Ryerson University
Project Description
Original Goals:
- To provide students with a tool for validation for achieving core, intermediate, and advanced levels of seven overarching development themes, including collaboration, communication, community engagement, innovation and problem solving, leadership, personal management and responsibility, and storytelling with research and data.
- To enable students to showcase their achievements and skill development on social networks through badge distribution.
- To encourage students to use their e-portfolio as a means of reflection and application for badges.
Our goals were forced to change over the course of the project due to the inability of CanCred to integrate into our learning management system, Desire2Learn (D2L). With the shortened timeline, the scale of our badging process was reduced. We changed the badging process from one based on very specific skill development to one based on completion of workshops and courses. Our original plan was to just badge within the Student Life department, but after a few conversations with our Learning and Teaching Office, we expanded to include two of their courses as well.
We consider this project a partial success. We were able to try out a badging program and process, as well as assess whether the distribution of badges provided an incentive to students on a small scale. While the D2L integration issues were limiting, we were still able to carry out the project.
Badging Team Description
Collaborators/partners involved in this project include:
- Student Life
- Learning and Teaching Office (LTO)
- Digital Media Projects
Communication and collaboration across these three areas mentioned were consistent, clear, and ongoing. Badges were distributed by both Student Life and the LTO. Similar communication in terms of the value of badges was provided across both areas. Instructions provided to students for accepting the badges were consistent across both areas and were delivered in the form of a PDF.
Badging System Structure
Ryerson aligned its badges to the programs listed below with their outcomes summarized. Please see Appendix A for details.
Clifton Strengths Training 1
Total number of learners: 23
Number of badges issued: 5
Assessment method: Survey to measure learning outcomes as presented in the session.
Clifton Strengths Training 2
Total number of learners: 10
Number of badges issued: 3
Assessment method: Survey to measure learning outcomes as presented in the session.
Clifton Strengths Assessment
Total number of learners: 1,011
Number of badges issued: 125
Assessment method: Completion of the Clifton Strengths assessment.
ThriveRU
Total number of learners: 11
Number of badges issued: 5
Assessment method: Completion of the four ThriveRU sessions and self-assessment based on learning outcomes.
LTO Level 1
Total number of learners: 144
Number of badges issued: 68
Assessment method: Completion of a course.
LTO Level 2
Total number of learners: 55
Number of badge