#ob team

The BA standard working group has had adding extensions to the OB assertion specification high on its roadmap this summer. We agreed that before we could add an extension to an assertion or Badge Class, we needed to add machine readable schema definitions for the 1.0 standard.

Check out this new blog post from Badge Alliance Director of Technology Chris McAvoy, which outlines the progress of the Open Badge Standard Working Group with the Open Badges assertion specification.

The group has gone from exploring to experimenting with JSON-LD, which "builds linked data semantics on the JSON specification., and adds several key features to JSON."

This blog post from Carla generated a lot of discussion on- and offline: it was retweeted by many members of the community and discussed on this week's Research & Badge System Design Call.

The 'lightweight badge' is something we are asked about a lot on the Open Badges team - many are concerned with so-called 'worthless' badges, often holding badges to higher standards than existing credentials. Carla does a great job of exploring these concerns and effectively arguing why all badges can hold value as part of an ongoing identity-building process alongside achievement recognition.

Go to Carla's blog to read the comments there and post your own.

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The development of the open badge ecosystem is at the heart of all of the work that I do. I am deeply invested in ensuring that the ecosystem grows and thrives. During the time I’ve been focused on this work, folks have repeatedly declared deep concern about badge rigor, usually expressed as an underlying fear of the ecosystem-imperiling power of the “lightweight” badge. I’d like for us as a community to investigate and dispel the myth of the meaningless, lightweight badge before it becomes ingrained into the ecosystem as an alleged truth.

First let’s begin by discussing badge types. Certainly there is a lot to be said about proposed and future badge typologies and I’m hoping that we can engage on them here at a later date. For now, though, let’s talk about the much maligned “participation” type badge. Participation badges are typically earned through a simple act of attendance. They usually have no associated criteria aside from physical or virtual attendance. Mozilla has issued MozFest Reveler badges for exactly this type of interaction. Considered by many in the badge community to be throwaway badges with little to no social meaning, in fact participation badges are markers and data points in the larger, more complex concept of self.

Am I who you say I am or am I who I say I am? During the process of badge system development, implementation, or interpretation, certain types of badges like participation badges may appear to be devoid of much or any value. Let me say that again with emphasis: may appear to be so. They are not. All badges have some value. Badges layer upon each other: no badge is entirely independent of any other badge—at least not to the badge earner. Just as all badges operate in contextual ways, participation badges live alongside other badge types. They can and do interconnect in ways that may be far outside of their issuer’s original intent. This is one of an open badge’s best features—they act as connectors! Perhaps even better, all badges act as touchstones for the earners.

Value accretion The concept of accretion will be readily understood by the scientists, accountants and financial thinkers among us. Here I’m using it to indicate the continued layering effect of badges being earned throughout a length of time. Earn a badge. Earn a badge. Earn three badges. Earn another badge. Accretion operates on a meta, ecosystem level as well as a smaller system wide level, and its power should not be underestimated. Why? Because the continued layering of earned badges from many different issuing organizations and experiences—the accretion—means that value arises in unexpected and emergent ways.

The multiplication factor For example, while it may be possible to know how one badge is perceived by its earner in its original context, it is not possible to estimate how three badges from three different organizations may be perceived by an earner. Consequently, that “lightweight” badge that Josefina earned while attending The Museum of Natural History during a class trip may become a connector to an online natural sciences webinar may become a connector to a robotics class held at the local library. Combined, these “lightweight” badges begin to highlight potential pathways and future area of interest.

Weak signals, strong network effects Interest-driven participation badges communicate in subtler ways than skill or competency badges do but they are sending signals to the earner as well as the larger social structure. They act as windows into alternate interpretations of self. Not only do they work to represent past experiences but also possible future selves. They accumulate and in their accumulation they tell different stories to both the earner as well as the public.

So, the next time you hear someone note a concern about “lightweight” or meaningless badges, think about Tennyson’s “Ulysses” quote below. Ask yourself if you’re not the composite of everything that you have experienced, large and small.

I am a part of all that I have met; Yet all experience is an arch wherethro’ Gleams that untravell’d world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move.

