Foundation/2014Plans/OpenBadges
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Open Badges 2014 Plans | |
| Owner: Mozilla Foundation | Updated: 2014-01-8 | |
| Draft plans for the Open Badges project at the Mozilla Foundation | ||
Open Badges is....
This collection of wiki pages outlines the high level 2014 - 2016 goals for Mozilla Foundation overall and for each of these programs. This is a draft version of the site -- it will evolve into a MoFO planning hub including goals, roadmaps and status updates starting in January 2014.
Open Badges Goals & Strategy
Open Badges re-imagines credentials to support a transformed culture of learning where skills,
interests and achievements are recognized and connected with digital badges to share across the
web, granting access to jobs, advancement and education.
Goals
2.1 Shape: A distributed credentialing system connects greater numbers of people to open technology
and makes learning, employment and identity on the web more interoperable.
2.2 Teach: The Open Badge ecosystem has an abundance of quality opportunities to foster and
recognize learning and teaching experiences that align with Mozilla's values.
2.3 Build: BadgeKit forms the core technical infrastructure of a vibrant and interoperable open
ecosystem of learning.
2.4 Empower: A thriving community of issuers, endorsers and validators recognizes and reinforces
a culture of learning based on shared digital badges.
Open Badges Story
1. What is Open Badges and why does it matter?
Open Badges is a project that re-imagines credentials to support a transformed culture of learning - one
where all types of learning, skills, interests and achievements are recognized and connected using digital
badges that can be shared across the web to unlock access to relevant job opportunities and advancement.
2. How will it shape the world by 2016?
Open Badges is dedicated to recognizing and connecting learning across all contexts, in and out of school,
allowing learners to gain insight into the skills they need in order to accomplish their goals, capture and
communicate those skills once they've been obtained, and unlock access to relevant jobs and opportunities
for advancement.
The Open Badges community has an audacious goal of a transformed culture of learning, employment and identity across the web. Throughout 2014-2016, Open Badges will support thousands of issuers, endorsers and validators in recognizing learning of all kinds through an open ecosystem of digital badges. Subsequently, millions of learners will be able to build a collection of badges that truly represents their lifelong learning and skills, and connects them to jobs, credit and other advancement opportunities. By the end of 2016, we will see that new culture in action, with open badges issued by over 5,000 organizations, impacting over 5 million learners and workers. Badges will be a key way that individuals represent themselves online, and will be used in many hiring and admission decisions.
3. Why will people get involved in what we're doing?
Mozilla Open Badges includes both an open standard for badges, as well as free software to make the
badging experience easy and personal. The shared standard enables openness and interoperability within
historically siloed credentialing systems. As a result, badges can operate as the key connector to ignite and
support a culture of learning that works like the web. Beyond the tools, Open Badges thrives on an active
and growing community who informs and drives this work forward with us.
4. Why will lead users or partners will get involved?
The lead partners for Open Badges, including badge issuers, endorsers and validators, provide valuable
ways for learners to build upon and demonstrate what they know and can do. Issuers — often teaching
and learning organizations — benefit by plugging into a broader ecosystem of learning. Their learning
opportunities, recognition systems and brands will gain exposure beyond their networks, bringing more
learners, prestige and endorsement. Endorsers and validators have access to a connected ecosystem
where they support and promote specific skills, and exceptional learning opportunities for each skill.
Finally, badges are data, and privacy-friendly analytics around impact and outcomes are an attractive driver
for these contributors.
Employers will benefit from making hiring decisions based on verified skills instead of, or in addition to, self-reported resumes. Learners will have the ability to stitch together their learning across multiple experiences, access opportunities needed to reach their goals and easily communicate their skills to employers.
5. What we're doing in 2014 to move towards this:
Mozilla's role is to shepherd, protect and promote the open standard for badges, to ensure that badges are
interoperable and have currency in the ecosystem, as well as to build the scaffolding needed for a healthy,
open badging ecosystem to exist and thrive. This includes open tools to support critical elements of the
badging experience, and the common interfaces and channels to ensure that a connected ecosystem of
tools, support and services can exist. In 2014, the Open Badges team will build and release BadgeKit, an
open tool stack to support the entire badging experience, including defining and issuing badges. We will
also launch the Badge the World campaign to invite and support a wide diversity of organizations and
global communities into badging. Finally, we hope to engage more deeply with key global organizations like the United Nations, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, DigitalME, Statewide Afterschool Networks, and numerous K-12 schools, universities and community colleges to develop important badge systems.
6. Possible revenue opportunities:
In addition to a large and growing community of contributors, the Open Badges work requires a solid set
of paid contributors as a means to further support the initiative. Revenue opportunities may include
offering badge system design services to new issuers, offering services on top of BadgeKit like metadata
caching, featured badges and employer tools, and additional philanthropic grants.
7. Why will Open Badges succeed?
We will succeed with Open Badges because they are the credentials needed to meet a rapidly changing
world. Credentials have historically been siloed and owned by institutions. The Open Badges project,
through sound technology and an open web ethos, is well positioned to shift the learning and credentialing
paradigm towards an open ecosystem. In addition, we have the highest level of institutional knowledge and
experience with badging in the marketplace, which we can leverage to help organizations build exemplar
badge systems and educate the growing community on why open (learning, credentials, etc.) is critical to
our future and to posterity.
Open Badges Roadmap
- n.b. This roadmap is a work in progress. Most updated version can be found on our github wiki: https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges-badgekit/wiki/Milestone-Roadmap-Q1-Q2-2014
Open Badges 2014 Product Priorities
Major product development priority for 2014 is BadgeKit. With BadgeKit, our goal is to:
- Improve the badging experience, making badging simple and easy to do
- Close the badging experience gaps by providing lightweight, free open badging tools
- Stoke the growth and development of the open badges ecosystem
- Build on our values of openness, interoperability, agency, choice and connectedness into the core and help shape emerging badge systems.
Milestone Roadmap Q1 Q2 2014
Ducks in a Row: December 18
Goal: complete prep work required prior to implementation
- product definition finalized
- architecture done
- all ux for MVP wireframed
- plan for UI
- plan for implementation
Preparing for Flight: January 22
Goal: Pull together an instance suitable for user testing
- working app
- mockups / stubbed functionality for anything that isn't ready
- user testing sessions identified
- user tests planned
- federated city backpack requirements defined and wireframed
Take Off: February 5
Goal: soft launch BadgeKit
- user interface applied to the site
- iterations based on user testing feedback incorporated
- functionality tweaked
- ready for 2nd round of user testing
- documentation docs drafted
Flying: February 19
Goal: Put in the hands of real users (outside of the research cohort)
- Branding finalized
- Functionality and usability tweaks identified in testing, reconciled
- Documentation available on site
- Glossary and tool tips implemented
- Third round of user testing
- Marketing site content refreshed and designed
- Plan demo of badges.openbadges.org integration of BadgeKit
Soaring: March 6
Goal: A (beta) release
- Documentation user tested and tweaked to include human - friendly language
- Glossary user tested and tweaked - all jargon is identified and explained
- A user can design and issue a badge on their site
- A developer can download the APIs codes
- Language on marketing site is tweaked to reflect a release
- Marketing site (badgekit.openbadges.org) implemented
- Demo of badges.openbadges.org integration of BadgeKit launched
Jetpack: March 27
Goal: Federated city backpack release
- Deployed on CCOL
- federated
- seamless/fully integrated ux from BadgeKit to backpack
Orbit: May 14
Goal: Federated Mozilla backpack release
- seamless/fully integrated ux from BadgeKit to Mozilla Backpack
- federated
- UX refined
- UI to match the Open Badges look and feel applied