Hugh Lashbrooke 1:08 am on August 10, 2021

PROPOSAL: Learner achievements on profiles

A planned feature for Learn is integration with WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profiles. There’s already an open issue on GitHub for recognising contributors with badges, so I’d like to nail down what kind of thing we would like to see regarding recognising learner achievements on profiles.

Here’s my proposal:

An activity stream entry whenever a learner completes a full course.
A persistent line showing the learner’s average grade on Learn WordPress – I envision this in the top right info blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. above the social links, but happy to be shown otherwise.
A new tab under ‘Activity’ called ‘Learning’ (or similar) that shows all of the courses they have completed along with their average grade for the course and what date they completed it on. This could also show individual lessons completed along with the relevant grades, or any other learning data that we have, but I think that courses will be the primary thing here.
A ‘Learner’ badge for everyone who has completed at least one course. This badge could use the same icon as the Training Team badge, but in a different colour.

One caveat is that we don’t have a lot of courses on the site at this stage, but that is changing as we develop new content so my hope is that we will have these rewards in place now and as content is created the rewards will flow naturally.

The goal here is twofold:

To surface learning data as a way to make Learn WordPress more valuable to people, not to mention more prominent and visible
To provide motivation for people to take courses

Is there anything else we could do on profiles to recognise learner achievements? Once we have agreement on this proposal it can be moved over to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ for implementation.

Courtney Engle Robertson 10:35 am on August 10, 2021

Automating the process of getting badges onto .org would be incredibly helpful. At least in gathering the names of various users and passing them along to the individuals that managing badges. It would be a challenge for the team to manage tracking and awarding badges.

I would like to see more specific badges around which course was completed. Or if we string a series of courses together. Some way of noting within the profile is somewhere that in addition to individual courses, an entire series of courses has been completed.

Also, badging for individual contributors can be likely automated in sync with test results based upon activity on Learn. If a person edits an article, is attributed with creating a video, has helped the team as a subject matter expert, and advising on course content, they too should receive badges.
- Hugh Lashbrooke 8:57 pm on August 10, 2021
  
  For clarity’s sake, everything in this proposal can and would be automated so there wouldn’t be any manual intervention needed for doing any of it.
  
  I would like to see more specific badges around which course was completed. Or if we string a series of courses together. Some way of noting within the profile is somewhere that in addition to individual courses, an entire series of courses has been completed.
  
  Sensei has ‘Course Categories’ that we could use for the purpose of grouping and trigger rewards based on completing all the courses in a categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. perhaps. While I do like the idea of badges for specific courses (or groups of courses) that could result in an overloading of badges on individual profiles. That’s why I suggested the new ‘Learning’ tab to include that information and that an overall ‘Learner’ badge.
  
  If a person edits an article, is attributed with creating a video, has helped the team as a subject matter expert, and advising on course content, they too should receive badges.
  
  Contributor badges are already on GitHub – some can be automated (like when contributing to content on the site), but some will need to be manually done.
Courtney Engle Robertson 3:17 pm on August 10, 2021

Noting here are Matt’s thoughts about Learn related to badges as well. https://videopress.com/v/EkkeqmlP?at=198
Gary Kovar 4:52 pm on August 10, 2021

I dig this idea, especially the concept that someone could earn a badge on their .org profile while bootstrapping other ways to contribute.
Hugh Lashbrooke 5:36 am on August 11, 2021

Added to GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/: https://github.com/WordPress/learn/issues/228
Dan Soschin 12:44 pm on August 12, 2021
Hi Hugh & Training Team:

I’m a bit new to the contributors community (though a WordPress site builder since 2009). I hope you do not mind if I share some thoughts that had been in my mind about Learn, having spent a decade in the e-learning space at a couple different colleges.

I just love the idea of adding reinforcement/encouragement for completing courses and demonstrating competencies for two primary reasons:

1. It helps the course completer quantify newly obtained skills in order to demonstrate professional development achievement(s) and advance their career. Demonstrating competency with WordPress may help people gain new opportunities, promotions, or build their own business.

2. It helps evangelize WordPress to an audience that may be less familiar with WordPress (e.g. an employer/boss/client/contact) in the network of the course completer who sees this certification/accomplishment.

And of course, it goes without saying that we all benefit from encouragement and reinforcement for investing time and effort when it comes to lifelong learning. It’s fun to get badges.

