Badges have long played an integral role in human behaviour (Halavais 2012). For example, badges show group membership, such as alumni wearing college sweatshirts adorned with the icon of one’s alma mater. They communicate hierarchy and order, such as badges that connote one’s rank in the military or an advanced degree of higher education (e.g. PhD, MA, BA, etc.). Badges also signal the short hand and implicit understanding of the skills or knowledge that one has acquired in order to earn a given credential (Arkes 1999; Bills 2003). There is rising investment in using open badges to award credentials for individuals’ learning experiences across a variety of life settings as a way to develop skills in the workforce (MacArthur Foundation, n.d.). Government entities such as the U.S. Department of Education are also supporting the rhetoric surrounding open badges to support education reform (Digital Badges for Learning, n.d.). However, for scholars and researchers interested in examining the relatively new conceptualization of open badges for education, it can be difficult to make meaning of this term and social practice in ways that can illuminate issues of intent and consequences, or design and implementation.

In the following paper, we seek to explicate the concepts involved in the phrase open badges for education. We situate the discussion of badges within the domain of education, including both informal and formal contexts. In this frame, the goals, implementation and consequences attached to badges are linked to the concerns of teaching, learning and structuring education systems to enable these practices. We use the term education to broaden our treatment to include the ecosystem of organizations, people and tools that come into play to make teaching and learning happen. As we note later in the paper, some of the implications of openness as a concept influence how scholars conceptualize this ecosystem.

We then explore the term open badges. We review the theoretical and empirical literature concerning badges and highlight some of the different perspectives – for example, design-based, psychological, cultural, etc. – that inform our understanding of what badges mean, how they function and how they relate to human behaviour. This review highlights how the majority of discussion about badges focuses on their design, implementation and effects in closed or bounded systems (e.g. within a website or a learning platform). We then consider the term open as it is used in studies of Internet-based and related movements to create freely available, adaptable and usable resources across networks of people. These conceptions of openness also relate to movements to produce open education resources (OERs) and open courses (Peter and Deimann 2013). The characteristics of openness as it is used to describe production models, sharing of media and educational delivery introduce new ways of thinking about badging as a social practice. Finally, we show how ideas associated with badging and openness as social and technical practices can come into direct conflict with one another in some important situations, and at other times mutually enhance one another. By recognizing these areas of conflict and alignment, we pinpoint specific ways in which research and design can be focused to better understand and improve open badge projects in the future.

The discussion presented in this paper is motivated by our work with open learning platforms that have begun to experiment with the idea of digital badges. Our prior research has examined learner participation in the Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU), which is an open education community where any member can create and participate in courses (Ahn et al. 2013b; Ahn, Weng, and Butler 2013). P2PU is also implementing an open badging system that will allow any member to create learning badges as a way to promote learning in the community. These credentials are then tied to the broader Mozilla Open Badges Framework (http://openbadges.org/) that includes a growing number of organizations that are designing and issuing badges across different contexts.

Our prior work has also examined how online, community features such as voting and commenting influence the socialization of members in question & answer sites such as Stack Exchange (Ahn et al. 2013a). Researchers of the popular Stack Exchange platform attribute some of its success to a well-designed system of badges and reputation points (Mamykina et al. 2011). Increasingly diverse types of organizations are issuing open badges, including community organizations, museums and libraries (http://openbadges.org/participating-issuers/). The rising role of badges in online communities highlights the importance of understanding the varied roles of badges in promoting activity and sustaining interaction, even more so in the domain of education where badges introduce many unique issues (Abramovich, Schunn, and Higashi 2013). These questions increase in complexity when considered as part of the open badge framework. For example, if anyone can create, issue and earn badges, what are the effects on the supply of such credentials, learner activity around these artefacts, and their interpretation of the meaning of badges? We consider these questions in the following discussion.

The literature for both badges and openness are vast, therefore we do not seek a comprehensive treatment in this paper. Instead, our goal here is to highlight some of the major elements of both concepts, and focus on illuminating how conflicts and congruency arise at the intersections. Toward this aim, we considered three characteristics of badges (motivation, pedagogy and credential) and three components of open (production, access and appropriation). The resulting 3×3 table highlights some of the theoretical tensions that could arise (see Table 1).

There are many opportunities for openness and badging to mutually enhance one another. For example, widespread and open production of badges may enhance the use of badges as a credential or social signal. As more organizations develop and issue badges, there could be more institutional weight and credibility attached to badges overall. Learners may be more likely to pursue and earn badges if they are seen as credible artefacts, issued by trusted institutions and utilized by other stakeholders such as employers as vital elements of one’s credentials. In theory, the affordance of open appropriation could also widen the recognition of learning (as a signal or credential) to more diverse settings. If different groups of people can interpret and use badges, then numerous communities might emerge where learning is valued in new and diverse ways that move beyond standardized measures that do not capture the full richness of learning activities and achievement.

