCornu, 2011) for
more realistic view of online identity: more purpose
driven
– so why not “stamp our passports” on these journeys?
– respect and value students earlier engagements
“INCOMING….”
Recognise that students arrive with their own
digital practices: We have some very well
established practices in universities that
traditionally we have tried to 'pass on' to
students. But students are arriving with some
well established digital practices of their own.
It isn't always a question of 'both/and'. For
example, referencing and plagiarism are areas
where students' own digital practices and
cultures clash with those of the university. We
should identify the values and history behind
those academic practices, rather than slavishly
learning Harvard style punctuation. We can't
just see students as empty vessels to be filled
up with what we do over here in academia.
(Beetham – c/o Guardian)
OpenBadges
• An approach to capture and validate
digital skills along the journey
• Data ‘baked’ into the image
• Architecture developed by Mozilla –
operated by anyone. OS approach.
(NB: OS is vital to infostructure)
• Used by organisations, schools and
collages before university
– Example: Developing Digital Leaders
– Expectations for HE?
• Recognises informal learning
How it operates
• Mozilla Open Badges is not proprietary —free software to
an open technical standard. Any organization can create,
issue and verify digital badges. Any user can earn, manage
and display them all across the web.
• With Open Badges, every badge is full of information.
Metadata baked in that links back to the issuer, the criteria
it was issued under, and evidence.
• Individuals can earn badges from multiple sources, both
online and offline, and manage and share them using the
Mozilla Backpack.
• Supported by a community. Open Badges are designed,
built and backed by a broad community of contributors
[via]open source model.
Mozilla
Doug’s elevator pitch
Techie bit
• Simple stuff they say…
• https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/OnboardingIssuer#E._Metadata_Spec
Education develops pathways, networks and ‘mileposts’ to capture.
Badges for what?
• How might you offer a badge to OTHERS (inc.
students)?
• Where would it have an effect?
• Where could they have a role value?
– What would yours be?
• What advantages – to whom?
• What are the true barriers to using Badges?
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Organisational?
Technical?
Social?
Culture?
• Some suggestions…
RSC Scotland
http://www.rsc-scotland.org/?page_id=2223
Curation of practice
http://www.scoop.it/t/open-badges
Use WikiPedia as part of your assignment activity!
Resources, Stories and approaches
DigitalMe promotion
DigitalMe Badge Framework
ACTIVITIES
• USE THE DIGITALME ‘BADGE CANVAS’
PROVIDED TO DESIGN A BADGE SYSTEM FOR...
• USE THE TITANPAD TO IDENTIFY BARRIERS
AND ENABLERS
http://titanpad.com/aGCxUcjs8g
Some useful sites
• OpenBadges.org http://openbadges.org/
• JISC RSC Scotland
– Grainne Hamilton; Scoop.it, e-assessment blog.
– Showcase http://www.rsc-scotland.org/?page_id=2223
• P2PU https://p2pu.org/en/badges/curator/
• DigitalMe http://www.digitalme.co.uk/category/projects/
– Free Badge Canvas for scheme design
– ‘Badge the UK’ initiative
– Badge Framework
• Doug Belshaw’s Blog
– http://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2013/05/23/explaining-open-badgesthrough-analogy/
• JISC TechDis – because it has to be accessible to be Open