Some additional ideas with regards to badging, certification, and the like:
- It may be valuable to the course completer to have an auto-generated, downloadable certificate that they can share on social media, print at home/work, email to an employer, and save to use as a reference document. Perhaps the certificate could be professionally designed, include the name of the skill/course/module completed, the date, the relevant version of WordPress, and even carry a signature from the Executive Director or Founder.
- Could badges be cumulative? In other words, could we issue multiple badges or have some sort of level or tiered system? E.g. “Bronze, Silver, Gold” depending on the number of courses completed or similar. This would mean that the upper tiers would be more difficult to achieve and would carry some additional prestige.
Could the same type of badging/reward/level system be modified and applied to contributors of content to the platform as a reward for their effort? E.g. “Gold contributor since 20xx”. I know we don’t really do this for other areas in the project, but just throwing this out into the open as something to think about.
- Can we make it easy to share the badge, reward, achievement on social media with a pre-populated Tweet/Post generator?
- It’s been stated previously I believe, but I think it would be beneficial to capture and display the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. data around the courses completed. E.g. date, module name, module link, score, and any other relevant tags.
- I think it is important for course takers to be able to share/document their accomplishments on their résumés and networks such as LinkedIn so that the skills are marketable and discoverable. The added benefit of doing so further helps evangelize WordPress.
- Should certain “skills” expire? For example, Google issues analytics and advertising certifications that last about two years before requiring you to re-demonstrate your skills and “renew” your certificate. Would such as process/requirement be relevant, or by simply recording and publishing the date of the certification, are we accomplishing something that is “close enough”?
- It may be worth exploring other e-learning websites to gather inspiration. For example: masterclass.com, udemy.com, coursera.com, linkedin.com (Lynda), edx.org, and so on.
- And one final random thought is you could even work with a print-on-demand service to enable people to order high-quality prints (and frames) to display their certificates. I even envision people printing and posting selfies with their certs. :slightly_smiling_face:
I understand that the existing code base that drives WordPress profiles may not be able to support the ideas above. However, I thought I would at least memorialize all these ideas I had in my mind so they would not be forgotten. Maybe some updates to the profile management system to support these things could be further leveraged in other areas of the project so that there’s even more value in building something to power badging in the long run.
- Sarah 3:48 pm on August 12, 2021
  
  I really like your thinking, Dan! I think all of this is valuable, so thank you for sharing!
  
  Could we issue multiple badges or have some sort of level or tiered system?
  
  This would be ideal! I’m less a fan of tiers and more a fan of “lots of badges”, but see merit in both options.
  
  Should certain “skills” expire? For example, Google issues analytics and advertising certifications that last about two years before requiring you to re-demonstrate your skills and “renew” your certificate.
  
  This is an interesting idea that I would like to explore further — I feel like some basics may not need to be refreshed (once you learn the dashboard, for example, you keep it) but as the technology evolves, updates would be necessary.
  
  The question then is: do we want learners to re-take an existing (updated) course, or perhaps take an additional supplemental course going over the changes to keep their skills current? Either could work!
- Adam W. Warner 2:15 am on August 26, 2021
  
  Can we make it easy to share the badge, reward, achievement on social media with a pre-populated Tweet/Post generator?
  
  I REALLY like this idea. It incentivizes immediate sharing after completing a course and assists in amplifying that Learn exists as a resource, bringing awareness.
  
  Can we add a “Learn WP Badges” to the oEmbed blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.? I can envision someone building sites using a row of WP course badges as social proof. 🙂
  - Hugh Lashbrooke 3:14 am on August 26, 2021
    
    I love this!
- Matt Cromwell 7:16 pm on August 27, 2021
  
  These are all GREAT ideas. Love Adam’s BlockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience. idea as well.
Dan Soschin 4:20 pm on August 12, 2021

I’m definitely on the fence regarding “lots of badges” vs “tiers”… though, I suppose you could do both. 😛

Badges do make it really fun – because you could award badges for fun types of accomplishments, e.g. “binge badge – for watching more than six videos in a day”, etc., etc. Whereas with tiers, you are recognizing cumulative contributions/consumption/achievement.
Laura Byrne 2:52 pm on August 24, 2021

I like the idea of badges or a progress bar. it’s a great incentive to see how you are doing.
- Adam W. Warner 2:01 am on August 26, 2021
  