The opportunities for the use of badges in open systems also highlight the numerous ways in which the concepts may cause conflict. Consider the intersection of open appropriation and badges as a credential. The ability for individuals to interpret and re-appropriate different badges for their own use may widen and diversify the recognition of learning across multiple settings. However, the same openness of interpretation may work to inhibit the usefulness of a badge as a credential. For example, a small community of practice (e.g. an after-school program or an online community) may interpret and value a given badge one way while employers do so in an entirely different fashion. Thus, the same badge may be valued internally as a signal in a small community, but be less effective as a credential in the broader, open community. There will be questions regarding how different stakeholders interpret and value a given badge as a credential for learning. Similarly, learners may face substantial uncertainty in ascertaining whether a badge they are pursuing is valued or interpreted in positive ways by diverse stakeholders.

In terms of badges as a pedagogical tool, if anyone can create badges, it may be the case that many badges are not designed well from an instructional design perspective, and do not guide learning effectively for a learner. In addition, the supply of badges can be vast as numerous institutions and individuals design and issue these artefacts. Thus, information complexity becomes a vital issue for learners as they attempt to choose badges to earn and connect these badges in a learning pathway that is effective. How could designers and organizations devise systems that mitigate such issues? In open badge systems for education, since there is no guarantee of the issuer having skill in creating learning pathways, there are new challenges to educating individuals to design badges that effectively scaffold learning.

The idea of openness as widening access and visibility to resources is also an intriguing area of congruency and conflict. On the one hand, openness is an important ideal to promote equitable access and use. However, open access and visibility may dramatically alter the functionality of badges as a motivator of behaviour. An interesting question to consider is at what point might openness alter a learner’s motivation from intrinsic to extrinsic? Learners might pursue a little-known badge in a closed, niche community that provides some measure of intrinsic motivation. However, what happens to the motivational function of the same badge if it is widely accessible, shareable, visible, open to interpretation, and begins to reflect on the learner in a wider community?

We present our argument using the intersection of openness and badging as a framework. However, there are also important complexities within each concept. For example, the idea of badges as a pedagogical tool and badges as credential may in fact be specialized instantiations of badges as a motivator of some type of behaviour. Badges may promote intrinsically motivated behaviours such as seeking out feedback and guidance through a learning pathway if interpreted as an artefact to encourage particular teaching and learning activities. Conversely, badges might encourage extrinsically motivated behaviours if conceptualized as a credential. The same badge, for different learners, may be interpreted differently with one individual treating a badge as a next step in a learning process, and another treating it as an external representation of themselves for others to form impressions.

Similarly, ideas such as open production and open appropriation require additional explication and theorizing in order to fully understand its relationship to badges. Is open production a subset of behaviour to a broader concept of appropriation, or vice versa? Or perhaps the terms naturally relate to different levels of analysis. For example, open production is often used to describe systems of creation – where individuals cooperate through mediated systems such as open source platforms and open licenses – to create artefacts. The term open appropriation may then reflect personal experiences with artefacts, or the varied interpretation, understanding and use of technologies and tools of an individual. In this paper, we begin by identifying the general meanings of the terms open and badges, as they are utilized in the scholarly literature. However, in the future, there is a vital need to clarify terms, and create shared meanings of these ideas, within the community of researchers who are examining open badge practices.

The different meanings of openness and badging reveal a complex quagmire of social, cultural and technical factors that intersect to create multifaceted educational practices. Despite the growing excitement about the potential of open badges to enhance education and learning, there are inherent conflicts at play between these two concepts that will likely arise in practice. The ability of researchers and developers to understand and resolve these conflicts at the intersection of openness and badges might appear to be insurmountable. However, our view is that by carefully explicating these concepts, and pinpointing areas of congruence and conflict, one can illuminate the tensions and opportunities inherent in badge systems. In this paper, we highlight instances where openness and badge functions are highly contradictory, such as the intersection of open production and the use of badges as a pedagogical tool. We also underscore instances where openness and badging are strong complements, such as the positive relationship between open access and badges becoming widely recognized as a credential. Better understanding of the design space of open badges helps designers and researchers improve the collective ability to understand, research, and develop functioning and high-impact badge systems.

The framework we present here makes several contributions for designers and organizations that are experimenting and developing open badges. Critically mapping the features of openness and badges provides a language to talk about the opportunities and trade-offs that may be inherent in different badge systems. When designing an overall system it will be critical to identify and explicitly design for the potential obstacles or areas of opportunity. Systematic thought about what one means about openness and what goals or uses are intended for a badge system can help in the development of design experiments to better understand open badges, and help badge implementers to avoid possible pitfalls.

This paper also contributes to future research in open badges by beginning to pinpoint conceptual areas that require experimentation and analysis. There are open questions about how to design technical and social systems for open badge production. How do we design systems that encourage open badge production that furthers particular learning goals? The solutions to these design questions will differ based on what one means about openness and for what purposes a badge system will be utilized. How are badges being utilized as motivators, teaching and learning tools, or credentials? Our understanding of these complex social and technological practices will be shaped by how the stakeholders involved (e.g. badge issuers, learners, etc.) interpret and implement their conceptualization of open badges. Finally, how do individuals themselves experience badges and how do badges influence their learning process? A deeper understanding of these individual experiences will also require an understanding of the broader social and technological setting, which is highly influenced by concepts of openness and badging as an educational practice. Open badges represent an intriguing way to design, structure and reward learning through digital media, open systems and online networks. Future scholarly work in this area that pinpoints and explores the critical questions at the intersection of openness and badging will make significant contributions to our scholarly understanding of education systems and the practical development of badge systems for learning.