Open Badge
An Open Badge is a digital certificate or recognition that contains metadata (structured information) that makes it portable and verifiable.
It is Open because all metadata is organized according to an open source format and is readable by all applications conforming to the standard.
Firstly introduced by Mozilla in 2012, with version 1.0, then developed by Badge Alliance and, since the end of 2016, under the guidance of IMS Global, which released version 2.0 in April 2018.
The Open Badge is personal and the metadata it contains allow:
- to access all the contents of the Badge hosted on the platform that issued it
- to collect them, show them and share them
- to have a dedicated page, with the holder’s name, the date on which he/she obtained the Badge and the description of the Badge
- to download and send the image of the Badge from the dedicated page or link.
What do they mean?
Badges can testify of many different types of achievements and affirmations:
- Technical skills such as knowledge of a technology
- Soft skills
- Participation
- Authorization
- Community involvement
- New skills and competences not recognized by traditional education providers
Parties
When it comes to Open Badges, there are a few key parties involved:
- The IUSSER: the Company or Organization that issues the Badge that describes the skills / activities provided
- The EARNER: the user who gains the Badge after carrying out the learning or attending training sessions.
MY OPEN BADGE
MY OPEN BADGE (MOB) is the Open Badges management platform created by Reiss Romoli srl, with the aim of raising awareness and spreading the standard for the certification of micro and / or macro, formal and / or informal skills.
MY OPEN BADGE allows Organizations (Companies, Associations or any other Entity) to create and issue their own Badges according to the standard, and, in the public area of the site, to promote and present their activities, projects and related badges, by composing html-based web pages.
The contents of all public web pages can be freely used and shared by anyone.
The ISSUER assigns the badge to the Earners, according to the OBI ver 2.x standard, either through MOB’s back-end functions or automatically.
MY OPEN BADGE, informs the Earner of the badge’s allocation through an email.
Different ways of registration
MY OPEN BADGE provides the following registration methods:
- local
- via federated authentication
With local registration, the creation of the registred user is perfected locally on the MY OPEN BADGE database.
With the federated authentication mechanism, users who are part of a federation that provides a unique digital identity can register with MY OPEN BADGE using the credentials of the institution or institution of origin.
The federations which are currently supported are the following:
- IDEM
- eduGAIN
Local Enrolment
MY OPEN BADGE allows all users to be able to sign up and enrol. The required data for signing up is:
- Username
- First name
- Surname
- email address
- password
- photo / image
- other professional information that is useful for completing the professional profile
An important point for successfully signing-up is that the email address be verified.
The registered user has the ability to login to the MY OPEN BADGE platform and access all the services reserved for him.
Each User has always the possibility to manage and modify their personal data, their user profile and any data in their Personal Area.
Enrolment via federated authentication
The federations currently supported are IDEM and eduGAIN.
This type of enrolment requires that the personal identification data provided by MY OPEN BADGE (email, surname and name) is received by the federated authentication server and stored locally by MOB. In every case MOB neither receives nor stores the password, since authentication is done by the server which is external to the MOB platform.
If a user has previously made a local registration using the same email address then used for federated authentication, access via federated authentication will be equivalent to local access.
For authenticated users, during federated authentication using IDEM, the following data is retrieved from the user’s organization::
- eduPersonPrincipalName (required)
- mail: e-mail address (required)
- givenName: name (desired)
- sn: surname (desired)
- cn: Common name (desired)
Personal Area – Backpack and Personal Pages
Each registered user is assigned a Personal Area in which all the acquired badges through MOB are automatically available while all other badges issued by other platforms in the OBI standard can be loaded. In this area, users can manage their own visibility policies and management policies relating their badges. They can also print certificates in A4 format, create eCVs and Personal Pages.
In addition to the above, users can share their badges in different ways:
by downloading the Badge in png format according to the 2.0 standard
with the sharing of the json file
by sharing them on social platforms
by sharing links
through embedded code (for external sites).
The objective of MY OPEN BADGE is to enable users to have advanced and additional tools and features for managing their Open Badges.
Contacts
Users can contact MY OPEN BADGE staff by email at info@myopenbadge.com
Supported browsers
For full functionality we recommend the latest versions of browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Opera, Safari, Internet Explorer.