Badges FAQ

How can teachers award site badges?

By default, teachers can only award course badges. Only users with capabilities to manage badges in the system are able to do this, so if you wish teachers to award site badges you need to create a new role as follows:

1. Go to Administration > Site administration > Users > Permissions > Define roles and click 'Add a new role'
2. Leave 'Use role or archetype' as No role' and click the continue button
3. Give the role a name e.g. "Site badge awarder"
4. Tick the System box to allow the role to be assigned in the System context
5. Set the following capabilities to "allow": moodle/badges:awardbadge, moodle/badges:viewbadges, moodle/badges:configurecriteria
6. Click the button 'Create this role".
7. Assign the "Site badge awarder" role as a system role to the teachers you wish to award site badges.

Teachers with the role of "Site badge awarder" will see a link in the Administration block Site administration > Badges > Manage badges.

Can more than one teacher in a course award the same badge?

It's not the user who issues the badge, but a role. Users with multiple roles will have an option to use both of them to issue badges. If the badge is awarded twice by different roles, both roles are displayed and criteria (ALL/ANY) is given. In some cases it will be required for a badge to be awarded by several different roles. When there are, let's say, three teachers in the course and they go to award a badge as a teacher, each of them will see the list of users who already got the badge from a teacher, so they won't need to award the badge again.

What's the difference between a backpack and a collection?

When you upload a badge to Badgr, you are adding it to your backpack, which is the general area you put your badges in (like a backpack). You then organise them into collections (like separate little bags in your backpack) and you choose which to display on your Moodle profile. So a badge may be in your backpack and not in a collection, but it must be in your backpack before it can be in a collection (note the 'public' box must be ticked too). Collections allow you to control which badges you share with people.

A user's online backpack

Drag badges into a new collection to display on Moodle

What size is a badge?

A badge is displayed with dimensions 100 X 100 pixels. However, a larger image may be uploaded, which will then be cropped to be a square, and then resized.

See also Badge image size discussion.

Can I award a badge based on a specific grade?

There are two ways of awarding a badge based on a specific grade.

Method 1:

Set a passing grade for the quiz in the gradebook, as explained in section 1.3 of Activity completion settings.

Method 2:

1. Create a page resource and set the restrict access conditions so that it only appears if the user obtains a certain activity grade or course total
2. Set the activity completion for the page as "view"
3. Set the badge criteria such that the page has to be completed (i.e. viewed)

How can I add badges I have earned to my backpack?

1. If you've not done so already, create an account on https://badgr.com. When prompted to select a Badgr region, select 'United States' (regardless of where you are in the world, as you can only connect to a backpack on badgr.com).
2. Go to your backpack settings (via Preferences / Badges) and connect to your Badgr backpack by entering your email address and password for your Badgr account.
3. Go to Manage badges (via Preferences / Badges) and click the icon to add your badge to your backpack.

I previously used the Mozilla Open Badges backpack as the active external backpack on my site. How do I change to Badgr?

See the section 'Enabling Badgr as the active external backpack' in Badges settings.

I previously added badges to my Mozilla Open Badges backpack. What do I do now?

1. Create an account on https://badgr.io.
2. You will receive an email from Mozilla with a zipped file of your badges, which you can upload to your Badgr backpack.

I have an account on eu.badgr.com but I can't connect to my backpack

If your site has badgr.com set as the active external backpack, then you can't use your eu.badgr.com (or other regional site) account to connect. You need to create a (separate) account on https://badgr.com and select 'US' if asked to choose a location. This issue is reported as MDL-66585.

Do I have to use my Moodle email for my backpack?

No, you can specify the email address associated with your backpack.

Which roles can see which badges?

See this forum post on viewing badges.

Can I change a badge image once awarded?

The short answer is 'no', but see this forum post on changing badge images for more information.

Can I revoke a badge once it has been awarded?

Yes - see the section on revoking a badge in Using badges.

How can I get badges with participants' profiles like on Moodle.org?

These are not badges. These are group avatars/pictures. When you create a group in your course - see the documentation on Groups - you can add a picture to represent that group. In places such as forums this picture is then displayed for each participant. If they are a member of several groups then several pictures will be displayed.

Any further questions?

Please post in the Badges forum on moodle.org

See also

• OpenBadges.me - An open-access image creator from MyKnowledgeMap to support all of your Open Badge building needs.
• Badges For Your Moodle - CC-licensed badges available for free download

Forum discussions:

• Site closure and open badges