  +1 to a progress bar visual. I could envision this in two scenarios. One as a progress indicator of how many courses in a categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. have been completed, and another ranging from new user to expert developer encompassing “all” WordPress skills.
Hauwa Abashiya 3:15 pm on August 24, 2021

I think a visual representation of where you are and what you’ve achieved is great. I also love the idea of being able to share your achievements with the wider world like LinkedIn, socials, etc.
Stephen Cronin 11:11 pm on August 24, 2021

I’d be against showing the learner’s average grade publicly, because it could lead to anxiety, stress etc and maybe even stop some people from participating in the courses. Eg: “What if I only get a C, will anyone take me seriously? Will it harm my chances of getting a job in the WP space?” etc etc. Some people will thrive on that sort of competition, some people … not so much. And I feel like we should be as inclusive as possible.

The other comment I have is that if the badge (and the grade if it is included) are seen as valuable to have, then there will be attempted gaming of the system. Not a reason not to do it, but probably need to build the system with that in mind.
- Hugh Lashbrooke 12:33 am on August 25, 2021
  
  I’d be against showing the learner’s average grade publicly, because it could lead to anxiety, stress etc and maybe even stop some people from participating in the courses.
  
  That’s fair! Do you think a good solution would be for the actual grades to be opt-in (so they’re hidden by default)? That way it would just show course completion rather than scores, unless the user specifically indicates they want their score shown.
  
  The other comment I have is that if the badge (and the grade if it is included) are seen as valuable to have, then there will be attempted gaming of the system. Not a reason not to do it, but probably need to build the system with that in mind.
  
  For sure – people will always try to game the system. We’ll bear that in mind and see if we can find ways to mitigate the possibilities of it as we go. Thanks for highlighting it!
  - Stephen Cronin 12:54 am on August 25, 2021
    
    I think that’s much better – though I guess there may be some sort of issue around why people have chosen not to show it? But much better if it’s opt-in.
  - Adam W. Warner 2:06 am on August 26, 2021
    
    I’m with Stephen on showing grades/scores by default being seen as a deterrent (hello imposter syndrome), and although opting in to show grades/scores is a valid option, I still question WHY one would want to show grade/scores for individual courses.
    
    If one of the intents of badging is to show proof of WP skills to potential employers or clients, then I would think that “completed X courses” or “proficient in X categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging. of WP” would suffice.
Naoko Takano 3:14 am on August 25, 2021

Just echoing everyone’s thoughts – I like the idea of showing badges to encourage learners.

@dansoschin‘s comment:

Should certain “skills” expire?

I think some of the skills may need a refresher, though not all of them. It might help to add information when the badge was obtained so whoever is viewing can use that to understand the context.
- Hugh Lashbrooke 8:28 pm on August 25, 2021
  
  It might help to add information when the badge was obtained so whoever is viewing can use that to understand the context.
  
  Including the date the course was completed will be very important. In the future, we could even flag certain courses with a time limit so that when they get past that time frame we can indicate that the course achievement is out of date. That would need to be discussed and implemented well if we were to do it though.
  - Courtney Engle Robertson 11:06 pm on August 25, 2021
    
    I think deciding if a course should be considered expired or out of date could be important.
    
    As WP aims for backward compatibility, I don’t think we should take courses down or in any way fade badges off. It can take a very long time for many client sites, plugins, and more to be rebuilt by shops and agencies that have begun shifting to newer ways. They may need to maintain the former methods and have staff able to support them until fully converted to newer methods or site redesigns.
    
    I do think we can name courses, or append some descriptive taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. that indicates the versions or other methodologies a course badge was current with.
    
    For areas close to CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., that would be easy. Areas more like methods for pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party dev, theme dev, etc. will likely go through different processes. Considering the past 5 years, and looking ahead 5 years – many of the ways we build are still changing.
    
    We have plans for a Training team member to be a Core buddy. https://make.wordpress.org/training/handbook/about/team-roles/#make-team-buddy. Ideally, communicating with a few teams to assess when the method has changed enough to issue a new badge/new course for a new method would be a decision with the team most closely related to that area.
mdburnette 7:07 pm on August 26, 2021
First of all, I just want to say that I’m quite excited by this idea. I’m all in for a way to visually show when someone has been actively engaged in growing their own knowledge and education. Not only is that an important hiring indicator, but it’s also very rewarding to look back at your own achievements and it’s fuel to carry on!

