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Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0Mozilla has announced the 1.0 release of Open Badges, an open framework for deploying verifiable digital recognition of achievements and awards. As the announcement explains, "With Open Badges, every badge has important data built in that links back to who issued it, how it was earned, and even the projects a user completed to earn it. Employers and others can dig into this rich data and see the full story of each user’s skills and achievements." Mozilla says there are more than 600 organizations using the Open Badges infrastructure, and they have issued more than 62,000 badges. (Log in to post comments)
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 15, 2013 22:01 UTC (Fri) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]
Steam achievements for the Web?
I don't really get the point.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 16, 2013 0:03 UTC (Sat) by Company (guest, #57006) [Link]
Until you need them in your résumé.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 16, 2013 9:49 UTC (Sat) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]
Okay, call me back when there's worldwide demand for these badges rather than vendor-specific courses that they can then charge you for using their own "custom" solution that they can verify much more closely rather than relying on an (unpaid?) third-party to get it right every time.
And even then, there's nothing stopping any company in the world setting up their own one (a lot of them already have, so you can just log-in and see your completed courses etc).
Additionally, you would then need to prove identity on the web and/or hand off personal details to this project in order for a potential employer to verify that it's YOU that are entitled to those "badges".
This is a problem that doesn't need solving (vendors already have their methods), and produces data protection / identity problems to solve, and requires everyone to jump on board (without a single competing system arising) to solve.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 17, 2013 8:27 UTC (Sun) by blujay (guest, #39961) [Link]
I agree completely. We don't need to be moving toward finer-grained, canonical taxonomy and authentication of human beings and their qualities. What about those of us who don't want our lives enumerated in detail with confirmation that it's really me? I don't like the idea of prospective employers requiring such information.
What this really encourages is cataloguing of human lives, and it enables self-serving comparison and ego-boosting--which is not good for even Free Software projects.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 18, 2013 16:16 UTC (Mon) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]
> I don't like the idea of prospective employers requiring such information.
I do.
Same thing with employees that want Facebook passwords and also do credit checks. Same thing with personality and psychological tests and other crap like that.
I love that stuff. I _WANT_ to have the the ability for employers to demand that stuff.
Want to know why?
Because getting a new job and moving to a new location is such a stressful life changing event. I want to make sure that my employer is not a huge asshole before I commit to them. Requiring these sort of things make it very easy to spot who the assholes are and thus it makes it easy to avoid them.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 19, 2013 17:00 UTC (Tue) by k8to (subscriber, #15413) [Link]
What about employers who ask for a credit check on your first week.
I've had that. It was awkward.
I said "no", and I started looking.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 20, 2013 14:07 UTC (Wed) by ledow (guest, #11753) [Link]
Amen. I was halfway through your post and about to shout until I got to the end and thought "Exactly!". A self-fulfilling prophecy - if you want something from me that I would never give my employer, then you won't ever BE my employer.
Credit checks? Possibly, maybe, might be, in high-end financial jobs but otherwise I would refuse just on principle. And even then, I think there's probably a good case for a discrimination lawsuit even there. What's next? Writing to my great aunt and asking if I always said please and thank you as a little boy?
Unbelievable what people will subject themselves to just because a man in a white coat / suit asks them to do it.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 20, 2013 18:43 UTC (Wed) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
credit checks and background checks can be appropriate for some jobs (how vulnerable are you likely to be to outside pressure for jobs with high security requirements), but this should be part of the job description and completed before your first day on the job, not presented as a requirement after you are hired.
Such checks should also be done periodically after the person is hired, otherwise the value is greatly diminished.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 20, 2013 17:43 UTC (Wed) by njwhite (subscriber, #51848) [Link]
Hmm, while your argument is attractive, I think you're wrong.
It's a good argument, that works nicely for those of us fortunate to be in a strong career position; for whom turning down a job if the employer turns out to be a dick is possible. For those starting out, or otherwise considered easily replacable (fairly or not), the freedom to turn down a job may not be so easy to exercise.
It's for those people that legislation about such things is worth having. It doesn't stop their employers mistreating them, but it does at least somewhat circumscribe their behaviour.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 15, 2013 22:04 UTC (Fri) by brouhaha (subscriber, #1698) [Link]
Badges? BADGES?
We don't need no badges Posted Mar 15, 2013 23:25 UTC (Fri) by rgmoore (✭ supporter ✭, #75) [Link] Badges? We ain't got no badges. We don't need no badges. I don't have to show you any stinking badges.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 15, 2013 22:29 UTC (Fri) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link] If something like this (a mechanism that, for instance, certifies who has completed online courses and such via a digital signature infrastructure) takes off, it's much better for us all if it is non-proprietary (instead of being tied to the next Twitster or Faceplace).There could be problems: if it is used to certify who the top contributors to a free software project is, and the project forks, the person who controls the issuing of badges for the project might wind up being the dissenter, while everyone else doing the real work has left. But we already have this issue with trademarks and domain names.
Mozilla releases Open Badges 1.0 Posted Mar 16, 2013 14:32 UTC (Sat) by Tara_Li (subscriber, #26706) [Link]
The trick then might be to have some kind of distributed authority within the project for issuing the badges - perhaps a 2 out of 3 vote, or even an all-group vote with a threshold of say 6 aye-votes to issue it. As you say, we have this trouble already with other areas. This is one of the things the idea of a "company" fixes.
Ohloh Posted Mar 21, 2013 21:46 UTC (Thu) by jnareb (subscriber, #46500) [Link]
I wonder if Ohloh support / would support Open Badges.
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