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Badgeons la Normandie (Let’s badge Normandy) is an active member of global movement that aims at making it possible for anyone to get recognised for their learning, skills and achievements. Agricultural, technical and higher education organisations as well as the farming sector are now examining the use of digital Open Badges in order to recognise learning. Public and private agricultural education establishments in Normandy are leading a series of projects dedicated to giving meaning to learning, reinforcing learners’ personal career projects, recognising and valorising learning achievements, both formal and informal.
“We discovered Open Badges through a video by Serge Ravet (@szerge), who is a well-known expert in the field, and decided to create our first badge to valorise the participants of a serious game regarding climate challenges. We started to issue badges only within agricultural education at the end of 2015. However, this strategy proved out to be wrong because of the lack of digital culture, awareness about lifelong and lifewide learning and especially Open Badges. A clear ecosystem was definitely missing,” Philippe Petitqueux (delegate for technologies and education, Regional Authority for Food, Agriculture and Forestry of Normandy) and Emmanuel Bon (delegate for training engineering, Regional Authority for Food, Agriculture and Forestry of Normandy) explain.
Because of the outcome, they decided to organise a big conference in architecturally beautiful Rouen (Normandy) back in May 2016 with the help of Serge Ravet. At the end of the conference, participants were asked to vote about the usage of Open Badges and should they start exploring them further. The answer was crystal clear as 99% voted YES.
Let’s badge Normandy started officially in April 6, 2017 as a network open for anyone wanting to explore the true potential of Open Badges and for building a learning territory. Individuals, institutions, associations and organisations operating in education, training, employment and social integration are all taking part.
Philippe and Emmanuel tell that the region’s agricultural high schools’ students, teachers and professionals cooperate in the fields of agrology, pedagogy, civic engagement and sustainable development and grow abilities that are badly recognised and in some cases not recognised at all. This had to change. They wanted to make non-formal and informal learning and their outcomes visible with modern tools. That’s how Open Badges came into the picture.
Emmanuel says that the badges they create and issue in Badge Normandy depend on the different projects of each member and what the projects are aiming to achieve: Will these badges be useful in finding a job in the future? Will they enhance the badge earner’s self-esteem? Will they make new skills visible? Will they support the orientation of people? Are they part of a wider learning path? “Everyone of us has to use a canvas and answer these questions in order to create and issue high quality badges,” Emmanuel clarifies.
Philippe continues: “Our primary goals are to acculturate our members and people with badges that recognise participation, community membership and achievement.” Some of their advanced projects:
You can see Badge Normandy badges in Open Badge Passport’s Gallery after logging in!
Philippe Petitqueux and Emmanuel Bon
Badge Normandy uses Open Badge Factory for creating, issuing and managing their Open Badges. “OBF has some very important features for us such as badge application and different validation processes. We do actually prefer that it’s the people who ask for the badges or contribute on validating them,” Philippe and Emmanuel explain. They will also be using OBF’s new endorsement feature, as it will add more value to the badges they create and issue.
They also like using OBF’s sister service Open Badge Passport as it helps making Badge Normandy’s badges visible all around the world. The social features of OBP like the possibility to start a chat around a badge are also very useful for them. “We plan to install a dedicated instance of Open Badge Passport at the end of the year 2018.”
So far it seems like the only challenge Badge Normandy’s members have faced is the fact that open recognition is still very new to their organisation and they are still trying to mobilise it the best way possible.
“It’s common that at first people see Open Badges as micro-credentials but they are so much more. It’s a technology that has the potential to actually transform the way people and their achievements, skills and learning are recognised. Open Badges and now the endorsement features make it possible to shift the focus of recognition from institutions to people,” Philippe states.
Although Badge Normandy is still in early stages, Emmanuel and Philippe say that they can see that the badge earners are satisfied they are receiving recognition from their activities. They have also put much importance in communicating and how they advertise Open Badges and the concept to their interest groups.
“Badges need to be seen as a way to capture learning in context and valorise the people differently than with grades. We have now managed to rally enough of members, especially our Regional Council, to imagine a sunny future for Let’s Badge Normandy,” Emmanuel and Philippe conclude happily.
