Digital Badges: An Annotated Research Bibliography v1
This annotated bibliography is a first step toward organizing literature about digital badges, open badges and badge systems. This domain involves multiple streams of literature from education, learning sciences, library and information science, reputation systems, and systems design. The bibliography includes peer-reviewed and non peer-reviewed articles, blog posts, news articles, white papers, videos, wikis and FAQs. We acknowledge that digital badges are an emerging topic and we have attempted to include a full spectrum of viewpoints. In light of this, we have chosen to provide descriptive rather than evaluative annotations. Digital Badges: An Annotated Research Bibliography selected and annotated by Sheryl Grant and Kristan E. Why a Badges Bibliography? This annotated bibliography is a first step toward organizing literature about digital badges, open badges and badge systems. How to cite: Grant, S. & Shawgo, K.E. (2013). return to top of page Adams, J., & DeFleur, M. (2006).
Why We Need Badges Now: A Bibliography of Resources in Historical Perspective
It was something over a year ago when we first began talking about badges as a powerful new tool for identifying and validating the rich array of people’s skills, knowledge, accomplishments, and competencies that happens everywhere and at every age. That’s when we decided that this year the Digital Media and Learning Competition would be dedicated to an array of competitions on badging. I remember when we started writing, blogging, talking, speaking, and in other ways trying to create a conversation around badges as an alternative mode of assessment, people would look at me like I was a little daft. Boy Scout sashes? It has been tremendously exciting and gratifying to watch this conversation catch fire, deepen, yield to debate, mature, progress, and turn into actual deployable badge systems that offer an array of new ways to capture and inspire learning. So why all this excitement about badging? Tragically, this way of counting leaves out so much of what we value.
Website recognizes military skills with digital badges
It can be difficult for veterans to explain the skills and training they received in the military to potential employers. A new website attempts to bridge that gap by giving veterans digital “badges” that recognize their skills. When it goes live next month, BadgesforVets.org will be a résumé translation and job search service. The extensive project, which includes badges representing training in more than 1,000 military jobs, is also a particularly promising foray into digital badging -- a much-hyped, although still nascent, form of alternative credentialing that could conceivably undermine higher education's role as a primary way of signaling skills to employers. The badge concept is inspired by patches Boy and Girl Scouts earn for mastering skills and conquering challenges. A Purdue University professor has used badges in addition to conventional grading, while the university has created a badging platform. Anyone can issue a badge, which some say is a quality-control problem.
Show Me Your Badge
The picture is a digital badge, a new type of credential being developed by some of the most prominent businesses and learning organizations in the world, including Purdue, Carnegie Mellon, the University of California, the Smithsonian, Intel and Disney-Pixar. The badge movement is being spearheaded by the Mozilla Foundation, best known for inventing the free Firefox Web browser, the choice of nearly one-quarter of all Internet users worldwide. While they may appear to be just images, digital badges are actually portals that lead to large amounts of information about what their bearers know and can do. They are also being used to improve education itself, by borrowing techniques from video games that keep users playing, until they advance to the next level. Badges are gaining currency at the same time that a growing number of elite universities have begun offering free or low-cost, noncredit courses to anyone with access to the Internet and a desire to learn.
The Badges of Oz
Almost a year ago I wrote a post about being a “skeptical evangelist” when it comes to the uses of badges in learning. This was spurred, in large part, by a workshop run by Mitch Resnick at DML2012 that was critical of the focus on badges. This year Resnick was back, as part of a panel, and the designated “chief worrier.” Then, as now, I find nothing to disagree with in his skepticism. To provide what is perhaps too brief a gloss on Mitch Resnick’s critique, he is concerned that the badges come to replace the authentic learning experiences. Which brings us to Oz, and a charlatan wizard from Kansas. “I think you are a very bad man,” said Dorothy. In the end, he gives them tokens in the book which the three companions take to be real. Now, as someone who sees badges as useful and helpful, it may seem odd to raise this as an example. On the other hand, the Wizard’s actions are about recognizing the achievements of the three. I don’t have a good answer to that, but I have two suggestions:
I Don’t Get Digital Badges
Digital badges appear to becoming the next, “new” thing in education. What follows is a description of digital badges as described by Digital Media and Learning: A digital badge is an online record of achievements, the work required, and information about the organization, individual or other entity that issued the badge. The proposed benefits of such a system would be a broader and deeper picture of skill sets acquired both in formal and informal settings. Advocates of this vision for K-12 contend that such badges could help bridge educational experiences that happen in and out of school, as well as provide a way to recognize “soft skills” such as leadership and collaboration. The Functions of Badges Daniel Hickey proposed four functions of badges in Intended Purposes Versus Actual Function of Digital Badges: Recognizing Learning. Badges As Rewards/As a Means for Motivation Daniel Pink discusses a similar occurance in organizational settings: Who Decides?
