Call for Papers and Demonstrations: Open Badges in Education at LAK15

by James Willis and Dan Hickey

Along with Jelena Jovanovic (University of Belgrade, Serbia) and Steven Lonn (University of Michigan), we are organizing the 2nd International Workshop on Open Badges in Education (OBIE 2015) in conjunction with the 5th annual International Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference (LAK15) in Poughkeepsie, New York (March 16-20, 2015). The call for papers and demonstrations is now open. **Update: Deadline extended to Friday, January 23, 2015**
Open badges connect educational providers and practitioners, entrepreneurs, and researchers in discourses on teaching, learning, assessment, digital credentials, and digital education in general. One of the findings from the Design Principles Documentation project was how challenging it was for projects to get badge-based ecosystems up and running. The process of deciding what claims to include in digital badges and what evidence to provide in support of those claims was transformative for most projects and disruptive for many. We concluded that this makes that information particularly valuable for analyses carried out to study and improve those ecosystems

While preserving its general focus on opportunities and challenges associated with open badges, this 2nd installment of the OBIE workshop will be primarily intended for those interested in the intersection of open badges and Learning Analytics. This intersection includes gathering, integration, and analysis of data and resources associated with badges, with the ultimate aim of providing teachers, learners and other stakeholders in the ever-increasing badge ecosystem with informative and relevant feedback, and predictive functions. Participants in the workshop will be exposed to presentations and discussions on the position and role of digital badges in instructional design, on compelling data and analytics challenges and opportunities that the badge infrastructures open for the Learning Analytics field, and on different types and designs of badges systems and their potential to impact the future of education.

The important dates for submission are:

• 23 January 2015: Paper submission deadline *extended*
• 02 February 2015: Notification of acceptance
• 16 February 2015: Camera-ready paper
• 16 or 17 March 2015: Workshop Date

The topics of interest might include (other suggestions are welcome!):

• Challenges and opportunities associated with the use of Learning Analytic methods and techniques in the domain of open badges.
• Different kinds of feedback for teachers and students that could be generated based on the data and resources associated with open badges.
• Leveraging learners’ badge-earning pathways as means of i) assisting badge issuers in improving their instructional design, and ii) scaffolding learners’ reflection over the learning process.
• How different kinds of badges – e.g., participatory badges vs. assessment-based badges – impact learners’ engagement in disciplinary discourse?
• Intersection of badges and the recent initiatives to open and share analytics data – how openness and visibility affect the functionality of badges as a motivator of behaviour?
• Combined use of badges with other recent education-oriented initiatives (e.g., xAPI, LRMI), to allow for a greater insight into to evidence associated with badges.
• Examining learning ‘pathways’ that emerge in large scale efforts like the seven-city Cities of Learning in 2014.
• Using semantic technologies to i) analyze evidence contained in digital badges, ii) allow for a comparison and alignment of badges issued by different organizations, and iii) interpret the meaning of a collection of heterogeneous badges.
  

We welcome the following types of presentations:

 * Demonstration abstracts (up to 2 pages).

  * Short research papers (up to 5 pages). 

  * Full research papers (up to 10 pages).

Further particulars regarding submission may be found here, including a listing of the program committee.