Overview of the Badge Alliance Presented by Megan Cole, Director of Marketing & Operations #openbadgesMOOC

1. THE BADGE ALLIANCE
Megan Cole
Director of Marketing
@megcolek

2. 4 years ago we asked the question:
What if we re-imagined credentials for a new
culture of learning?
HISTORY
Interoperable
Flexible
Granular
Digital
Transferrable
Connected

3. MMM
‣ Held Badge Lab and other discussions
‣ Authored whitepaper
‣ Built infrastructure - standard and APIs
‣ Launched P2PU badge pilot
‣ Ran dedicated DML Competition
‣ Built an initial community
HISTORY

4. HISTORY

5. MMM
‣ Over 14,000 issuers
‣ 60,000 Mozilla Backpacks
‣ Millions of open badges issued
‣ Another 4 M pledged for this year, aiming
for 10M over the next 2 years
TODAY

7. MMM
A network of organizations and individuals
building and enhancing an open badges
ecosystem with shared values including
openness, learner agency and innovation.
THE BADGE ALLIANCE

8. MMM
The Badge Alliance leverages the
Constellation Model for Social Change to seat
work within working groups.
THE BADGE ALLIANCE

9. A way to bring together multiple groups or
sectors to work towards a joint outcome and
to serve social change.
‣ Joint fundraising
‣ Joint and coordinated projects
‣ Shared voice
‣ Campaigns
‣ Coordination of policy
positions
‣ Coordinated strategy
‣ Service delivery
‣ Health promotion
‣ Research
THE CONSTELLATION MODEL

10. Constellation Model

11. Shared BadgesVision

12. MMM
Soft launched in February 2014 at Summit
to Reconnect Learning.
THE BADGE ALLIANCE

13. FOUNDING MEMBERS

14. MMM
With launch, announced first 10 working
groups.
Over 400 organizations and individuals
have signed up to participate.
THE BADGE ALLIANCE

15. WORKING GROUPS

16. MMM
2 critical pieces to our success: ecosystem and
infrastructure.
Started with a focus on the ecosystem itself.
Realized the need for this type of focus on
the infrastructure itself as well.
THE BADGE ALLIANCE

17. MMM
THE BADGE ALLIANCE
‣ Badge AllianceTeam
‣ Steering Committee
‣ Network (Working Groups)

18. BADGE ALLIANCETEAM
Director of Design
and Practice
Executive Director
Director of Marketing
and Operations
Global Social Media
and Community Manager
Director ofTechnology
Director of Infrastructure
Strategy

19. STEERING COMMITTEE
Mark Surman
ConnieYowell
Philipp Schmidt
Elyse Eidman-Aadahl
Dr. Chuck Severance
Ruth Schmidt
DavidTheo-Goldberg
MariaTeresa

20. NETWORK

21. WORKING GROUPS

22. WORKING GROUPS
‣ Open Badges Standard
‣ City-Wide Systems
‣ Endorsement
‣ Globalization
‣ Messaging
‣ Research
‣ Educator Badges
‣ Web Digital Literacy
‣ Workforce
‣ Higher Education
‣ OBI
‣ Coming soon: Policy/Data, Directory

23. WORKING GROUPS

24. WORKING GROUPS
‣ Smallest working group is 97 organizations
‣ Building communities around these topics

25. MEMBERS
Each working group includes a(n):
‣ Chair
‣ Cabinet (optional)
‣ Badge AllianceTeam Liaison
‣ Secretary
‣ Advisory Group(s) (optional but encouraged)
‣ ‘Community’

26. CYCLES
‣ Working groups run for cycles
‣ The first cycle is 6 months long:April -
September 2014
‣ Gives us flexibility to learn/evolve
‣ Forces us to set realistic goals and
deliverables

27. ‣ Regular working community calls, each group
decides on the cadence (most are biweekly)
‣ Dedicated mailing list for each group
‣ Subcommittee or side project meetings as
needed
‣ Chair publishes the cycle plan and tracks against it
PROCESS FOR GROUPS

28. ‣ Plans/roadmaps for each group posted on the
wiki (eventually the BA website)
‣ Notes from each meeting shared through the
mailing list and BA team
‣ BA team blogs the highlights to the entire
network
‣ Status reports from each group monthly
COMMUNICATION
Goal:Transparency and connectedness within and across WGs.

