How to use Badges in Moodle

This refers to Moodle 4.1 from December 2023 onward

Moodle Help & Support

The most up t date version of this page is at: https://xerte.nottingham.ac.uk/play_23772

How to: use badges in Moodle

Introduction to badges

Badges are used in many types of courses and modules. We use them a lot in NOOCs and courses related to compliance. A badge can be issued for completion of one or more activities. Normally we use a badge per unit, with perhaps one for the introductory activity (to increase motivation to continue) and there may be special badges (e.g., for students who carry out extra tasks such as contributing a lot or mentoring others).

There are two reasons to include badges.

The acquisition of badges helps you easily work out who has completed units and thus the whole course, to assess entitlement to credit.
In Moodle, students can see their badges on their profile. The idea is that badges can motivate students to take part in activities and complete units. Badges can also be exported to external sites such as Mozilla Backpack or LinkedIn to add to an online CV.

For credit bearing modules, Open Badges tend not to be appropriate unless there are competencies to be achieved over and above the module outcomes.

What are badges? See the blog post Open Badges in Moodle

How to add a badge to your Moodle module

Decide on badges to include

It's important not to make badges too easy. These badges represent and are issued by the University of Nottingham (the equivalent of a certificate) so should not be too easy to get. For example, a badge might be given for

completion of a short course
completion of one (substantial) unit of a long course or module (e.g., Your University Journey)
completion of a special (substantial) task eg Facilitating an online course or supporting peers to an extraordinary degree.

First create a badge image (i.e. the graphic you will use as the badge)

You can use any graphics program or try either Open Badges or Accredible. The graphic should include some word or phrase that explains what it is: e.g., “Resource collector” or “Sustainability Week 1”, and it should also include the University logo.

Example:

Second – add it to your module

In your module enable completion tracking.
1. Click on the tab 'settings' underneath the module title
2. Under Completion tracking, in the "Enable completion tracking" dropdown, select 'Yes'
3. Click on 'Save and display'
  For full instructions: http://workspace.nottingham.ac.uk/display/Moodlehelp/How+to+use+completion+tracking+to+monitor+student+progress
Make sure you have at least one resource set up with some completion tracking.
Select the "More..." option tab under the module title
Scroll down to Badges and click Add a new badge

Add a new badge link

5. Give the badge a "Name" and a "Description" (include a summary of the badge criteria here)

6. Upload the badge image you designed and saved earlier by dragging and dropping into the "Image" area

7. Add your details as the person who created the badge image

8. Check the issuer details are correct (University of Nottingham Moodle)

9. Enter a badge expiry date if needed or leave on Never if no expiry is needed.

10. Click “Create Badge”

11. Now you must choose your badge criteria (in other words, what does the student have to complete in order to earn the badge) by clicking on the 'criteria' option in the drop down menu on the next screen when you have created your badge. Then choice which badge criteria type from the drop down menu you want to use for your badge.

or if you are adding the criteria at another time. Go to the 'more' tab in the menu below the module title and click on 'Badge'. Once in the badge menu click on 'manage badges', Find the badge you what to add criteria for and click on the cog icon on the right hand side in the actions column for that badge.

Cog icon to edit badge

Then click on the 'criteria' option in the drop down menu on the screen. Choice which badge criteria type to use from the drop down menu you want to use for your badge.

12. You can set the badge to be awarded manually (Manual issue by role) – i.e. you can award it to whichever students you judge to have earned it (this is assigned to a certain role, eg Editing Teacher) – or on module completion (which must be defined in Moodle), or completion of other badges - OR set Activity completion (likely to be the most common)

13. Choose “Activity Completion” and on the next page select the activity or activities that have completion checking enabled in your course. If no activities have completion checking enabled then you won’t be able to progress.

Choose activities for criteria of badge

14. Ensure it is set to ALL of the activities not ANY or the badge will be too easy to get!

15. Click 'Save'

16. Once this is done, you need to “Enable Access”. This activates the badge and it is ready for use.

Enable access to badge

If it is awarded by activity completion, then it is automatic: whenever a user completes the activity or activities you picked they will be redirected to the badge where they can download a copy of it. It is also attached to their Moodle profile.

To manually award the badge, in the module:

Click the 'more' tab under the module title and select 'Badges'
Select Manage badges
Click the 'Trophy' icon to award the badge

Trophy icon used to manually mark a badge

You can award it to multiple users at the same time.

Badge winners can also “Push” the badge to an external "Backpack", such as Badgr, which is an external tool that stores all open badges and can be used to demonstrate the badges gained.