Getting started with edubadges
Are you looking to get started with edubadges for your educational setting? Do you already have a specific idea of what kind of edubadge you’d like to issue? For a single module, a faculty, a department or institution-wide? This roadmap aims at the staff of Dutch education institutions who’d like to start issuing edubadges to students.
Step 2. Define the structure of edubadge activities
This step lays the groundwork for setting up the edubadges platform. Firstly, we will look at the clustering possibilities within the platform; how do you keep track of your edubadges and who issues them? The clustering determines the assignment of roles and privileges. We will then see who else you need in order to start using the platform.
Clustering and roles within edubadges
Once an institution has been affiliated with the edubadges platform, it is free to manage its edubadges activities however it sees fit. An institution can help keep things organised by clustering badges and issuers, and by assigning roles and privileges.
This can be arranged quite finely, according to your own wishes.
For the sake of clarity, badge classes can be clustered in the edubadges platform. For example, you can keep all the badge classes for subjects covered by a particular programme together. The edubadges platform offers the possibility of distinguishing between roles and rights on four levels. On this basis, you can determine together with the edubadges institution admin who you wish to assign which role and rights. This means that you have to answer questions such as: which edubadges do I want to issue, who is going to do this, and how do I keep an overview?
The image below shows the different levels you can set up and the roles you can assign to them. This example refers to the 'Phonetics' edubadge awarded by the Linguistics Department.
Definitions
- Institution: the institution that issues the edubadges.
- Issuer group: this may be a subdivision or subcategory and includes a cluster of different issuers. In the edubadges platform, issuer groups are clustered hierarchically below the issuing institution.
- Issuer: the organisational unit of the institution that issues the edubadge. In the edubadges platform, issuers are clustered below issuer groups.
- Badge class: the description of the badge to be obtained, created by the issuer. In a template, the issuer describes what the badge encompasses, for example: the name of the course, programme or skill, the assessment criteria (what does the student have to prove to receive the badge?), information about the issuer, the value of the badge and any standards or agreements to which the badge is related (e.g. the number of ECTS study credits that are associated with it).
- edubadge: these are digital certificates issued by Dutch educational and research institutions to their students and staff. edubadges are issued through SURF's edubadges platform for both accredited education programmes and extra-curricular activities.
It is important to devise a clear structure from the outset that will be enduring and is consistent with your institution's other edubadge activities. From an institutional perspective, choose a recognisable classification that matches as closely as possible with the organisational structure.
Assigning roles and privileges
The edubadges institutional admin is the administrator at the institutional level and can tell you how the roles and privileges for issuing edubadges have already been set up. You determine together with the institutional admin which roles and privileges will be assigned for each cluster. Different people can create badge classes and issue edubadges. It is important for the credibility of the edubadges to delegate responsibilities clearly and logically. For example, you could choose to give certain lecturers only the right to issue an edubadge and not, for example, to create new badge classes.
You are ready for the next step if you can answer the following questions:
- How are you going to structure the edubadges?
- How will you delegate the roles and privileges (who will be responsible for what)?
- How will you keep things organised?
- How does this fit into the larger set of edubadges within your institution?