Denstal Ltd offers comprehensive vocational further education and in-service training for oral healthcare staff all over Finland. Their target groups are different profession groups, associations, private companies and employers from the private and public sectors. Denstal also offers courses customised for the customer.
Denstal’s target was to dispose the use of printed lecture copies so that the participants could read them online and then print them out if they needed to. It was also in their plans to start offering online courses. They wanted to make studying more learner centric and not to rely so much on time and place.
Denstal was ready to put effort in the deployment phase because they believed the platform would eventually reduce the workload when things became automated and available online. Their wish was also that the platform would make it possible to collect feedback related to training, create and load videos and use a common login for multiple users at the same time. Because of their demands, they questioned whether they would find a platform versatile enough to cover their needs.
Emmi Mäkinen, Training Designer, Denstal Ltd.
Denstal started to use Optima in summer 2015. Optima was able to provide answers to the needs that Denstal expressed in their wish list. The service’s deviant pricing model made Denstal hesitate at first but after looking at it more closely it was noticed to be very reasonable considering their needs. Denstal has also practiced the use of the service on their own after the implementation process and training and if they’ve faced a challenge they’ve received a solution quickly from the helpdesk. Denstal actually praises Discendum’s helpdesk for being easy to reach.
There are two online courses running in Denstal’s Optima at the moment and it is also utilised as a supporting tool for face-to-face training and for sharing materials. Participant feedback is also collected through Optima. This has eased the workload and expenses when there is no longer the need to pack and print out materials. In the future, Denstal would like to make it possible for participants to create a competence-based portfolio and ease the sending of certificates.
The end users have mainly thought that the use of Optima is smooth and they have also appreciated the possibilities the service has provided. The feedback related to user experience and how to further develop it has been forwarded to the development team of Optima.
DisasterReady.org, a signature initiative of The Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation, offers aid workers and volunteers professional development opportunities by accessing online learning anywhere and anytime at no cost. Their extensive online learning library consists of more than 600 learning resources and covers topics such as Humanitarianism, Program/Operations, Protection, Staff Welfare, Management and Leadership, Staff Safety & Security as well as Soft Skills. DisasterReady.org is accessible as an open online learning portal for individuals as well as organisations wanting to arrange online training for volunteers and employees.
Tina Bolding, Director of DisasterReady.org, tells us they started to experience a few key challenges related to their learners and how to verify their skills as the portal gained more popularity. Before Open Badges came along, the best way to offer learners verification after they completed a course or curriculum was to take a screenshot or print their transcript from the DisasterReady learning portal. With Open Badges, learners can display and publish their professional development achievements, which may help with future career and education opportunities. Open Badges addressed another challenge they had around learning pathways. To help learners build competencies in a specific area, the team bundled learning resources into learning pathways (learning packs) on essential topics like security in the field or humanitarian principles. The challenge was getting learners to complete all the training in the learning pathway. “Open Badges has proven to be a great way to raise awareness of our learning pathways, increase learner engagement and incentivise learners to complete all the training in a learning pathway,” Tina explains.
Tina Bolding, Director of DisasterReady.org
Because DisasterReady operates as a relatively small team, they were looking for an easy to use platform for creating, issuing and managing Open Badges. Open Badge Factory has been just that: “OBF is an easy-to-use platform to develop and deliver various forms of online recognition to individuals within the DisasterReady.org community. The developers and designers are always strapped for time so we have appreciated the ease with which anyone can design and customise the badges.” Tina says.
DisasterReady started to build their Open Badges strategy by linking Open Badges to the completion of their core learning pathways (learning packs). Although these learning packs were received well by their community of learners, Open Badges brought additional credibility and attention to these essential learning resources.
Naturally, there have been some challenges around Open Badges as well: “Like any new idea, it has taken some time to build awareness around the value of Open Badges and the different ways in which learners can earn them. Now that our learners have grown more comfortable with the concept of Open Badges, we are focused on getting our learners to complete the learning packs, earn the respective badge, and share their accomplishment with their social networks.”
The DisasterReady team sees Open Badges as an innovative and effective strategy for engaging their learners. Because of the positive results in the DisasterReady program, they are now excited to bring Open Badges to NonprofitReady.org as well as to their future open online learning initiatives.
