Wikimedia UK and Open Badges/2013 archive
On Monday, a conference call took place regarding the potential use of Mozilla's Open Badges within Wikimedia projects, such as user pages and Wikimedia UK's Virtual Learning Environment. The notes from the call are below. This page is also a base for developing our thinking around this project, for exploring ideas and developing next steps and actions. Please be advised that the notes of the meeting may be somewhat patchy due to a poor line for parts of the call. Special thanks to Simon and Clem for joining the call from time zones where was either very early or very late. Stevie Benton (WMUK) (talk) 14:40, 15 July 2013 (UTC)
Open Badges for Wikimedia UK
Conference call, 2pm BST, Monday 15th July 2013
In attendance:
- Doug Belshaw (DB) - Mozilla
- Charles Matthews (CM) - Wikimedia UK / Moodle expert
- Clem Wilkinson (CW)
- Toni Sant (TS) - Wikimedia UK Education Organiser
- Simon Knight (SK) - Open University
- Graeme Arnott (GA) - Wikipedian
- Stevie Benton (SB) - Wikimedia UK Communications Organiser
DB explained that an open badge is a metadata-infused image file. Metadata for the badges includes who awarded it, for what, when and so on. The rigour of the award of the badge comes from recognising the awarder, noting whether the badge is endorsed by a third party and whether the activity the badge was awarded for is worthwhile. The badges are generally .svg or.png files.
CM asked about backpacks. DB explained about how Open Badges are pushed to the badge backpack by the user who can then choose to embed them anywhere on the Web.
CM asked about Moodle, in terms of the fact that it has badges embedding enabled. The main question is how to integrate badges into courses on Moodle. CM feels that badges may encourage more people to complete courses on Moodle; it's a way for people to track what they've done too. Badges can now be issued within Moodle and the best place to start is to think of the knowledge, skills and behaviours you want to promote. If Moodle allows this, then great.
CM explained a little about how the Wikimedia UK Virtual Learning Environment is designed to teach people about Wikipedia. To use badges we would need to upgrade to the latest version of Moodle but this should be easy enough. Authentification may be sensitive due to widespread use of pseudonyms within the Wikipedia community. DB explained that authentication can be done via email addresses. You can also issue someone with a claim code which generates the badge to their email address.
DB suggested that if someone was determined to remain anonymous this may not be the best case use of badges. SB agreed but this may be a way of giving some credibility to someone delivering training online.
GA spoke about training. He mentioned an editathon taking place in Glasgow in November and suggested that a badge for attendees as a small accreditation and way of recognising them. Could then act as a way of encouraging further participation. Could also be used for other events, such as meetups and so on. Could also be good for staff of WMUK and volunteers, too. CM asked whether these could be linked to userboxes on Wikipedia pages. this would be a good way of using the technology and integrating with current user behaviours.
CW joined in at this point and spoke about the peer to peer school of open. He was awarded a badge [OBI compliant Open Badge] for his activity here and it is on his WP userpage but doesn't have the element of verification that is possible within the backpack. [How do I embed that badge in Wikipedia?]
SK spoke about how badges are often used - such as when awarded for completing Moodle activities. He is also interested in looking at other topics users have been engaging with and to see what that tells us about the skills that they have (such as inserting a reference to an article). CM commented that this is a useful way of learning about the skills that people have. SK said that if we can see the activities people have participated in we able to review their work and award badges accordingly.
DB explained that if you create a large suite of badges you quickly create quite a burden on teachers and this can be counter-productive.