Before adding any additional thoughts here, I’ll simply list the things from previous comments that I agree with basically as-is:
➡️ A way of showing badges for individual courses, along with a badge for completing a series of courses (Sensei categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.)
➡️ Make it easy to share the badge, reward, achievement on social media
➡️ +1 to a progress bar visual
➡️ If one of the intents of badging is to show proof of WP skills to potential employers or clients, then I would think that “completed X courses” or “proficient in X category of WP” would suffice.
➡️ As WP aims for backward compatibility, I don’t think we should take courses down or in any way fade badges off.
➡️ I do think we can name courses, or append some descriptive taxonomyTaxonomy A taxonomy is a way to group things together. In WordPress, some common taxonomies are category, link, tag, or post format. https://codex.wordpress.org/Taxonomies#Default_Taxonomies. that indicates the versions or other methodologies a course badge was current with.

Could badges be cumulative? In other words, could we issue multiple badges or have some sort of level or tiered system?

If course group/category badges were to be implemented, I think adding a tiered system on top of that may over-complicate things. I think leaving it up to course creators to name courses responsibly would take care of some of this. For instance, “Advanced Roles and Permissions” would be recognized as deeper than “WordPress Permissions 101”. It would also negate the need to confirm that you don’t need to have taken a lower-tier course before taking a higher-tier one.

It’s been stated previously I believe, but I think it would be beneficial to capture and display the metaMeta Meta is a term that refers to the inside workings of a group. For us, this is the team that works on internal WordPress sites like WordCamp Central and Make WordPress. data around the courses completed. E.g. date, module name, module link, score, and any other relevant tags.

I see that a follow-up has already been added to GH to make the display of scores opt-in, which is great, but naturally causes employers or others to question why a user’s scores aren’t visible. When using these scores for resumés, applications, and so on, it might simply be nice to have a place where users can see their own stats in their profile and screenshot them or copy the information from there?

📈 Some relevant data I would love to see of my own progress would include:
• Course completion date (also public by default)
• Course completion duration (date completed minus date started)*
• Avg course completion duration across all courses started*
• Course completion percentage progress bar
• Avg course completion percentage across all courses started
• Score for each course completed
• Avg score across all courses completed
• List of my top categories for completed courses
• Number of hours completed/watched
- Course completion duration and avg course completion duration (along with progress bars) would help encourage course completion overall. Although numbers are hard to come by, online courses have been found to have about a 13% completion rate.
Should certain “skills” expire? For example, Google issues analytics and advertising certifications that last about two years before requiring you to re-demonstrate your skills and “renew” your certificate.

Maybe? As has been mentioned, some topics tend to have a bit more longevity and some are ever-changing – as is the nature of the web. I think this is an interesting idea, but ultimately believe that having the course completion dates would keep this from being a necessity.

Can we add a “Learn WP Badges” to the oEmbed blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.? I can envision someone building sites using a row of WP course badges as social proof.

What a neat idea! I’m certain there are other ways that we can tie these into projects across the web, but an oEmbed integration or standalone “Learn WP Badges” block would be a great place to start!

—–

As for additional badges, one way that I think we could increase the traffic to Learn is by automatically creating custom URLs for the badges shared on social media – or simply for any user account – that allows them to get “credit” for referring others to Learn. These could then be turned into additional badges (ex: “Referred 20+ users to start a course”).

If there were also badges assessed when a referral completes a course, that may help with the course completion rate, since you’d be incentivized to check in with your referrals on their progress. A bit of a stretch, but just throwing it out there. 🤷‍♂️

Lastly, as far as design goes, who would be responsible for creating the badges? Would they all look relatively identical with the course title text next to them? Or would there be a different icon per category? Just curious if there are any thoughts around what the page of badges might look like. It would be nice to see at least a few variations of icon/color throughout, similar to the “Contribution History” section.

I’m sure I’ll come up with more to say once I hit that “Publish” button, but I’m cutting myself off here for now! 😂
alexstandiford 2:38 pm on August 27, 2021

The only thing I dislike is showing the average grade publicly. I think this would have the opposite of the intended effect, where some people would be afraid of tarnishing their profile with a less than perfect grade. Besides, I think achievements should celebrate what people have done, not how well they did it. Regardless of if you make a small typo fix in coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress., or if you implement an entirely new APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways., you get the same badge. I think we should stick to that here, too.

