Webmaker/Badges

Business value

• Pathways—badges provide primary navigation for people entering the fold
• Proof of learning / metrics — badges provide a concrete way for us to measure learning in our on-the-ground programming and online trainings
• Partner strategy — when paired with a rigorous curriculum, badges provide a framework for certifying a learner’s digital literacy skills and competencies. This has significant appeal to many of our partners.
• Growing user base — badges provide a significant incentive for learners connected to a ground game effort (e.g. Maker Party, Club, or Hive) to join the broader community (and be made aware of the full range of our offerings)
• Recognizing local leaders – the “Mentor,” “Super Mentors,” “Club Captain,” and “Hive Community Member” badges convey social status and legitimacy

Value to mentors and learners:

• Structure and self-tracking—badges provide clear pathways for learning and contribution
• Professional development, reputation, and career advancement—badges provide clear pathways for increasing skills and knowledge, are perceived as evidence of mastery and expertise, and are connected to specific projects of which the recipient is proud
• Recognition—badges provide a concrete way to recognize people’s contributions and accomplishments
• Motivation—badges can keep people engaged and desiring to progress through a pathway. Badges can also be used to engage new/bashful learners
• Relevance—badges are connected to things people care about

Badge offerings

We are working to define our canonical badge offerings and our issuing scheme here: http://mzl.la/1F7DCYO

Q1/Q2 Roadmap

Clearly present our badge offerings and highlight learning pathways

Once we finalize the badge offerings, we’ll build a landing page that showcases and clearly differentiates the several types of badges we offer. The landing page will illustrate the progressive nature of our badge offerings, and serve as navigation through our program offerings.

• THEN: test and evaluate. Gather data on what users seem to actually want / find interest in. In other words: provide a clear menu. Then use it to ensure we're offering something customers really want, gathering data about what they want most.

Improve user experience for badge earners

We’ll make a few key improvements to the badge application workflow. Including potentially: allowing applicants to view the status of their pending applications, and edit their submissions while they’re pending.

• QUESTION: The key value point here seems to be: make sure it's easy and feels good for someone to apply for a badge. Can we make that the explicit goal -- and not assume that features like "view pending application status" or "edit submissions" are the best way to do that? Maybe there's other things that matter more to customers than this.

We’ll create a Badge Manager page for mentors and learners. From the Badge Manager page, people will be able to:

P1

• see the badges they’ve earned, including the evidence that was provided
• share their earned badges, and invite others to also earn them

P2

• see their pending applications, and respond to any questions from reviewers
• see recommended badges (based on previously earned badges and our pathways)

Improve user experience for badge issuers

We’ll also make some improvements to the badge issuing dashboard:

• Allow badge issuers option to receive notifications or emails about new badge applications
• Show counts of outstanding applications, and provide multiple views of outstanding applications (e.g. by submission date, by badge type)
• Provide search tool for issued badges, with criteria such as issue date, badge type, or reviewer (the search results will be exportable, enabling us to contact everyone who’s received a certain badge, for example)

We’ll improve the design of the application reviewer pane by including (in addition to the applicant-provided evidence):

• badge criteria
• information about the applicant, including other badges received/applied for

Let Club Captains issue badges to their Club members

With the launch of the Clubs program, we’ll have a need to grant badge-issuing privileges to Club Captains. The permissions may be limited in two ways:

• They’ll be able to grant badges only to members of their Club (this will require creating a connection between individuals and Clubs on the backend)
• They may only be able to grant Web Literacy and participation badges

Business and Product Documentation

• Credentials 2.0
• Badge System Design template

Design Documentation

• Mozilla-wide badge style guide
• Visual Templates for badge issuers
• Web Literacy badge designs
• Webmaker Training badge designs eps files
• Hive Badge template eps file
• Badges landing page design (to be updated)

Badge Criteria Documentation

• Documentation for Webmaker Super Mentors
• Documentation for Hive Community Member Badges
• Mozilla contributor badges one sheet (PDF)