Et voilà. The myth of lightweight badges is dispelled.

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More soon.

Speaker:

Susse Sønderby Jensen, UX Designer, Mozilla

Agenda: http://bit.ly/OBIJan22

This week we heard all about the awesome Résumé 2.0 Project, the re-imagining of the "white A4 page" of the traditional résumé that our team's UX Designer, Susse, has been working on in collaboration with fellow badgers Jess Klein and Emily Goligoski in the six months she's been on the team.

Résumé 2.0: Skills Sharing and Future Pathways

Susse is currently enrolled in a graduate program at Parsons, and her work with the Open Badges team has been dedicated to developing a new kind of 21st century résumé that helps individuals showcase a more complete picture of their skills and experiences to prospective employers. Open Badges were, of course, integral to her work, as her work dug into badges to look at how they could be used to share skills and access job opportunities.

Susse developed many prototypes over her time with the team and, through talking to recruiters, youth, and administrators, developed a number of pathways prototypes that illustrate an individual's journey through skills acquisition, different experiences and accomplishments, and development.

Susse showed the group a snapshot of a pathway résumé that would highlight skills and experiences relevant to the position being applied for based on an arc that reached from past accomplishments to the present and onwards to future goals and aspirations:

As different parts of the résumé were viewed, an employer could see, on the arc, where previous badges had been earned, achievements marked, and endorsements gained - as well as places where they might award badges in the future! As badges are issued, they become signposts along a pathway, and form pieces of the arc leading from past experiences to future achievements.

At MozFest, Susse ran a session the future of skills sharing and learning pathways where she led a group in exploring how applying for jobs in 2030 will be different to today, and how they might want to showcase their relevant skills to employers.

Susse's work also explores the ways in which employees and employers interact with each other, and how these connections feed into a loop of expanding experiences, skills and references that indicate an individual's development and influences, so that the arc becomes a full circle:

Another interactive way of displaying skills that Susse has taken inspiration from is social media - in many ways, our online presence can represent more complete pictures of our identity, and Susse explored how we could capture what we share through social media in a way that could help us access opportunities.

Interactive, social résumés are not unheard of - in 2011, Mashable put together a list of 10 Creative Social Media Résumés To Learn From - but Susse's work in incorporating badges into these kinds of résumés adds an all-important level of verification: the metadata. The content of a résumé is important - or, it should be! Most people are familiar with the concept of 'padding' a résumé (over 75% of résumés are 'misleading') but by using badges as a way to demonstrate not only what some has achieved but how, there might yet be a way to reinvent the résumé that gives it integrity as it evolves along with the skills it is showcasing.

To read more about Susse's work on Résumé 2.0, check out her blog. For more prototypes and presentations, go to sussesonderby.com.

Next week:

During the summer, I spent some time thinking about badge directories and dashboards. The general idea was to prototype a tool for badge earners to make sense of the larger badge ecosystem and in turn to create an integrated dashboard that would help them to collect, maintain and analyze their personal data on their learning, goals and skill acquisition. Initially I had come up with a few ideas for this dashboard: a. focusing and personalizing skill search. Here, the user might type in skills that are of interest to them and then popular badges would appear. I like exploring the interaction of incorporating some narrative elements into this framework. Here, instead of just a search box - you have a statement of intent. 

b. pathways focused -  This mock up lays out skills you already have and then upon click/hover you can see where your skills could lead you. This is personalized approach, so once you log in, it will display a visualization of skills that relate to your data. However, if you are not logged in, it could display popular or trending skills or even .. geolocate badges based on your location.

c. Toggle vision - this gives you the chance to explore what is available in the ecosystem as well as in your personal badge library - as a list, as a visual display, and on a map.

d. Whimsical Exploration - still playing with the theme of exploration, discovery and happenstance - this is kind of like a wheel of fortune. Each node coming out of the circle lists skills and then if you are logged in and in fact have the skill, it will be notated. There is a natural progression from this view to a more sophisticated learning pathways exploration. 

e. Your (data) garden - This one is a little crazy - but imagine that all of the trees below represent your skills at different stages of growth. You can have "community" gardens as well as "secret gardens" - giving you the ability to curate what data you are in fact sharing. Here you can also set goals, be informed about your "garden health" - which might just equate to giving feedback on various goals that you have set up for yourself - and tool tips - which could be mentorship or coaching based on your goals. There's a lot of metaphor going on here and it probably would be a brain game to figure out how to design it .... but this is just a sketch, so wha ha ha haaaa.

