Let’s Make Open Badges Work

This year, we have reached an inflection point for Open Badges. After 5 years of increasing effort and community interest, we have built a foundation for the work. The interest is there. It’s time to focus on the technology that makes badges possible: improving the technical standard, making interoperability real, and building world-class learning platforms that use badges. It’s time for badges to fully live up to their aspirations.

In my new role at LRNG, I am excited to be one member of the “collaborative, community-driven effort” to carry Open Badges forward. My team is committed to investing in the work of Open Badges as community contributors and financial supporters through our parent organization, Collective Shift. Without an open, interoperable credentialing framework that can recognize learning everywhere, we cannot reimagine or reconnect learning. Open Badges are not a nice-to-have, they are a necessity.

At LRNG, these are the kinds of badges we want to make:

• Badges that can be issued by multiple providers
• Badges that are based on youth interests
• Badges that are mapped to competencies
• Badges that act as containers for artifacts produced as part of a portfolio
• Badges that are easily shareable and portable
• Badges that are valuable and unlock opportunities and rewards
• Badges that are part of a bigger learning path

So let’s get to work!

1. Let’s release the 2.0 Open Badges Standard that levels up the specification so it can support more advanced use-cases.
2. Let’s build an open and vibrant technical community of practice that can drive the work and develop the technology.
3. Let’s invest in the ecosystem of new and necessary technologies around badges. Here’s a to-do list.

Let’s make the Open Badges technology so good it can’t be ignored.