openbadges

Note: This page is a work-in-progress. Feedback and suggested improvements are welcome. Please join the discussion on moodle.org or use the page comments.

Status:

The initial implementation has now been merged for release in Moodle 2.5.

Background

In September 2011, Mozilla launched the Open Badges project as a way to "make it easy to issue and share digital learning badges across the web". Mozilla have developed an open specification and API for badge creation and sharing and are looking for developers to implement infrastructure that makes use of the badges.

TotaraLMS have volunteered to lead the development to integrate Open Badges into Moodle (and also Mahara).

This document contains our initial ideas and some unanswered questions around implementation in order to receive feedback from the moodle community on what is required and how to implement it.

User Stories

Our first step is to attempt to define the requirements and priorities. Feedback welcome:

Badge creation

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Site administrator	Be able to control who is able to create and issue badges	I can manage the issuing of badges from my organisation	Must have
Course creator	Be able to create badges	I can issue badges to students for achievements	Must have
Course creator	Be able to modify existing badges [1][3]	I can make changes to a badge without having to start again	Must have
Course creator	Be able to delete badges	They can be removed from the system when no longer required	Must have
Course creator	Be able to set a background image for the badge	I can customise the appearance of the badges I create	Must have
Course creator	Be able to embed custom text into the badge image	I can choose the text shown on the badges I create	High
Course creator	Be able to embed user specific text into the badge image	I can create badges that are specific to each user	High
Course creator	Be able to clone existing badges	I can create similar badges with less work	Medium
Site administrator	Be able to create badge design templates for course creators to use	I can provide a consistent look for badges across my organisation	Medium
Course creator	Be able to create badges based on site-wide design templates	I can quickly create similar looking badges	Medium

[1] Note this means changing the badge that will be issued from that point on - the open badges spec intentionally prevents an issuer from modifying badges once they have been issued to the user for security reasons

[3] At the moment, we are also considering locking badge criteria from changes once at least one badge was awarded based on existing criteria. To update the badge completely, badge creator will have to copy/duplicate the badge and make all the changes (Yuliya).

Badge assignment

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Course creator	Be able to control the criteria that leads to the issuing of badges	I can ensure badges are only issued to students who have achieved them	Must have
Student	Be able to receive a notification when I have received a new badge	I know when I have made an achievement	Must have
Student	Be able to receive a copy of badges I achieve	I can keep my own records of my achievements and upload to other services	Must have
Course creator	Be able to receive notification when a student receives a badge	I can stay informed about my student's progress	High

Badge display

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Student	Be able to see all of the badges that I have achieved via the site in one location	I can get an overview of my achievements	Must have
Student	Be able to see the public or shared badges belonging to other users	I can see what learning my peers have achieved.	High
Student	Be able to see all of the badges that I can achieve via the site	I can prioritize and plan my learning	High
Student	Be able to control who is able to see each of my badges	I can decide for myself who I would like to share my achievements with.	Medium
Student	Be able to display all the badges in my "backpack", including those from outside the Moodle site	I can let others know about other learning that I've achieved from other sources.	Medium

Badge management

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Course creator	Be able to see which of my students have achieved a specific badge	I can track the progress of my students.	Must have
~~Course creator~~	~~Be able to revoke badges that are no longer valid~~[2]	~~I can correct an error if a badge is assigned by mistake.~~	~~Must have~~
~~Course creator~~	~~Be able to inform a student that a badge has been revoked and remove it from display for that user~~[2]	~~I can correct an error if a badge is assigned by mistake.~~	~~Must have~~
Course creator	Be able to see the badges achieved by an individual student	I can assess the progress of an individual student.	High
Site administrator	Be able to see the badges achieved by any site user	I can track the progress of individuals.	Medium
Site administrator	Be able to see which site users have achieved a specific badges	I can track overall achievement of a particular badge.	Medium
~~Site administrator~~	~~Be able to revoke badges across the entire site~~[2]	~~I can correct errors by individual course creators.~~	~~Medium~~
~~Site administrator~~	~~Be able to inform a set of students that a badge has been revoked and remove it from display for that user~~[2]	~~I can correct errors by individual course creators.~~	~~Medium~~
Student	Be able to push individual badges from Moodle into my external badge backpack	So that I can share my badges externally to moodle	Medium
Student	Be able to automatically push all my badges from Moodle into my external badge backpack	So that my achievements are available in my backpack without having to push them every time	Low
Course creator	Be able to set an expiry period for badges	I can use badges in cases where achievements only last a fixed period of time.	Low
Course creator	Be able to automatically generate user-specific evidence for badges	I can show how students earned the badge.	Low
Course creator	Be able to perform more detailed reporting (such as who hasn't achieved a badge yet)	I can see which students I need to follow up with.	Low

