Badges

During the CLMOOC activities this summer, there is the opportunity to earn a "participant badge".

I don't know much about badges beyond what I remember from Boy Scouts where merit badges were the evidence of completing various tasks along the path of scouting. I wasn't in scouts long enough to earn many (any?).

The CLMOOC participant badge is great-looking.

I'll need to take some steps to get the badge. It isn't conferred just because I participated. It is voluntary to apply if I wish. Here are the steps.

To apply for a 2016 CLMOOC Open Badge:
Join our public CLMOOC group on BadgeList.
Select the Connected Learner badge and “Join the badge.”
Submit the required evidence (a URL and brief explanation – it’s up to you what you choose to use for this) to apply for the badge.
Await approval. That’s it!

BadgeList is a website which appears to moderate between the issuer of the badge (the clmooc organizers) and the participant (me). It keeps track of the application, the evidence and the approval. Presumably I can point to my approved badge as needed to impress/attract others to know my demonstrated skills.

I think there are other moderation sites. One is openbadges.org which is backed by Mozilla, the group behind the Firefox web browser and Thunderbird email client. Mozilla also is an open organization. I am a fan of things that are open as I also support Software Freedom.

I do not know (yet) if BadgeList is open. I was a bit confused when I noticed the credit card component mentioned in the next image of my BadgeList profile.

I don't quite see how I need billing information for this site.

After doing the usual things to create an account (username, email, password and confirm the email) I can begin by joining the badge group. The next image is "after" I joined and the option is for me to leave the group if I want.

Next I need to provide the evidence of my participation. Clicking the link to Evidence of participation shown in the next image gives me a page of what that evidence must be. But I also need to click the button to "Join Badge".

I'm going to post my set of contributed images and the "mini lesson" about licensing and remixing, as @grammasheri called it.

Now I wait. I guess other members of the badge group will see if my evidence meets the participant standard. I'm getting the impression that this is not a difficult process. "Participant" isn't really that demanding a standard.

Beyond clmooc, badges might be evidence of work done to establish credentials which might qualify me as an applicant for a job. I could demonstrate my web page skills, for example, I guess.

In a way, these badges are a more visual representation of the "endorsements" which I might get on a site like LinkedIn

Of course, I'm retired, not looking for a job. LinkedIn and badges will represent a learning experience for me, more than anything else.

Follow-up

I got email to tell me my badge had been approved. A couple of the other good people involved in clmooc said I was trying my best. Thanks to you all.

The next step is letting other people see my accomplishment.

and after clicking the Mozilla Backpack option

and

On Backpack, the badge is part of my profile.

And this next image is the embeddable badge using the last of the publishing options (which automatically centers horizontally on the page). You can link back from this badge to the description and evidence.

As a badge goes, this one is really for "bragging rights" to show I went through the steps of getting the badge. Beyond that, it DOES show that I've participated in clmooc. I can see that other badges with stringent requirements like doing a selfie at the top of Mount Everest could qualify me as a potential climbing guide, could lead to getting a job or a consulting contract. This time around, I am very glad to have gotten a supportive experience out of the badge-application process.