I’m sure we agree that we need to understand just how much of the status quo needs to be supported for traditional status-givers to use the new idea of badges as a mechanism. Equally, we probably agree that to get universities on board, two possible approach would be
1. to do what you suggest and get them to use badges for non-mainstream stuff (as you’ve mentioned the HEAR, that would be Section 6.1) while not affecting the mainstream
2. try to replicate the degree awarding system as closely as possible, but graft on badges as a means of learner presentation.

Happy to discuss the implications of these approaches with you or anyone.

Technically, such a system is relatively easy, but creating a recognised, stable and sustainable, authoritative, credible and desirable method of badging people’s achievements will require the greater part of the work.

As you know, we’ve started to think through and develop a technical implementation of Mozilla’s open badges system for a university setting. It’s clear, even at this very early stage, that any kind of real-world implementation will be tentative, careful and risk averse in how it impacts on existing methods of assessment and awards. In this context, work needs to be done (perhaps it has/is?) to identify how badges can be made wholly compatible with the status quo. How can badges improve what we already have?

Institutions will not and cannot disrupt the existing mechanisms of awards. This requires sanction from government. HEAR is a good example. It’s taken several years, many pilots and direction from HEFCE to make changes to this area. I can see universities at first offering badges for anything that is not already assessed and perhaps using badges to re-present aspects of the HEAR in a way that is meaningful to certain communities where badges are already valued (computing?).

Having said this, I think that universities and other stable, well recognised institutions are better placed than many other organisations to be badge issuers and to tackle the practical implementation of a badges. It has always been part of their ‘business’ and they know it well.

Elsewhere on your blog, someone mentions the importance of badges for self-esteem. I had not thought of this before, but it is an important point. It may be that in a university context, badges are a worthwhile motivational aid to achieving the larger award of a degree. That is, they have more value pedagogically than anything else.

The point of my post is just to work through an example in more detail, and to end up with that list of questions that needs answering. It would be good to see more detailed analyses — of the cases you list, or others — covering the same ground, or better, answering some of the questions where that makes sense.

To turn this question around, maybe I would first ask what groups would easily benefit from a (simple, initial) implementation of the badge system. And maybe I could suggest a couple:
– open source programmers (in comparison / contradiction to similar ‘closed’ badges, such as Microsoft Certified XXX, etc.
– amateur sport players (tennis, mini soccer, basketball), either on a personal or a team level (analogue to the badges a wii-sports player would get after practicing enough time and winning some plays)
– doctors, who get badges from companies that provide medical equipment, for eg. surgeries, scans, etc.
– and a surprise here: drivers, who get badges for being polite, good drivers, etc., through a collaborative exchange of virtual “thank you’s”, “honks” or “curses”, easily feasible with the forecoming near-field-communication and protocols for exchange of information between nearby cars.