Foundation/2014Plans/OpenBadges

	Open Badges 2014 Plans
	Owner: Mozilla Foundation	Updated: 2014-01-15
	Draft plans for the Open Badges project at the Mozilla Foundation

This wiki page outlines the high level 2014 - 2016 goals for the Mozilla Open Badges project. We will continue to iterate on this page as we go.

Open Badges Goals & Strategy

Open Badges re-imagines credentials to support a transformed culture of learning where skills, interests and achievements are recognized and connected with digital badges to share across the web, granting access to jobs, advancement and education.

Goals

2.1 Shape: A distributed credentialing system connects greater numbers of people to open technology and makes learning, employment and identity on the web more interoperable.
2.2 Teach: The Open Badge ecosystem has an abundance of quality opportunities to foster and recognize learning and teaching experiences that align with Mozilla's values.
2.3 Build: BadgeKit forms the core technical infrastructure of a vibrant and interoperable open ecosystem of learning.
2.4 Empower: A thriving community of issuers, endorsers and validators recognizes and reinforces a culture of learning based on shared digital badges.

Open Badges Story

1. What is Open Badges and why does it matter?
Open Badges is a project that re-imagines credentials to support a transformed culture of learning - one where all types of learning, skills, interests and achievements are recognized and connected using digital badges that can be shared across the web to unlock access to relevant job opportunities and advancement.

2. How will it shape the world by 2016?
Open Badges is dedicated to recognizing and connecting learning across all contexts, in and out of school, allowing learners to gain insight into the skills they need in order to accomplish their goals, capture and communicate those skills once they've been obtained, and unlock access to relevant jobs and opportunities for advancement.

The Open Badges community has an audacious goal of a transformed culture of learning, employment and identity across the web. Throughout 2014-2016, Open Badges will support thousands of issuers, endorsers and validators in recognizing learning of all kinds through an open ecosystem of digital badges. Subsequently, millions of learners will be able to build a collection of badges that truly represents their lifelong learning and skills, and connects them to jobs, credit and other advancement opportunities. By the end of 2016, we will see that new culture in action, with open badges issued by over 5,000 organizations, impacting over 5 million learners and workers. Badges will be a key way that individuals represent themselves online, and will be used in many hiring and admission decisions.

3. Why will people get involved in what we're doing?
Mozilla Open Badges includes both an open standard for badges, as well as free software to make the badging experience easy and personal. The shared standard enables openness and interoperability within historically siloed credentialing systems. As a result, badges can operate as the key connector to ignite and support a culture of learning that works like the web. Beyond the tools, Open Badges thrives on an active and growing community who informs and drives this work forward with us.

4. Why will lead users or partners will get involved?
The lead partners for Open Badges, including badge issuers, endorsers and validators, provide valuable ways for learners to build upon and demonstrate what they know and can do. Issuers — often teaching and learning organizations — benefit by plugging into a broader ecosystem of learning. Their learning opportunities, recognition systems and brands will gain exposure beyond their networks, bringing more learners, prestige and endorsement. Endorsers and validators have access to a connected ecosystem where they support and promote specific skills, and exceptional learning opportunities for each skill. Finally, badges are data, and privacy-friendly analytics around impact and outcomes are an attractive driver for these contributors.

Employers will benefit from making hiring decisions based on verified skills instead of, or in addition to, self-reported resumes. Learners will have the ability to stitch together their learning across multiple experiences, access opportunities needed to reach their goals and easily communicate their skills to employers.

5. What we're doing in 2014 to move towards this:
Mozilla's role is to shepherd, protect and promote the open standard for badges, to ensure that badges are interoperable and have currency in the ecosystem, as well as to build the scaffolding needed for a healthy, open badging ecosystem to exist and thrive. This includes open tools to support critical elements of the badging experience, and the common interfaces and channels to ensure that a connected ecosystem of tools, support and services can exist. In 2014, the Open Badges team will build and release BadgeKit, an open tool stack to support the entire badging experience, including defining and issuing badges. Key adopters of BadgeKit in 2014 - 2016 will be more city-wide roll outs of badging and we are working with over 10 cities on a 2014 summer roll out. We also hope to engage more deeply with key global organizations like the United Nations, as well as the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Vocational and Adult Education, the Scottish Qualifications Authority, DigitalME, Statewide Afterschool Networks, and numerous K-12 schools, universities and community colleges to develop important badge systems on top of BadgeKit and the Standard.

6. Possible revenue opportunities:
In addition to a large and growing community of contributors, the Open Badges work requires a solid set of paid contributors as a means to further support the initiative. Revenue opportunities may include offering badge system design services to new issuers, offering services on top of BadgeKit like metadata caching, featured badges and employer tools, and additional philanthropic grants.