So - the Summer came and went and I thought about these prototypets a little bit more. More specifically, I started to consider what a dashboard and a discovery feature would mean in the context of something like BadgeKit. The goals of the dashboard, by nature would change to accommodate an issuer (as opposed to an earner). I think that these explorations are still totally valid and even hackable to modify for this new lens. Some of the goals for the user might include:

keeping track of the badges that they are offering

getting notifications regarding badge assessment needs

analyzing trends for badge earners. 

sharing rights for admin functionality. 

I mentor people for empathy.

After my teammates Jess Klein, Chloe Varelidi and I brainstormed on fun (hackable!) buttons to take with us to gatherings of Mozillians throughout the month of October, I was excited to see a colleague pick up a marker and write the above phrase on a three inch-wide piece of plastic.

Participants at Mozilla Summit and the more making-focused MozFest two weeks later were invited to pick their preferred fill-in-the-blank button. These aren’t “actual” Open Badges that have digital counterparts, though those were available at both gatherings. But they were part of a fun international experiment to see how individuals would edit these three lines: I mentor people for ______; I’m a _____ nin.ja (or expert); I’m a ____ n00b (or beginner/newbie). After the first round of white buttons were snatched up, we reprinted 1,000 more in neon colors.

I was surprised to see more women reach for the mentor button and more men go for nin.ja, and this seemed to be repeated across the four different cities where we did casual observational testing. The only case I saw of displaying buttons beyond bags, shirts, and lanyards was the London-created collage you see here:

It was a ton of fun to watch people get to scribbling. I was especially excited by people who shared personal characteristics, a sympathetic n00b and inspirational nin.ja among them. These made up 2 percent of responses of the 85 buttons photographed—it wasn’t easy to snap everyone who took one in the midst of large scale science fairs. But I thought this analysis of the sample was worth sharing:

18 percent were humorous (lots of total n00b responses);

25 percent were related to vocation, though some of them corresponded more to specific teams within Mozilla (I mentor people for Persona) while others were more broadly related to professional skills (I mentor people for UX research);

Another 25 percent were related to personal passions and causes (I’m an open data nin.ja);

30 percent were related to specific technologies, including languages and localization.

These sets of characterizations were named by yours truly, and I encourage your thoughts on better ways to consider groupings. I found myself stuck as to how to most accurately characterize “Webmaker” when it was listed across buttons: as a vocation, a team, a passion? Also, my initial category of “affiliation” felt too broad given the uniqueness of involvement with the Mozilla Project. Whether in coaching people to use the Mozilla wiki or being a security rockstar, this process has shown me the massive amount of of energy and effort that goes into our open source learning and Internet undertakings. I’m struck by the diversity of responses and feeling grateful for the glance!

The last button I saw upon packing up was a barista sporting I mentor people for caffeine deficiencies. Thanks for all you do, you and you and you.

Just back from MozFest, where we announced BadgeKit, an Open Badges tool stack that will support the key pieces of the badging experience. This includes defining/designing, assessing, issuing, collecting/managing, sharing and using. BadgeKit will consist of open, lightweight tools that can snap together or be used alongside or within other sites or systems. Sunny and Jess both respectively wrote about it in more detail, but I wanted to dig into the “why”. 

Why BadgeKit, why now?

