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.
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] | 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 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 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
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 |
| Developer | Reuse the "conditional availability" functionality to control badge issuing | I can leverage existing code and avoid duplication | High |
| 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 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 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 | 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 | 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 set 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
Certificate Module
Moodle already has a module which behaves in a similar way to the proposals for open badges - the Certificate Module. It makes sense to consider extending the certificate module avoid rewriting similar code.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Some potential for code reuse | Potential for reuse is actually fairly limited since certificate and badges must use different libraries to create them |
| May increase awareness/usage of badges by making them visible to certificate module users | Adds complexity to the certificate module UI |
| Activity creator will need to choose between badge or certificate early on, might as well be separate, tailored module | |
| Badges may need to act at a higher context than "activity", e.g. receiving badges for course completion, not just activity completion - so an activity module might not be appropriate | |
| Certificate module not part of core at the moment |
Potential for code reuse
Could be reused:
- Notify teacher of issued certificate via email
- Report on issued certificates - would probably want to extend
The following existing features would need to be modified or reimplemented:
- Download or display certificate (PDF format) - would need to output PNG file with badge baking code
- Controlling the certificate appearance - may be able to reuse settings code, but implementation would need to be new (because the badge must be a PNG rather than PDF):
- Adding user specific text to certificates (recipient name, grade, teacher, etc)
- Adding custom text to certificates
- Display options (upload background, borders, seal, logos, etc)
There is also the question as to if Moodle HQ or the certificate module maintainer would want Open Badges integrated with the certificate module, or would prefer a standalone system. Currently the certificate module is a plugin (not distributed with the default moodle install).
Status: Seeking community input - please add any comments to the forum post.
Badge awarding criteria
We need to firm up exactly what sorts of criteria will lead to the issuing of badges, as this affects the implementation. Some ideas:
- Completing an activity or set of several activities
- Completing a course
- Completing a set of courses?
- Viewing an activity
- Posting to a forum
- Filling in user profile or tagging items (to encourage participation)
- Discretionary awarding of badges by teacher (e.g to reward certain behaviour)
Open Badges Integration
Open badges are still in beta so we can expect additional features and possibly some API changes over time. v1 is due out Q1 2013.
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 verification service in Moodle.
- Moodle Block to display badges received from the site (internal badges)
- Add code to support direct pushing of internal badges to external backpack (without having to manually download/upload them)
- Badge displayer in Mahara (displays external badges and any internal ones that have been pushed to backpack and shared)
- Badge displayer in Moodle (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 open badges supports federated backpack providers we may also 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.
