In order to understand the relevance of the use of automatic badges as a strategy to promote users’ engagement and motivation, a pilot test was conducted in October 2012 with beginner users of SAPO Campus. They were asked to complete an introduc- tory tutorial of the platform, discovering the existence of badges and how they could be earned. We aimed to understand the impact of badges on their desire to complete the tutorial and their general attitude towards being rewarded with badges. The main re- sults revealed that earning badges has contributed for users to feel more engaged with the tutorial challenges (automatic badging system) and that students would like to be able to earn more badges as a result for completing other activities occurring inside or outside the classroom context [San 13].
To systematically improve the system according to the user’s needs, and with the manual system for badges attribution fully available, a second test is being conduct- ed in order to characterize the use of manual badging system and to understand the users’ opinion about the potential of this system in the promotion of news ways of assessment and interaction in order to enable the development of truly participatory learning communities.
In this context, some preliminary usage data (quantitative) was collected regarding the activity of the manual badging system. The graph below (Figure 5) represents the number of badges created, attributed and supported since the system was launched in May, 17th 2013.
CarlosSantos,LuísPedro,SaraAlmeida&MónicaAresta
The number of created badges has progressively increased, reaching 94 in June 24th
2013. The same happens with badge attribution and support reaching, in the same period, 225 attributions and 427 supports. It is important to note that there was no specific promotion and dissemination of the service apart from a post that was made in the SC blog team announcing the integration of the badging system. We believe that this blog post may have influenced the significant increase in badge creation, attribu- tion and support verified in that day.
These preliminary results are very interesting because they are showing that, even without guidance and launched in a very late and very busy phase of the academic year, SC users are adopting the system and using its main features. However, they are insufficient to understand the users’ opinion about the potential of the system in the promotion of new ways of assessment and interaction. In this context, a survey will be developed focusing in the aforementioned issues to be answered by a heter- ogeneous group of users: learners from all educational levels, teachers and school administrators. The collection of data at different groups and levels of education aims to understand the differences (if any) between users, regarding their experience and opinion about the decentralized approach for manual badging system and its potential to enhance the development of richer learning environments.
Taking users’ feedback into account, new elements as images, backgrounds and frameworks can be added and the recommendation of new badges that the user can win (similar to what happens with the recommendation of people the user may know or content he or she might be interested in) can be introduced at the platform. In this context, the collected data will allow us to adjust the system in order to accomplish the needs of SAPO Campus users and to characterize the usage scenarios of the manual system for create and attribute badges.
Conclusions
This paper presented the approach that guided the SC R&D team in integrating a sys- tem, supported by Mozilla Open Badges technology, for creating and attributing badg- es in the platform. This approach, trying to break with the traditional way badges are used and attributed in the educational field, introduces two major concepts: user-gen- erated badges and peer-support for badge attribution.
These concepts refer to the idea that creating and attributing badges should not be exclusive of a few users and that the whole community should be involved, participat- ing in and supporting the attribution decision process. However, as SC is an institution- ally supported platform designed mainly for educational contexts, it is also important to guarantee the validity of the whole process. This means that, in the institutional context, only the school administrators are able to create and attribute badges that are automatically attached to the user profile. Nevertheless, all users can support the
attribution of badges before or after the attribution. Badges can also be freely created and attributed in groups. Any user can create a group and, in this context, he or she can create and attribute badges that must be accepted (being publicly visible or only visible inside the group) or rejected by its members.
With the manual system fully available, some preliminary data about the activity of create, attribute and support badges was collected. The first results show that SC’ users are progressively adopting and using the system and its main features, specially the support. In this context, it would be interesting to further collect more data in order to characterize the usage scenarios and to understand the users’ opinion about the system and its potential in the promotion of truly participatory learning communities.
Acknowledgments
The authors would like to acknowledge University of Aveiro, SAPO and TMN for the scientific, financial and technical support to the SAPO Campus project and the Labs SAPO/UA R&D activities. This work is part of the Shared Personal Learning Environ- ments (ref: PTDC/CPE-CED/114130/2009) project funded by FEDER funds through the Operational Programme for Competitiveness Factors – COMPETE and National Funds through FCT – Foundation for Science and Technology (Portugal).
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fiGurEs
Figure 1 Predefined platform badges
Figure 2 Create new badges on the platform using the Badge Constructor Tool Figure 3 Accept or reject badges in the context of a group
Figure 4 Page of the user badge
Figure 5 Progress of badges creation, attribution and support
ContaCt dEtails Carlos Santos
University of Aveiro
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte Campus Universitário de Santiago 3810-193 Aveiro – Portugal Phone: +351 (0) 234 370389 E-Mail: [email protected]
Luís Pedro
University of Aveiro
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte Campus Universitário de Santiago 3810-193 Aveiro – Portugal Phone: +351 (0) 234 370389 E-Mail: [email protected]
Sara Almeida
University of Aveiro
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte Campus Universitário de Santiago 3810-193 Aveiro – Portugal Phone: +351 (0) 234 370389 E-Mail: [email protected]
Mónica Aresta
University of Aveiro
Departamento de Comunicação e Arte Campus Universitário de Santiago 3810-193 Aveiro – Portugal Phone: +351 (0) 234 370389 E-Mail: [email protected]
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