Tiaan's sandbox: Badge Depot

The Badge Depot module allows a Drupal website to award badges that are compatible with the Mozilla Open Badge Infrastructure (OBI, specification release 1.0). It also includes a sub-module, called the Badge Depot Quiz Bridge, which integrates with the Quiz module to issue badges automatically after a user completes a quiz with a passing score. Furthermore, the Badge Depot module includes support to publish advanced Badge Criteria pages when more control is needed beyond that provided by the default criteria pages.

To make all of this happen, the Badge Depot module implements several data entities, and the module provides administrative interfaces and views of the data:

• Badge Issuer — One or more issuer organizations can be defined. Each badge issuer can award a distinct set of badges to users.
• Badge Manifest — To define a badge that can be issued by an issuer organization, each available badge uses a badge manifest. The manifest includes the unbaked (a.k.a. raw) badge image that will be used as the archetype of badges to be awarded to specific users.
• Badge Assertions — When a badge is awarded, assertion data must be created for each user that received a badge. Badges can be issued by creating an assertion manually or through an automated process, such as through an Action that can be defined using the Quiz Bridge.
• Badge Memo — These entities store the data records of Open Badges that are available from various organizations, whether they are issued with the Badge Depot module on your site or through another OBI-compatible website. The module provides a Badge Inspector that can view individual badges uploaded directly to the inspector or uploaded to a user's Mozilla Backpack.
• Badge Criteria Page — Although not implemented as an entity, but rather as a distinct Content Type, a Badge Criteria Page can be used to publish content for advanced Badge Criteria pages. These criteria pages are required as part of assertion data when issuing badges using the Mozilla OBI. The module automates the creation of markup from the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) specification on criteria pages. The default view provided for a Badge Manifest can also be referenced as a valid but more basic version of a criteria page, and the default criteria page can also include basic LRMI metadata. However, the more advanced criteria pages provide full control over the render style of the criteria page and enable advanced control over the LRMI metadata included on these criteria pages.

Evaluation

To evaluate this Drupal project online, go to the simplytest.me website. Once there, with this project selected, click on Launch sandbox and wait a few seconds for setup to complete. Then, click on the new Drupal website's Log in button, and navigate to the Help | Badge Depot page. From there, follow the steps to:

1. Create your badge-issuer organization,
2. Define the badge to be issued, and
3. Award badges to users.

Sponsors

Funding for this Open Badge Drupal module was graciously provided through the University of California Irvine from the MacArthur Foundation. Additional funding was provided by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Project Whitecard Studios was a winner of the Digital Media and Learning Competition 4 and worked with the Mozilla Foundation and many others. This project will be actively developed until at least the year 2017.