[Apologies for cross-posting]
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1st International
Workshop on Open Badges in Education (#OBIE2014)
=> in conjunction with the 13th
International Conference on Web-based Learning (ICWL2014),
Tallinn, Estonia, 13-16 August 2014
=> proceedings published by Springer
IMPORTANT DATES
====================================
* 1 May 2014: Paper submission deadline
* 23 May 2014: Notification of acceptance
* 13 June 2014: Camera-ready paper
* 12 August 2014: Open Badges in Education
workshop day (to be confirmed by the Conference
organizers)
OVERVIEW
========
Open Badges (OBs) initiative is a community
effort aimed at introducing novel means and practices for
knowledge/skill assessment, recognition, and
credentialing. Along the way, it is also promoting values
such as openness and learner?s agency, as well as
participatory learning practices and peer-learning
communities.
Even though digital badges are not a new
phenomenon, their use prior to the emergence of the OBs
initiative was largely associated with isolated efforts of
individual organizations, and there was no systematic
approach to issuing and using badges. Likewise, OBs should
not be equated with digital badges that are used solely as
a part of gamification efforts aimed at motivating users
for different kinds of tasks; OBs differ in at least two
significant ways. First, they allow learners to gather
badges that originate from different sources (i.e.,
organizations acting as badge issuers), and to select and
combine the earned badges into custom profiles suitable
for the given occasion (e.g., job application). Second,
OBs are self-sufficient in the sense that they carry all
the information one would need to understand and value the
achievement/status they refer to.
All these novel and distinctive features have
positioned OBs as suitable candidates for addressing some
of the pressing challenges in the context of life-long and
Web-based learning, including: i) recognition of learning
in multiple and diverse locations and environments that go
beyond traditional classrooms; ii) recognition of diverse
kinds of skills and knowledge, including soft and general
skills; iii) recognition of alternative forms of
assessment; iv) the need for transparent and easily
verifiable digital credentials.
TOPICS OF INTEREST
==================
Open Badges (OBs) are rapidly gaining traction
among educational practitioners as well as
education-oriented companies and non-profit organizations.
However, so far, there have been only a few research
studies aimed at validating the propositions related to
OBs. This indicates an obvious need for higher engagement
of the research community in order to assure a deeper
understanding of not only OBs and their potential roles,
but also the larger educational ecosystem within which
they operate and evolve.
Considering everything stated above, this
workshop would welcome submissions on some of the topics
from the following (though not restrictive) list:
* OBs as a motivational mechanism
* OBs as means of
supporting and promoting participatory learning practices
* OBs as means of supporting and recognizing
alternative assessment
* OBs as means of recognizing prior learning
* OBs as means of charting learning
trajectories
* OBs as a facilitator of self-regulated
learning
* OBs as means of building and maintaining
learner's profile (portfolio)
* Implementation of OBs in different kinds of
educational settings (formal, non-formal, informal)
* Software systems and tools for the
implementation and deployment of OBs
* Technical challenges in enabling the
intended functionalities of OBs
SUBMISSION AND PUBLICATION
==========================
We welcome the following types of
contributions:
* Short (up to 5 pages) and full (up to 10
pages) research papers,
* Poster
abstracts and system demonstrations (should not exceed 2
pages).
All submissions
must be written in English and must be formatted according
to the Springer LNCS format
Please submit your contributions
electronically in PDF format at
All the submissions will go through a
double-blind review process. Submissions
will be evaluated according to their
significance, originality, technical content, style,
clarity, and relevance to the workshop.
At least one
author of each accepted paper is expected to attend the
workshop.
All accepted
workshop papers will be published in a separate
post-proceedings volume in Springer Lecture Notes in
Computer Science (LNCS).
WORKSHOP ORGANIZERS
===================
* Weiqin Chen, University of Bergen, Norway
* Vladan Devedzic, University of Belgrade,
Serbia
* Dragan Gasevic, Athabasca University, Canada
* Jelena Jovanovic, University of Belgrade,
Serbia
PROGRAMME COMMITTEE
===================
* Samuel Abramovich, University at Buffalo -
SUNY, USA
* Simon Cross, The Open University, UK
* Elizabeth Dalton, University of New
Hampshire, USA
* Rebecca Galley, The Open University, UK
* Sheryl Grant, Duke University, USA
* Richard Kimbell, Goldsmiths University of
London, UK
* Rudy McDaniel, University of Central
Florida, USA
* Ivana Mijatovic, University of Belgrade,
Serbia
* Michael R. Olneck, University of
Wisconsin-Madison, USA
* Razvan Rughinis, University Politehnica of
Bucharest, Romania
* Jose Luis Santos Odriozola, KU Leuven,
Belgium
* Julian Sefton-Green, London School of
Economics and Political Sciences, UK
* Felicia M. Sullivan, Tufts University, USA
For further
questions please contact the organisers via