Badges and quizzes

What is a badge?

Badges are a means of digitally recognising certain skills and achievements acquired through informal study and are entirely optional. They do not carry any formal credit as they are not subject to the same rigour as formal assessment; nor are they proof that you have studied the full unit or course. They are a useful means of demonstrating participation and recognising informal learning.

If you’d like to read more about badges you will find more information on these websites:

• Open Badges – this information is provided by Mozilla, a leading provider of the open badges system
• Digital Badges – this information is provided by HASTAC (Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Alliance and Collaboratory), a global community working to transform how we learn, particularly making use of technology
• Organisations across Scotland are working together to develop open badges – read about who is involved and how badges are developing on the RSC Scotland website.

How to gain a badge for studying Caring Counts in the Workplace

To achieve a badge for studying Caring Counts in the Workplace you need to be enrolled on this free course and meet the following badge criteria:

• agree to the appropriate badge trust statement
• read each session
• attempt quiz 1
• achieve 40% for quizzes 2–5.

Enrolling on the course

Please note that you need to be enrolled on this course.

To enrol you’ll need to create an Open University account.

1. If you already have an account, just click on ‘Sign in to enrol’ and enter your user name and password. If you don’t have an account, create your new account here.
2. Follow the instructions, and once you have finished registration by reaching the My Account page simply close the browser window or tab.
3. Then refresh THIS page to update your status so you can enrol.
4. The enrolment button is in the top right-hand corner.

You are now enrolled and ready to start the course and quizzes.

Badge trust statement

The OpenLearn Works non-accredited badging system relies on trust. We trust you to answer the questions in the unit drawing on your own skills and knowledge as we do not have formal exams or invigilation as part of the units and course. The badge trust statement asks you to agree that the answers you submit to course quizzes are your own work and that you will not share answers with other learners. The badge trust statement is within the introduction to Session 1.

Guide to completing the quizzes

When you start a quiz you’ll see an information page that lists learning outcomes. Under this there is a statement reminding you that you can have only one attempt at submitting your answers to the quiz (except in quiz 1). You can have between 1 and 3 tries at each question within the quiz, and you can see the number of tries you have left at the top left corner of the question page.

Figure 2 Quiz information page

The next page is an explanation of how to find your way around the quizzes. You can click through to view questions without having to answer them, using the navigation panel on the left of the screen.

Figure 3 Quiz navigation

Each question starts on a new page and has instructions on how to tackle it. There are different types of question: choosing from a drop-down list as in the example below; dragging and dropping answers into boxes; and multiple-choice questions.

If you click on ‘Check’ you’ll be checking to see whether your answers are correct. Most questions will give you some feedback and, if you need to, suggest you try again up to the number of goes you’re allowed.

If you click on ‘Next’ you’ll move on to the next question. You can leave a question unanswered or partially answered and come back to it later. However, you’ll see that completing one question can help you tackle the next one.

Figure 4 Sample quiz question

When you get to the final question, clicking on ‘Next’ brings up the quiz summary screen and an opportunity to submit your answers and complete the quiz for that session.

The Status column shows whether you’ve completed a question or whether you can have another go. You might not have completed all the questions, so you might want to go back and have another go.

The Marks column shows you how many marks you’ve achieved for each question so you can monitor your progress.

Figure 5 Summary of attempt

Once you’re happy that you’ve completed all the questions and/or used up all your goes you can click on ‘Submit all and finish’. You can only do this once for each session, so it is important to be sure that you’ve done the best you can on each quiz.

Figure 6 Submit answers

Once you’ve submitted your answers you’ll see a summary of your achievement in this quiz, which will indicate whether you’re on track to pass the course and gain your badge. When you have reviewed your answers you should return to the course by clicking on the ‘return to Caring Counts in the Workplace’ link.

When you get to the end of the course and have successfully achieved the completion criteria your course badge will be issued.

To access your badge

From within the Caring Counts in the Workplace course:

Go to the navigation block and under My Profile you can access My Badges. When you click on My Badges you will be taken to your My Badges page on OpenLearn Works.

Figure 8 My badges page on OpenLearn Works

To view the details of the badge, and to download it or add it to your Mozzilla Backpack, click on the badge and you will be taken to the Badge information page.

Figure 9 Badge information page

You can then either download this page to your computer or add the badge to your Mozilla Backpack.

What your badge will demonstrate

The Caring Counts in the Workplace badge shows that you have gained an understanding of the process of reflection and personal planning, and that you have achieved the following learning outcomes:

• a clearer understanding of the experiences of carers
• an appreciation of the various skills, qualities and attributes that carers may develop and how some of these are transferable to work contexts
• an understanding of carers’ motivations to return to work, or to balance paid employment with their caring role
• an awareness of the factors that may help or hinder carers who are in paid employment, and the support available to them
• an understanding of your role, and your organisation’s role, in supporting carers in your workforce
• insight to help promote early identification of carers as part of your support and supervision
• an awareness of how workplace policies and practice can help ensure carers don’t experience discrimination at work
• the ability to identify practical steps to take to foster a Carer Positive workplace
• an understanding of how the Core Principles for Working with Carers and Young Carers are applicable in your practice.

The Caring Counts in the Workplace badge does not represent formal credit or award. It does demonstrate successful participation in informal learning activity.

Sharing your badge

Badges awarded within OpenLearn Works can be shared via the Mozilla Backpack.

Downloading your badge to your Mozilla Backpack

You will need to create a Mozilla Backpack account.

When you have done this, click on the Add to backpack button and you will be asked to log into Mozilla if you have not already done so.

Follow the instructions on the screen and your badge should be automatically added to your backpack.