[2] Revoking of issued badges is not currently possible in Open Badges infrastructure

Badge verification

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Assessor	Know that all badges displayed within the system are valid (have been achieved by the user they are displayed for)	I can be certain that the badges displayed within the system have all been achieved.	Must have
Assessor	Be able to confirm from the original source that a badge being displayed by a user (outside of the system) is valid	I can be certain that the student has achieved a particular badge.	Must have

Integration with Mahara

As a...	I want to...	So that...	Priority
Mahara user	Be able to easily display all my achieved badges	I can include my achievements in my porfolio.	Must have
Mahara user	Have my badges from Moodle automatically imported into Mahara	I don't have to manually copy new badges each time I achieve something.	Must have
Mahara user	Control which badges appear when displaying them in my porfolio	I can present different representations of my achievements to different audiences.	High
Site administrator	Remove badges from a users portfolio if they have been revoked	I can prevent a user displaying badges that are no longer valid.	High

Implementation Options

Moodle already has a module which behaves in a similar way to the proposals for open badges - the Certificate Module. Initial idea was to consider extending the certificate module to avoid rewriting similar code. However, after some discussions and feedback on the community forum, we decided to look at implementing a separate module for Open Badges.

Badge awarding criteria

For initial development, we expect to support the following criteria that will lead to the issuing of badges:

Completing an activity or set of several activities (viewing an activity as a part of it)
Completing a course
Completing a set of courses
Posting to a forum
Filling in user profile (to encourage participation)
Discretionary awarding of badges by teacher (e.g to reward certain behaviour)

Technical specification

The technical specification can be found on GitHub Totara openbadges-docs repository.

User documentation

We are working on user documentation. Current functionality description can be found on OpenBadges User Documentation page.

Open Badges Integration

Open badges v1.0 came out Q1 2013 so we can expect additional features and possibly some API changes over time.

Implementation plan

Here is a diagram of the current infrastructure for managing badges. We intend to develop the functionality to make Moodle both a "displayer" and a "issuer" of badges and Mahara as a "displayer".

This diagram outlines the various components:

It should be possible to implement each component as separate modules. Our proposed order:

Badge creation and management in Moodle. Done!
Moodle Block to display badges received from the site (internal badges) Done!
Add code to support direct pushing of internal badges to external backpack (without having to manually download/upload them) Done!
Badge displayer in Moodle (displays external badges and any internal ones that have been pushed to backpack and shared) Done!
Badge displayer in Mahara (displays external badges and any internal ones that have been pushed to backpack and shared)
Add code to support direct pushing of internal badges to Mahara via Porfolio API (no need for external backpack)

Once OpenBadges Infrastructure supports federated backpack providers we would like to add:

7. Allow Mahara sites to become backpack providers

The reason for providing a direct method for displaying internal badges without requiring an external backpack is because pushing badges to an external backpack requires an external account for managing badges as outlined here:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges/Onboarding-Earner#II._FUNCTIONAL_FLOW:_FIRST_TIME_EARNER

This workflow has some advantages (primarily the user has full control over their own badges) but seems quite complex. Given that Moodle is both an issuer and displayer we are able to avoid this step for users who do not want to share their badges to a wider audience.

Documentation