A first discussion on the various seals, badges, marks, stamps and labels that can be used to describe learning resources. Highly objective with little empirical data or theory.

1. Seals, Badges, Marks, Stamps,
Labels & Awards
Quality in Metadata
Quality of Metadata

2. Contents
• Definitions
• Selecting the Appropriate Term
• Mozilla Open Badges
• Quality Seals
• Concept-Process-Attribute
• Metadata
• Conclusions

3. Define: Seal
• Seal: A piece of wax, lead, or other material
with an individual design stamped into it,
attached to a document as a guarantee of
authenticity
– [offline] it’s also something that joins two things
together to avoid them getting apart
– [online] it’s used to also refer to quality seals but
also digital seals (or signatures)

4. Define: Badge
• Badge: a small piece of metal, plastic, or cloth
bearing a design or words, typically worn to
identify a feature or sign which reveals a
particular quality
– [offline] it’s used to refer to the policeman’s badge
mainly, but also for the awards earned by scouts
– [online] it’s used to refer to proof of competences
earned through online or offline courses

5. Define: Mark
• Mark: A symbol, name, or other identifier,
especially a name, logo, or other indicator
used to indicate ownership, origin, or level of
quality
– [offline] it’s used to refer to the marks earned at
school, or metaphorically to say that someone had
a significant impact on something
– [online] it’s used to refer to quality marks, quite
often

6. Define: Stamp
• Stamp: An official mark, design, or seal that
indicates ownership, approval, completion, or
the payment of a tax
– [offline] it’s used to refer to the stamps for letters
or the actual stamp that is used on documents
– [online] it’s used to refer to the stamps that can
be used for children to fill with color

7. Define: Label
• Label: A small piece of paper, fabric, plastic, or
similar material attached to an object and
giving information about it
– [offline] it’s used to refer to the tags on garments
or food, that references either washing conditions
or ingredients – it may contain badges in it
– [online] it’s used to refer to quality labels
(referenced in the EFQUEL e-Quality Label)

8. Define: Award
• Award: A prize or other mark of recognition
given in honor of an achievement
– [offline] usually ribbons given in competitions or
figurines (Oscars) and trophies
– [online] used frequently in the
media/music/cinema industries with similar
meanings

9. Google-define
• Search…
– e-learning AND
• “quality seal” 28.000 hits
• “quality badge”: 12.400 hits
• “quality mark”: 59.300 hits
• “quality stamp”: 8.090 hits
• “quality label”: 24.300 hits
• “quality awards”: 32.900 hits
– Learning resource AND
• “quality seal”: 24.200 hits (+Scholar)
• “quality badge”: 10.500 hits
• “quality mark”: 11.500 hits
• “quality stamp”: 1.180 hits (+Scholar)
• “quality label”: 18.200 hits
• “quality awards”: 29.200 hits

10. Use of the terms in
literature
• Badge and Mark are
somewhat steady
• Label and award are
gaining traction
• Seal and Stamp are falling
behind
• All numbers refer to
multiple meanings of each
term

11. approval quality origin expiration warranty authenticity
Seal
club competence cause training ranking
Badge
certification cause process
Mark
grade mail origin
Stamp
ingredients contents origin
Label
Award
excellence acknowledgement
ranking

12. Selection
• “Seal” is a term that is not “flooded” with
other uses, just like “Stamp” is
• “Seal” gets more hits in the e-learning related
search, allowing for greater acceptance in the
community
• “Seal” is connected to the notions of
approval, quality, origin, expiration date,
warranty, authenticity

13. Where do they fit in?

14. Define: Mozilla Open Badges
• A digital representation of a skill, learning
achievement or experience. Badges can
represent competencies and involvements
recognized in online or offline life
– Each badge is associated with an image and some
metadata. The metadata provides information
about what the badge represents and the
evidence used to support it

15. • Skill or achievement
– Achievement is too broad… Isn’t it?
– How broad is experience?
• Too broad!

16. Uses of Mozilla Open Badges
• Just like a real-life badge, an Open Badge can
represent almost anything, like:
– accomplishments in a class you’ve taken,
– levels of achievement in an ongoing process,
– your membership in a club,
– your skills as a gamer
• Generally speaking: experiences, achievements,
skills, competencies, learning, associations,
community involvement, peer interaction, etc.

17. approval quality
Seal
club competence training ranking
Badge
grade
Stamp
Award
excellence acknowledgement
ranking

18. Quality Seals
From this point on, we only discuss
about their digital counterparts

19. Warning: Oversimplification!
• The is always a concept going into a process
funnel and comes out on the other side, with
an extra attribute

20. As Simple As it Gets - ASAG®
- Process -
- Set of rules -
- Conditions -
- Objects -
- Processes -
- People -
- Accredited -
- Certified -
- Awarded -

21. Working Definition
• The outcome of a quality control (process) on
a learning object (concept), can be termed as
a “Quality Seal” (attribute)
– ASAG® for now!
– But:
• We may have different aspects of the same concept,
• Processes may focus on different things and
• Attributes can be really diverse

22. Concept-Process-Attribute
• A concept can be:
– A person (Mozilla Badges)
– An institution/organization
– A digital asset
• Learning objects
• Processes
• Photo/Image
• Etc…

23. Concept-Process-Attribute
• The process can be:
– A textual description of steps followed to ensure
quality
• How to create a resource, how a course is structured
– An evaluation scale that is used to grade/rank
• Movie ranked with 4 out of 5 stars
– A yes/no list of criteria
• A hotel that has a parking lot
– All of the above combined

24. Concept-Process-Attribute
• The final attribute can be:
– Grade/Ranking
– Approval
– Origin
– Quality Mark
– All of the above

25. Metadata
• We need to describe with the appropriate
metadata:
– The concept
– The process
– The attributes

26. Metadata for Concepts
• For example, IEEE LOM for learning objects
– Title, Description, etc.
– Already hosted in learning repositories
• Or a Vcard for a person/institution, etc.
– Containing basic information
– Maybe through linking with existing accounts

27. Metadata for Process
• Need to decide on the abstraction level
– The more specific we get with the process, the
more metadata fields are needed to describe it
• Image, Title & Description of process
VS
• Title, Description, Dimensions, Range, IPR, etc.
– Prefer to move towards the second option
– Less metadata means less facets to search with, less
structure and less visibility

28. Metadata for Attributes
• This can be as simple as Mozilla Badges do it
– Just store the “evidence” used to support the fact
that the concept got the specific attribute
– Like storing the number of stars that a movie
received or the outcome of the evaluation based
on specific criteria (a report if you will, specific to
this one learning object)
• Should be linked to the schema of the process,
mapping the “evidence” to the dimensions being
evaluated

29. Conclusions
• It’s more of a pick-your-poison approach, that
can be really structured or pretty loose
• It depends on the needs of each application –
what are you certifying?
– And what does “certifying” means…?
• Is there a compatible quality seal for learning
objects, applicable across platforms, including
metadata as a metric/dimension?

30. Next Steps
• Look closer into the specifics of quality
assurance for learning objects as well as
metadata
• Maybe the 6 W’s can help…
– What do we want to provide?
– Who provides it?
– Why? How? Where? When?

31. Seals, Badges, Marks, Stamps,
Labels & Awards
Hope you enjoyed this highly abstract and
opinionated presentation!!!
Questions or comments
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