I have developed
the OnPhD candidacy challenge on P2Pu. The purpose of this challenge is to guide people through the tasks of declaring their candidacy as an Open and Networked PhD. A part of my work towards an OnPhD is to research alternative methods of assessment and accreditation for the self-directed life-long learner... I have the belief that digital and open badges will provide very well for the accreditation part. Therefore, I keep a concious eye toward the
open badges movement and have been helping out in building the
school of badges on P2Pu. I've taken on the creation of a couple of courses within this school, I am also doing some review of
Leah MacVie's outstanding work within the school. One of the courses she has developed is
102 Quick Issuing, and I am working through the course to debug and give feedback. One of the tasks within the 102 Quick Issuing challenge is to describe a badge system you would be issuing badges. The badge system I am developing is to support the OnPhD. This badge system would recognize the accomplishments as a person meets or exceeds the milestones found within a traditional PhD while also allowing a person to be self-directed in defining their own OnPhD.
I have a deep appreciation of
the colour themes within martial arts belt system to denote levels of accomplishment. I will use these within the development of the badge system for my OnPhD. Essentially, I will use the respective colours as part of the badge as I progress toward mastery in my chosen subject domain. Completing the OnPhD Candidacy challenge awards the earner a yellow candidate badge, and other tasks or accomplishments within this level would also be awarded a badge with a yellow colour. As the progression toward mastery progresses, so would the colour of the badge, closely matching the belt colours within the martial arts. Given the self-directed (or
heutagogical) nature of the OnPhD much of the badge system design should be responsibility of the OnPhD candidate, allowing them to set their own learning directions(s). This would deepen learning and is
strongly supported by current research around heutagogy.
