Showing people Open Badges in action is the most effective way to demonstrate their utility. A learner is able to truly understand the concept when they upload a badge to their backpack and explore the metadata associated with it. This is far more effective than simply reading an article or watching a presentation.
For a series of videos featuring Open Badges, I wanted to give people the chance to obtain their own demo badge quickly. The badge should be customized to the recipient, just like an actual badge, and they should be able to add it to a backpack service using their email address. I also wanted to showcase some of the metadata involved and highlight the option of PDF badges.
Since there was no existing tool to do this, I decided to create one. It is now open for public use at badges.dgty.uk and only requires a name and email address to generate a valid badge that lasts for 60 days.
I built the tool using the CodeIgniter PHP framework and it’s hosted by 20i on a standard web hosting package, illustrating how badges can be provided with a minimal expense.