1 Updated: 1/23/12 9:23 AM Open Badges for Lifelong Learning Exploring an open badge ecosystem to support skill development and lifelong learning for real results such as jobs and advancement Authors: The Mozilla Foundation and Peer 2 Peer University, in collaboration with The MacArthur Foundation Working Document Learner Scenarios First, let���s consider four learners: There���s Kareem, a 16-year-old Chicago southsider, who loves robots and movies and naturally can���t wait to see the new Transformers film, especially because they shot part of it in his hometown. He struggles in school because he does not understand how those things apply to his interests or to real life, so it���s easy to get bored and tune out. Luckily, he���s been able to pursue his interests through more informal learning opportunities with his peers through his local Learning Network after-school program: he���s made short films in a series of youth-oriented digital media workshops, mentored some younger kids at the local FabLab, and participated in a hands-on, sustainability-focused ���hackfest��� competition, in which his team took second prize for designing and building a mechanism to sort recyclables. But these experiences are currently isolated and cannot be carried with him to other contexts, including his formal school environment. So instead, he gets negative feedback in school and has started to think of himself as unintelligent and below-average. And then there���s Sara, an 18-year-old web developer who started building websites when she was 13, when she got her first computer and connected via a spotty Internet connection. She has developed and refined her skill set by tinkering on her own sites and those that she has built for friends, by viewing the work of others and by reading whatever she can get her hands on. Her mother is pushing her to go to college because it is assumed that she needs a degree to get a job. She doesn���t want to disappoint her mom, but she has already taken a few university- level classes and found them to be unchallenging and redundant for her skill level. In fact, looking through the course catalog, it seems her skill set is already well beyond that of the relevant courses in the local university degree program. She has taken a few open education courses through Peer to Peer University on specific new technologies and learned a great deal both in the course work as well as the peer community she met there. And yet she has nothing formal to put on a resume, which has made it impossible to get in the door at any employer.

2 Updated: 1/23/12 9:23 AM There���s Jin, a 28-year old artist and writer from Philadelphia who completed part of an associate���s degree at the local community college in management but dropped out to pursue her creative interests full-time. She is an active participant in a local art community through online social networking, city meet-ups and annual conferences and shows. Through her connections, she���s found a small network of local buyers and opportunities for free-lance work. Jin is fairly well known in the community and her work is very respected. She has a reputation of being ���avant garde��� because she is always pushing the boundaries of the community with her style and tone of her work. She is moving to Portland, Oregon in a few months with her boyfriend and is nervous about leaving her local community and ���starting over��� in a new place with new people. She wants to continue focusing on her art but other than the finished pieces, she has very little to show for her work and experience back east, and without the camaraderie and support of the community, she is losing confidence. And, Antonio, a 39-year-old father of two young girls who has a BA and has been working as a publishing professional for many years, but was recently laid off. Despite his experience and hard work, the industry has advanced considerably around him and new professionals are coming in with a leg up because they better understand the technological advances. He is now faced with increasing bills and responsibilities and needs to find a job. He has considered staying in the publishing field but he cannot afford to go back to school for the additional technology skills the jobs require, nor is he sure exactly which skills he would need to develop. He has considered trying to break into a new field like environmental policy, which has always interested him and been a personal hobby of sorts. He feels he has learned a lot that is relevant to the new field throughout his undergraduate education, work experience and personal projects, but he has nothing to show for it. Further, he is unsure which skills to develop first or how to ���break into��� the discipline and associated community of practice. To date, his resume has not been well received for either jobs in either industry. These examples illustrate many types of learning other than traditional classroom learning, including interest-based projects, self-directed tinkering and information gathering, community participation or on-the-job experience. In most cases, the opportunities, communities and material are there and sufficient to support each learner in discovering and pursuing interests, developing and refining skills, often digital literacies and 21st century skills, and gaining momentum and progressing in life. However, each of these learners encounters a problem in making their knowledge and skills visible and consequential in terms that are recognized by formal educational institutions and broader career ecosystems. Most existing systems of educational degrees and job-relevant accreditation require enrollment in formal programs and institutions and dictate that learning needs to follow prescribed paths. Informal, peer-based and self-directed learning is only acknowledged to the degree that it supports the formal curriculum. Further, most of these formal systems do not account for newer skills like digital literacies or for granular skills and incremental learning, and thus a degree or report card tells a limited story about what relevant skills and competencies people have developed along the way. Imagine instead, a world where your skills and competencies were captured more granularly across many different contexts, were collected and associated with your online identity and