I attended the Connected Learning presentation on Do-It Yourself Badges yesterday hoping to get some more technical information about how to set up a badge server. You can see the group notes from the session in this .

Badges are something we have talked about here at BCcampus; issuing badges for the various activities and events we put on. I am hoping that I can carve out some time from the open textbook project to explore the technical side of issuing Badges in a bit more depth.

While the discussion didn’t dig deep into the technical infrastructure of setting up a badge issuing system, I did come away from the webinar with a couple of interesting resources that I wanted to share.

The first is a WordPress plugin called BadgeOS that allows you to add Mozilla badging to a WordPress site. Reading the description, it looks like the plugin does more than turn your WordPress site into badge issuing site, but also has some assessment pieces baked in.

BadgeOS™ turns your WordPress site into an achievement and badging system. Your site’s users complete steps, demonstrate skills and knowledge, and earn digital badges. Easily define the achievements, organize the badge requirements any way you like, and choose from and combine a range of assessment options to determine whether each task or requirement has been achieved.

I am eager to play with it, and dive deeper into the BadgeOS ecosystem that appears to be developing around the plugin. If you have any experience with it I would love to hear your impressions of the plugin in the comments.

The second isn’t related to technical infrastructure, but rather an instructional design template on how to design a badge. It is a badge design canvas/matrix that helps you determine the assessment criteria for your badge and prompts the developer of the badge to consider things like what skills & behaviours do learners have to demonstrate to earn this badge, is the badge part of a larger learning path, and what evidence is needed to earn this badge. It might be a useful instructional design prompt if you are are considering designing a badge.

Have you played with Badging? If so, I would love to hear your experiences.

Image credit: My Nerd Merit Badges Arrived by doctyper used under CC-BY-SA license