29. ‣ Platforms / tools
‣ Campaigns / events
‣ Frameworks / best
practices
‣ Examples / use cases /
pilots
‣ Funding pipelines /
grant proposals
‣ Publications / white
papers
‣ Research / data
‣ Partnerships
‣ Pledges / commitments
DELIVERABLES
This isn’t about sitting around and talking, we want to have
real deliverables and make real progress.

30. WORKING GROUP GOALS
‣ STANDARD - Deliver charter for the standard
‣ ENDORSEMENT - Deliver first version of
Endorsement
‣ CITIES - Deliver Cities of Learning 2014
‣ GLOBALIZATION - Launch BadgeThe World
campaign

31. WORKING GROUP GOALS
‣ MESSAGING - Publish the badges messaging/
talking points/presentation resources for
working groups
‣ HIGHER ED - Launch admission to higher ed
campaign, have 20 universities signed on
‣ WORKFORCE - Define industries, launch
specific campaigns

32. WORKING GROUP GOALS
‣ DIG/WEB LIT - Develop a framework for D/WL
badges
‣ EDUCATOR BADGES - Deliver framework for
teacher badges
‣ RESEARCH - Post all ongoing and upcoming
research efforts, prompt for research funding
‣ OBI - Document the OBI fully, repackage BadgeKit
as infrastructure, build the contributor base

33. WORKING GROUPS
‣ Open Badges Standard
‣ City-Wide Systems
‣ Endorsement
‣ Globalization
‣ Messaging
‣ Research
‣ Educator Badges
‣ Web Digital Literacy
‣ Workforce
‣ Higher Education
‣ OBI
‣ Coming soon: Policy/Data, Directory

34. MMM
‣ Interest is very high
‣ Need is very real
‣ Cycle approach working well
‣ Communication is key
‣ 80 / 20 rule is in effect
‣ Finding / coaching the right leadership is critical
‣ Mailing lists might not be the best option
‣ There are orgs who willing to volunteer time resources
‣ Scheduling is a challenge
LESSONS LEARNED

35. NEXT STEPS

36. 2014 GOALS
1) Build the Badge Alliance
2) Kick-off initial working group and deliver
on key content
3) Officially Launch Badge Alliance

37. BUILDTHE BADGE ALLIANCE
‣ Roll-out the new Badge Alliance branding
‣ Launch new website
‣ URL is www.badgealliance.org
‣ The home of Working Groups (updates, access to plans,
easy ways to get involved, etc. )
‣ Develop routine communication channels and calendar
(i.e. blog, social media, wiki, etc.)
‣ Hit the ground running...

38. KICKING OFF WORKING GROUPS
‣ STANDARD –Tues, May 27 at 1:30pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Standard-Calls
‣ ENDORSEMENT – Wed, May 21 at 1pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Endorsement-Calls
‣ CITIES – Mon, May 26 at 1pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Cities-Calls
‣ GLOBALIZATION –Tues, May 20 at 11am EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-BTW-Calls

39. ‣ MESSAGING –Thurs, May 22 at 12pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Messaging-Calls
‣ HIGHER ED –Thurs, May 29 at 1pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-HigherEd-Calls
‣ WORKFORCE –Tues, May 20 at 12pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Workforce-Calls
KICKING OFF WORKING GROUPS

40. ‣ EDUCATOR BADGES –Thurs, May 22 at 1pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Educators-Calls
‣ RESEARCH – Fri, May 30 at 12pm EST
‣ http://bit.ly/BA-Research-Calls
‣ OBI –TBD
‣ DIG/WEB LIT –TBD
KICKING OFF WORKING GROUPS

41. MMM
FORMAL LAUNCH
‣ Formal launch at CGI America 2014
‣ June 23-25, 2014
‣ Denver, CO

42. GET CONNECTED

43.
GET CONNECTED
Join our weekly Community call
Wednesdays at 9am PDT / 12pm EDT
http://bit.ly/OBCommCalls
Join a Working Group Based on Expertise / Interest
https://www.badgealliance.org
Reach out to us for information
badges@badgealliance.org
Connect onTwitter for updates
@BadgeAlliance

44. QUESTIONS?