7. Why will Open Badges succeed?
We will succeed with Open Badges because they are the credentials needed to meet a rapidly changing world. Credentials have historically been siloed and owned by institutions. The Open Badges project, through sound technology and an open web ethos, is well positioned to shift the learning and credentialing paradigm towards an open ecosystem. In addition, we have the highest level of institutional knowledge and experience with badging in the marketplace, which we can leverage to help organizations build exemplar badge systems and educate the growing community on why open (learning, credentials, etc.) is critical to our future and to posterity.

Open Badges Roadmap

• n.b. This roadmap is a work in progress. Most updated version can be found on our github wiki: https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges-badgekit/wiki/Milestone-Roadmap-Q1-Q2-2014

Open Badges 2014 Product Priorities

Our major product development priorities for 2014 are BadgeKit and Mozilla-Wide Badges.

With BadgeKit, our goal is to:

• Improve the badging experience, making badging simple and easy to do
• Close the badging experience gaps by providing lightweight, free open badging tools
• Stoke the growth and development of the open badges ecosystem
• Build on our values of openness, interoperability, agency, choice and connectedness into the core and help shape emerging badge systems.

With Mozilla-Wide badges, our goal is to:

• Promote the Mozilla mission and values of openness, interoperability, and privacy protection
• Grow the global Mozilla contributor community with stackable forms of recognition and meaningful acknowledgements of behaviors of interest to Mozilla
• Use the Open Badges system and visual design tools, as well as issuing technologies, to demonstrate the quality and capabilities of the product within Mozilla
• Make it easy for groups and teams within Mozilla to easily stand up badge systems to engage and recognize their communities

BadgeKit Milestone Roadmap Q1 Q2 2014

Ducks in a Row: December 18

Goal: Complete prep work required prior to implementation

• Product definition finalized
• Architecture done
• All UX for MVP wireframed
• Plan for UI
• Plan for implementation

Preparing for Flight: January 22

Goal: Pull together an instance suitable for user testing

• Working app
  • Mockups / stubbed functionality for anything that isn't ready
• User testing sessions identified
• User tests planned
• Federated city backpack requirements defined and wireframed

Take Off: February 5

Goal: Soft launch BadgeKit

• User interface applied to the site
• Iterations based on user testing feedback incorporated
• Functionality tweaked
• Ready for 2nd round of user testing
• Documentation docs drafted

Flying: February 19

Goal: Put in the hands of real users (outside of the research cohort)

• Branding finalized
• Functionality and usability tweaks identified in testing, reconciled
• Documentation available on site
• Glossary and tool tips implemented
• Third round of user testing
• Marketing site content refreshed and designed
• Plan demo of badges.openbadges.org integration of BadgeKit

Soaring: March 6

Goal: A (beta) release

• Documentation user tested and tweaked to include human - friendly language
• Glossary user tested and tweaked - all jargon is identified and explained
• A user can design and issue a badge on their site
• A developer can download the APIs codes
• Language on marketing site is tweaked to reflect a release
• Marketing site (badgekit.openbadges.org) implemented
• Demo of badges.openbadges.org integration of BadgeKit launched

Jetpack: March 27

Goal: Federated city backpack release

• Deployed on CCOL
• Federated
• Seamless/fully integrated UX from BadgeKit to backpack

Orbit: May 14

Goal: Federated Mozilla backpack release

• Seamless/fully integrated ux from BadgeKit to Mozilla Backpack
• Federated
• UX refined
• UI to match the Open Badges look and feel applied

Mozilla-Wide Badges Milestone Roadmap Q1 Q2 2014

Phase 1: January 31

Goal: Complete foundational prep work for Mozilla-Wide Badges launch

• Categories and badge type standards established
• Initiate badge design with MoFo Engagement Team
• Create and socialize a few examples of Mozilla-Wide Badges
• Continue meetings with Community Builder Team to review status and plan for implementation

Phase 2: March 31

Goal: Complete content templates for Mozilla-Wide Badges, confirm initial system content plan and initiate visual design

• Finalize conceptual framework
• Completed content templates
• Finalize initial badge system content with MoFo Community Builder Team and other stakeholders

Phase 3: May 5

Goal: Launch Mozilla-Wide Badges Beta

• Launch the new set of initial badges
• Work with the Engagement team to promote the launch through Mozilla channels
• Establish user research channels as a means to gather continuous feedback
• Continue to evolve the Mozilla-Wide Badge system, adding additional badges throughout 2014