Creating a Badge

Creating a badge is a two-part process: determining how badges will work with your course (sometimes called creating a badge constellation) and designing the visual appearance of the badge.

Before you really dive in, know that Badgr uses Modules to award badges. There's a wide range of things you can do within this framework, including awarding a badge if a student gets a certain score on a test or views every page in a module. We'll discuss this later, but keep it in mind as you think about how you want to use badges! How your badges will be awarded is up to you, and we've got some tips to get you started!

Video games have been using forms of digital badges for years now (think trophies and achievements), and they work marvelously to keep players engaged. However, awards aren't given at random; they occur at key milestones, after optional challenges, as rewards for tasks at higher difficulties, and, notably, as players complete 'first steps' tasks to reward them early.

How might this translate to course badges? You might award key milestones by using badges for major exams. You might incentivize an optional assignment with a badge. You could set a badge for students that score over 80% on every exam in a module. Finally, you could set a beginning module with simple assignments like 'Contact your Instructor' and 'Upload your First Google Doc' that rewards students early on!

Before you start your journey into the world of digital badge design, plan out what badges you want to award and when. How do they correspond to your course objectives? Are they too easy? Too frustrating? For additional resources, check out the following:

How To Design a Digital Badge Strategy

Where Does Gamification Fit in Higher Education? [#Infographic]

Design

Alright, got some ideas? Then it's time to start playing with design! When making badges, the main requirement is really just that your image be a perfect square.

You've got some options when it comes to designing badges. First, Badges comes with a badge creator. Second, there's Canva, a free software for creating graphics. (You could also use your choice of graphic design program. We suggest Canva because it's easy to use.) Third, you could ask the eLearning office to make some badges for you! Here are some pros and cons for each option!

Badge Creator

Pros: Integrated directly with Badges; Super easy to use
Cons: Very limited/simplistic design options; Cannot add text - only a badge shape and simple graphics

Canva

Pros: Lots of options!; Easy to use (eLearning can show you!)
Cons: Some restrictions on design options without a paid account

Requesting Badges from eLearning

Pros: We'll do it for you!
Cons: Time - We can't guarantee a specific time-frame for completion (this option is best used in advance)