We have developed the badges.illinois.edu WordPress site for the sole purpose of Issuing Badges – This is a PILOT system which may or may not be wiped out in the future.

We can create an instance of our site for each ‘unit’ wishing to issue badges (i.e badges.illinois.edu/networking or badges.cites.illinois.edu/cites-ats). Email us for more information: badges-support@illinois.edu

It is setup like any WordPress site, with one HUGE exception, this should not be treated like a blog, there should be NO blog posts made to this system. Instead of blog posts, you can use the WordPress Admin interface to Create a Badge and to Award a Badge.

Elements of a complete Badging System:

• Badge Creation
• Badge Earning
• Badge Issuing
• Badge Acceptance/Storage
• Badge Publishing/Display

We have created this WordPress site which is solely for ISSUING badges.

Badge Creation

Creating Image File (png) – this is a process (and discussion) by itself

And Determining Metadata associated with the badge

Help documentation for Creating the Badge in our WordPress system:http://badges.illinois.edu/blog/2012/11/21/create-a-badge/

Badge Earning

Done outside of this system. Criteria determined by badge issuer. Criteria met by badge earner in whatever manner is best for the tasks at hand (i.e. completed a workshop in person, passed a quiz in an LMS, etc..)

Badge Issuing

Use a system to issue badges (could be done in a variety of ways, using wordpress, drupal, email, etc…)

Badge Issuing in our WordPress Pilot

Creating the Badge in our WordPress system: http://badges.illinois.edu/blog/2012/11/21/create-a-badge/

Award a Badge in our WordPress system: http://badges.illinois.edu/blog/2012/11/21/award-a-badge/

We are using a WordPress Plugin called WPBadger. Plugin currently allows ability to create new badge entries and issue them to email addresses. A landing page exists for users to accept or reject their awarded badges, and send them to the Mozilla backpack.

Each instance of our site has one admin – this admin is responsible for determining who is able to issue badges. In general, a badge is verified by metadata associated with the badge and is tied to a specific URL (so, our badges are verified by outside entities using badges.illinois.edu) Each badge is also tied to the earner by email address.

Badge Acceptance/Storage

Mozilla has an Open Badges project – which provides a framework for hosting badges for badge earners from any number of different issuers. They provide what is being called a Backpack – which allows badge earners to store all of their badges in one location, essentially no matter where they are earned. Mozilla provides a hosted solution as well as open source code for hosting your own solution.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Badges

You can Award a Badge using our WordPress system, the badge earner will receive an email with the information and a way to accept the badge. Once accepted, they can add it to their Mozilla backpack (which must use the same email address as the one it was awarded to). All badges are connected to a particular email address.

Badge Publishing/Display

This is one area we still need to spend some time investigating. There are a variety of ways to display backpack badges using the API provided by Mozilla.
It is our interest to look further into how to incorporate this into an active portfolio for students (and other badge earners, possibly).

We are currently evaluating a WordPress plugin on publish.illinois.edu which allows for badge display called WPBadgeDisplay.

If you have any problems, or need any help at all, please use our help email: badges-support@illinois.edu

Connect with others interested in badges on campus on Yammer