We’ve been pretty good about explaining the WHAT of our work, but I think we can be better about explaining the WHY. Often the WHY is because of feedback we’ve gotten from you, or because of a risk to ecosystem, etc. The WHY is always tied to our values. But I don’t think we talk about it enough. So, I wanted to take a second and jot some of my thinking on the WHY for BadgeKit down for folks to start that conversation:

[] Despite the progress we’ve made with interest and buy-in with badges, the gap between I get it and I have it is way too big. Platforms have emerged that are big, closed and expensive, and there is a huge risk of segmenting or closing large chunks of the ecosystem. Despite us promoting the ‘open’ part of Open Badges, its increasingly EASIER to build a closed system because of the limited availability of tools. We need to fix that. The ecosystem needs simple, easy, open options to move quickly and do so in a way that benefits the entire ecosystem. 

[] And building from that, we need to bake our values into the core so that it is easy to build badges and systems that are open, interoperable, transparent, learner-centric, etc. By offering a set of tools to scaffold badging, we have a chance to support our values even further. For example, we care a lot about the open standard (and in fact think that’s the most important piece of all of this), so we should make it REALLY easy to build badges that are aligned with that standard. Easier than building badges that DON’T align with the standard. 

[] But that’s not all. This isn’t a new idea out of nowhere, this is actually WHAT WE BUILT FOR CSOL, but more standalone, more complete, and more valuable to the broader ecosystem. We actually ALREADY HAVE BADGEKIT - we have all of the foundations. We are now really working to build out these tools in a way that makes them easy and accessible. 

[] Oh yeah and there are TONS of other organizations, cities and groups that want to do what Chicago did or something similar. Networked or ‘connected’ badges are the future - that’s the secret sauce that badges provide but we need the systems to support it. There are so many variables with these badge systems, that it seems to make sense to try to have some shared pieces to help minimize the burden and maximize the speed and efficiency of these roll outs. Plus, a shared technology infrastructure makes for easy sharing and leveraging across these networks. And if that technology is open and extensible, we all win.

[] Finally, we don’t have a bottom line. Building tools in a way that works well with other tools, and invites - even welcomes - competition, is not what any VC would recommend or support. Our priorities are ease of use, but also extensibility, interoperability and playing nice with others. We want to spend the time defining common interfaces so that you can use our issue tool with an assessment tool from somewhere else. Or pick up our build tool and make it better. We want more and better tools in the ecosystem, but the key is that they all work within the same open ecosystem. I don’t say all of this to be snobby, I think its a luxury that we can work this way. But also an obligation. That’s what makes Mozilla Mozilla, and I think we need to step up and build these foundational pieces to increase access and help everyone, including other open tool providers, thrive.

On the why now piece, the demand really speaks for itself. But above and beyond that, I’ve been reflecting back on this entire wild ride. In late 2010 (2010!), when badges was merely a few months old, there was a lot of pressure internally and externally to build an issuing platform. Brian and I, the only Open Badges employees at the time, resisted this at the time because we were afraid that if we did that, we’d too greatly influence the development of the badge ecosystem. We didn’t have a really solid idea of what a good badge looked like or how badge systems could work at that point. And whatever decisions we made and built into the platform would have heavily weighted the ecosystem out of the gate. We showed this diagram (below) all the time and repeated over and over that the stuff in the boxes (with the big blue lines around them) was independent of us, by design. We wanted to build the necessary pieces to support and not confine innovation at the edges, where the learning was taking place.

 And yet here we are building issuing tools. But I really think things are different now. We’ve seen a ton of badges and badge systems. We’ve built a ton ourselves. We’ve seen a market emerge around the tools, some done the right way, and some done the wrong way. We also know how to build more neutral systems, and our role in protecting and promoting the open standard. I still think that was the right decision initially, but also think that we’re really primed to do this now. 

When BadgeKit?

BadgeKit is already available for select partners - we’ve used it to support Chicago Summer of Learning, Connected Educator Month and Open Badges badges to date. We’ll continue to build out instances to support specific partners and campaigns that engage with us, but are aiming to release a free, open public beta of the standalone offerings in early March 2014. 

We really do need feedback from folks on this direction, as well as the specifics of BadgeKit. We keep saying “simple” and “easy” but need some help defining exactly what that means to people, what they need. We will need help prioritizing all of the potential features as well. And more. So look for more from us, and in the meantime, reach out and tell us what you think.