M41 - Moodle Badges

Keywords: badges, badging, open badges.

What is it?

Badges are a way of celebrating achievement and showing progress. Badges may be awarded based on a variety of chosen criteria. 

Why use it?

Badges are especially useful for encouraging students to engage in tasks or activities that may not be credit bearing, but still form an important part of developing their understanding/skills in the subject. 

Who can use it?

Tutor or Course Administrators can create and set up badges in the course. 

Students can then collect badges by meeting the specified requirements. 

Before I start...

Remember to enable activity completion in the course settings to automatically assign badges when students complete an activity (e.g. post to a forum, gain at least 85% on a quiz, or complete a questionnaire).

If you want to make your own badge, then start by creating a badge image. You can design your own badge using any image editing software, but the easiest way is to either use an online badge creator tool (like Credly.com) to create a badge or use one from a library of free badges.

1. Select a site to create your badge, or make it yourself using Photoshop or a similar graphics editing tool.
2. Once you have created a badge, you will need to save the image to your computer in order to upload it to Moodle.

How do I set it up in Moodle?

1. Log in to UCL Moodle.
2. Go to your course - you can request a test course from the Digital Education team if you want to try this out before using it with others.
3. Click the More tab at the top of the site, then select Badges from the dropdown menu.
4. Click Add a new badge.
5. Fill in the following badge details:
   1. Name
   2. Description
   3. Image
6. Fill in the author's details as required.
7. Choose between the following Badge expiry options:
   
   1. Never
   2. Fixed date
   3. Relative date e.g. the number of days following the badge being issued
8. Click Create badge.
9. You will be taken to the Criteria page.
10. Choose between the following badge criteria options:
    1. Manual issue by role: All enrolled users on the course with a certain role (e.g. student) will get that badge.
    2. Course completion: The student will need to have been marked as completing the course to get the badge.
    3. Awarded badges: Allows a badge to be awarded to users based on other badges they have earned.
    4. Activity completion: This is based on the student completing an activity
11. The next page will ask you to define which (any or all) of the added criteria need to be completed for the badge to be issued. 
12. Click Save.
13. Click the Enable access button on this page to allow users to start receiving badges.
14. NOTE: As soon as you enable access and someone receives a badge you cannot modify or retract it. However you can disable it to stop others receiving it, then duplicate it if you need to alter any settings.
15. Click the More tab at the top of the site, select Badges from the dropdown menu, then click the Manage badges button. You will see the badge, the fact it is active and who has received it (click the number to see the names of the recipients).
    
    

Note, in Moodle 4.4, teachers and students will now be able to filter badges for better usability.

Caution

- None  at this time

Examples and case studies

• Badges can be used as criteria for other badges. For example, Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced badges.
• Cohorts can be used as criteria for badges.
  

Questions & Answers

- None  at this time

Further information

Badge Creation Tools:

• Cred.ly - for making and distributing badges

Free badge libraries:

• Moodlebadges.com (http://moodlebadges.com/?page_id=17)

Linking to your badges on other sites:

• Here's how to link to your badge on LinkedIn
• For Facebook, Google and Twitter, paste the link to your badge or collection into the post box
• For your website insert the iFrame code (in HTML view)