By Mohammad Askari and Sunder Singh-Bal
Introduction
Over two days, we took part in a Digital Retreat organised by the Digital Learning Team at the Elevate Hub. During this, we cooperated with members of staff from multiple departments to work on proposed digital solutions for learning and teaching at the University of Sheffield.
After a quick welcome and convening of teams, the morning session began with an introduction to each team’s project and the goals they were hoping to accomplish over the course of the retreat.
The three teams were led by staff from different departments in the university. Matt Mears led a group on making A-level maths revision questions using a tool called NUMBAS as well as an induction Blackboard course for new Physics students, Rebecca Barnes’ group worked on making a guide on how to make a good online maths video lesson, and Pete Mylon’s group explored the use of digital badges for the recognition of skills and experience gained in university related activities not recognised by the Higher Education Achievement Report (HEAR).
Both of us worked in Pete’s group on the digital badges, so that is what we will go into more detail about in this blog post.
Digital Badges project - Day One (Mo)
During the first day of the retreat, the team focused on fleshing out the concept of the digital badges: what they would be for, who they would be given to, and how they would be awarded. We also started to outline possible issues with their design and implementation, addressing problems such as fraudulent or fake badges being created, and looking at how they could be avoided.
The morning session revolved around exploring existing badge designs and structures, and brainstorming designs for badges that would be awarded by the university. It was important for us to keep in mind consistent branding for the badges to be used across a number of different use cases, and keeping the university colour scheme in mind. To be able to create accurate and detailed designs, the team began looking into graphic design software such as Canva to develop templates. Having worked in a number of different engineering teams/co-curriculars, I was able to pull together some logos, and using Canva, worked with Pete to create some initial designs.
In the afternoon, we explored providers of badges that would allow them to be used for younger students. Searching the internet for providers such as Open Badge Factory, Badgr etc. - we hit a hurdle with implementation for this use case, since the badge suppliers tended to be based abroad, and with insufficient data protection and info security statements to warrant use by the university.
Day Two (Sunder)
On the second day of the retreat, we focused more on ways of implementing the badges. In the morning we looked at multiple different services to create and distribute digital badges, including Badgr, Badge List and Open Badge Factory. Our main considerations were verifiability (making sure that there was a way to distinguish badges awarded by the University of Sheffield from potential fake badges), and integration with Blackboard. We ended up settling with Badgr, as it has good out-of-the-box Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) integration with Blackboard. Also, we continued to look at badge designs, and made some mock-ups for engineering, iForge and society badges.
In the afternoon, we started testing Badgr and its Blackboard achievements integration. We found that badges issued via Blackboard were visibly marked with “issued by vle.shef.ac.uk”, which makes it easy to see that it’s an official badge. However, we had some technical issues with adding earnt badges to a student’s Badgr backpack, and students verifying that they earnt their own badges. We found workarounds for these, but this is something that the Digital Learning Team would talk to Badgr about fixing if the university was to go forward with it. In addition, we also had some issues with the images of the badges being compressed by Blackboard, which we were able to work around by uploading a high resolution version directly to the course’s storage.
At the end of the day, our team did a live demonstration of being awarded a badge for completing a Blackboard test. Unfortunately the badge didn’t show up until a few minutes after the presentation finished!
Use cases
The Digital badges developed during the digital retreat were intended to be used in a number of different projects.
Engineering projects: Co-curricular projects organised by students and staff within the Faculty of Engineering, working on various engineering related activities such as rocketry and drone/UAV design.
iForge: Badges given to student/staff representatives working in the iForge to maintain it as a space for students to design and create for their projects
Figure 2: iForge team lead badge - figure 2 description
Societies (e.g. committee members): For societies created in conjunction with the Student Union, to be given to members and the committee, for recognition of their participation in the society.
Figure 3: societies committee member badge - figure 3 description
Use for younger students (Makerspace): To be given to younger students attending workshops organised with the Makerspace, after completing various teaching activities to develop their engineering skills, such as basic electronics.
Reflections
Sunder: I found the retreat very interesting. Although I was unable to attend the first day, it was nice to be able to help develop the digital badges idea so that extra-curricular activities can be officially recognised in the future. I enjoyed working and collaborating with my team members, and as a group I think we made a lot of progress over the day. It was also cool to see what the other groups were working on - in particular the Physics induction course, which would’ve been very useful to have last year before I started university!
Mo: Having turned up on the first day with no idea of what to expect, it was refreshing to jump headfirst into a completely new idea, designing the badges for students. As a student taking part in a number of different engineering projects and societies myself, I could see real use for the badges and their implementation, as a way for us to show employers on LinkedIn and other platforms the work that we did. The Digital Learning team was friendly and helpful throughout, and they made the work a breeze - I’d be excited to come to the next one.
About the authors
Sunder and Mo are students and work as Digital Learning Associates, providing support and consultation for the University’s Digital Learning team.