I REALLY like that the focus is on completing courses though. In my recent experience in making courses, I’ve learned that you can get people to sign up for a course, they’ll even pay for it, but getting them to actually complete the course is a whole different challenge. I think this does a good job of incentivizing that.
Chris Badgett 3:07 pm on August 27, 2021

As someone who hires WordPress professionals, I would love to have a request in the job application to link up their WP profile so we can see competency through that learning platform.

Also Matt’s idea around the ability to test out of a course is solid. This would encourage people with existing competencies to still participate in the learning platform and help with learning platform adoption. Creating quizzes or “post tests” in the LMS with a standard minimum passing requirement to earn the achievement badge would help fulfill this.

Also being able to click a link from a course page to deliver a results page with profiles of people who completed it would be nice for employers on the search for talent. Bonus points for a grade filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. on this results page.

To Alex’s point, having profile options to opt out of public grade sharing makes sense from a privacy standpoint.
Hugh Lashbrooke 12:29 am on August 30, 2021

There are some excellent comments on here about this – thanks for getting involved everyone!

Rather than replying to reach one individually, since there is much agreement through them all, I figured it would be better to reply to the concepts here:

This is generally a reply to a few people – @chrisbadgett, @dansoschin, @mdburnette, @alexstandiford, @awarner20, @stephencronin, and probably a few others.

The only thing I dislike is showing the average grade publicly. I think this would have the opposite of the intended effect, where some people would be afraid of tarnishing their profile with a less than perfect grade.

This was highlighted and echoed by a few people and I must say – you have won me over! I agree that showing the average grade is unnecessary for all of the reasons that people have noted in this thread. In lieu of showing actual grades, we can rather only include a line stating that they passed the course if they did, in fact, pass it. If they failed the course then it simply won’t show up on their profile. Learners can always redo courses so they can start over and try a second time for a pass, so this won’t be a major blocker, but it will be more accurate and beneficial.

Can we make it easy to share the badge, reward, achievement on social media with a pre-populated Tweet/Post generator?

Can we add a “Learn WP Badges” to the oEmbed blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.? I can envision someone building sites using a row of WP course badges as social proof.

I absolutely love this! A way to share your achievement immediately after completing a course, as well as a persistent oEmbed block to show it – fantastic idea! This would need some marketing/design work to get the layout and wording right, but that won’t be a blocker to getting it done.

Also being able to click a link from a course page to deliver a results page with profiles of people who completed it would be nice for employers on the search for talent.

Yes! This is a great idea. We might need to include an opt-out feature that shows up at the end of the course and as a setting on your profile, but ideally this should show by default and be opt-out.

it might simply be nice to have a place where users can see their own stats in their profile and screenshot them or copy the information from there.

This is a solid idea too – a ‘learner dashboard’ where you can see all of your own info would be hugely valuable. The platform is built on Sensei, which does offer something along those lines, but not quite what we would be looking for. This is definitely something that I would like to see built at some point.

as far as design goes, who would be responsible for creating the badges? Would they all look relatively identical with the course title text next to them? Or would there be a different icon per categoryCategory The 'category' taxonomy lets you group posts / content together that share a common bond. Categories are pre-defined and broad ranging.?

My thinking and proposal is that you would get one global “Learner” badge to show that you have completed at least one course on the platform, and then the individual course completion details will be in the “Learning” tab on your profile. That would be more in keeping with how badges currently work on WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ profiles. I don’t want to discount the idea of a badging system specifically for Learn WordPress (because I think that idea definitely has value), so that’s definitely worth a follow-up discussion, but in the current framework of badges on WordPress profiles, having a different badge for every course wouldn’t be practical. Perhaps we start with a v1 including a global badge and individual line items for courses, then look into a more robust course badging system later on as a v2 iteration.

I’m really enjoying see all the engagement and strong ideas here folks – please feel free to continue suggesting things!
Courtney Engle Robertson 6:26 pm on August 30, 2021

Noting it is worth skimming contents on the post at https://wptavern.com/proposal-for-adding-badges-and-other-learner-achievements-to-wordpress-profiles

WordPress.org

Welcome

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PROPOSAL: Learner achievements on profiles

WordPress.org

Welcome

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