{"id":6282,"date":"2013-08-01T15:30:37","date_gmt":"2013-08-01T19:30:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/shermandorn.com\/wordpress\/?p=6282"},"modified":"2013-08-01T15:31:44","modified_gmt":"2013-08-01T19:31:44","slug":"michael-olneck-on-badges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/?p=6282","title":{"rendered":"Michael Olneck on badges"},"content":{"rendered":"

U. Wisconsin professor emeritus and sociologist Michael Olneck<\/a> wrote me the following in response to my 2011 blog entry on badges and exchange credentials:<\/p>\n

I was reading your September 25, 2011 blog, \u201c\u2018Credentialized badge\u2019\u201d is an oxymoron?<\/a>,\u201d in which you identify Scouting merit badges (and associated ranks) with \u201cnominal,\u201d rather than \u201cexchange-based\u201d credentials.<\/p>\n

I think you may have underestimated the value of extracurriculars as credentials in labor markets. While work internships may be the new gold standard, required above and beyond degrees, extracurriculars count, too, at least in some markets. See e.g., Rivera, Laura A. \u201cIvies, extracurriculars, and exclusion: Elite employers\u2019 use of educational credentials.\u201d Research in Social Stratification and Mobility<\/em> 29 (2011): 71\u201390. Also, among Oxbridge graduates seeking \u201cfast-track\u201d jobs, the \u201cwhat else have you done?,\u201d and how does it contribute to \u201cemployability\u201d questions seem pretty ubiquitous. See e.g., Brown, Phillip, Anthony Hesketh. The Mismanagement of Talent: Employability and Jobs in the Knowledge Economy<\/em>. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2004, and, if I remember correctly, Brown, Phillip, Hugh Lauder, David Ashton. The Global Auction: The Broken Promises of Education, Jobs, and Incomes<\/em>. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2011.<\/p>\n

That said, the future of badges as credentials seems to me to remain very much an open question, however, I am struck by the investment that is being made to promote the idea. See e.g.,
\nhttp:\/\/www.2mbetterfutures.org\/about<\/a>. I think there is a real tension between the use of badges to create new models of learning and assessment, which people like Dan Hickey at Indiana are developing, and the use of badges as \u201cmicrocredentials\u201d which organizations like ProExam Services are developing (see http:\/\/www.credentialingexcellence.org\/p\/cm\/ld\/fid=203<\/a>).
\nThe former will be open and fluid, and serve bounded \u201clearning communities;\u201d the latter will have to be relatively standardized to be broadly useful.<\/p>\n

My expectation is that badges will \u201ctake\u201d within universities before they take as employment credentials, but that university-issued badges may be a bridge to employment, as with the U.C. Davis Sustaining Agriculture and Food Systems degree program (see http:\/\/hastac.org\/ dml-badges\/ SA% 2526FS-Learner-Driven-Badges-Project<\/a>).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As usual, Olneck is far more sophisticated and to the point than most public discussion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U. Wisconsin professor emeritus and sociologist Michael Olneck wrote me the following in response to my 2011 blog entry on badges and exchange credentials: I was reading your September 25, 2011 blog, \u201c\u2018Credentialized badge\u2019\u201d is an oxymoron?,\u201d in which you identify Scouting merit badges (and associated ranks) with \u201cnominal,\u201d rather than \u201cexchange-based\u201d credentials. I think […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[11,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-policy","category-higher-education"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pag0MB-1Dk","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6282"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6285,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6282\/revisions\/6285"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shermandorn.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}