Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

This paper explores the potential of digital badges in higher education. A digital badge is a clickable graphic that contains an online record of 1) an achievement, 2) the work required for the achievement, 3) evidence of such work, and 4) information about the organization, individual, or entity that issued the badge. Mozilla has created an Open Badges Infrastructure (OBI) standard that includes a display platform called the Badge Backpack so that badge earners will have a free, hosted, public location for management and display of their digital badges. Thus, badges earned by individuals from disparate organizations that use custom badging platforms may be aggregated in one location for others to view.