DisasterReady has great plans regarding expanding their offering of Open Badges for their learners in the future as they are looking for new ways to recognise skills and certifications. Tina says: “Some may be as small as completing a single online course, others could require the learner to follow a more structured learning path and demonstrate mastery of new skills.”
They are also looking for ways to collaborate with higher-education institutions to provide accreditation of their courses and curricula, and then signify this achievement with Open Badges. “We have also seen interest from within our NGO partner network to develop new learning pathways, creating another opportunity to use the Open Badge Factory. We expect these external accreditations to continue to increase the uptake of Open Badges by our DisasterReady community,” Tina concludes.
JAMK is an internationally recognised reformer of learning and developer of competitiveness that actively cooperates with the working life and operates in a vast international network. There are over 8,000 students and around 600 members of staff in JAMK.
The Ministry of Education was a strong supporter of the development of online learning in 2003. The funding of the project made it possible to improve teacher’s online pedagogy skills and to make different national cooperative productions such as online material for the Finnish Online UAS. Even back then, teaching about online pedagogy and researching it was far advanced at JAMK’s Teacher Education College. Teacher Education College has actually been the first to try out different online pedagogy solutions and applications to this very day.
Mari Varonen, JAMK’s Online Pedagogy Designer
Their previously used online learning platform left the market so JAMK organised a competitive tendering to find a new platform, which Discendum won. The positive feedback regarding Optima’s user experience from their colleagues at University of Jyväskylä supported their choice.
They hoped that the new platform would include for example versatile tools and flexible interfaces. The aim was also that the new platform would offer easy and approachable ways to make online productions for fledgling online teachers, but that it would also serve more experienced users.
They took a big step forward related to the quality of old online implementations when the study modules were built again with Optima’s tools. Gradually, online learning became a natural part of teaching and learning. The interaction between students outside face-to-face teaching also grew because of Optima.
JAMK’s students know how to demand their teachers to set up a workspace in Optima top get materials and a return folder for assignments. Nearly all study modules now include a workspace in Optima. In its simplest form, Optima is being utilised as a material storage for face-to-face teaching. On the other end, it is being used for implementations done completely online where the teacher meets the students through video if at all. It is possible to study a lot of JAMK’s degrees almost completely online.
JAMK describes Optima to be a secure and reliable system that is scalable even to large user numbers. Discendum’s strengths as a service provider are flexibility, the ability to listen to the customer and to react to different situations fast. JAMK especially thanks that not only does Discendum listen what their customers have to say, they also take development ideas with concern. The service from helpdesk has also been excellent.
Kiwi Connexion is a spirituality project and outreach of the eLearning Centre, Trinity@Waiake, and it is funded by a grant from East Coast Bays Methodist Parish, Auckland, New Zealand. Different institutions from Australia and New Zealand are taking part in the project. Kiwi Connexion is a personal learning space and it’s open to wisdom seekers and lifelong learners of theology and spirituality. It offers users extensive resources, a possibility to create new ones, browse micro-moocs and social learning projects. The kiwiconnexion.nz ePortfolio/website was officially launched in January 2016.
Rev Dr David Bell, founder and director of kiwiconnexion.nz, tells how some participants had been using an ePortfolio based on Mahara for their formal studies and wanted to continue using it for informal personal development and include wider church resources development to the ePortfolio. “Our need was to carry forward any badges they had already earned, and develop our own criteria for new badging opportunities better suited to a voluntary professional development organisation.”
Kiwi Connexion chose Open Badge Factory as their badge designing and issuing platform. With OBF, a tight integration between the badge platform and their Mahara instance was also possible. David says they value OBF’s features because as a cloud-service, it is simple in design and easy to operate.
David Bell, reverend and doctor,
Kiwi Connexion
Kiwi Connexion’s Open Badge strategy is quite straightforward; it’s simple, open-ended and flexible. “We design badges to meet the emergent needs of the faith-communities we serve,” David explains. They have several projects they issue badges for and some of the badges are called for example Community Volunteer, Church Ambassador, Church Muso (musician), Community Theologian and Live-on-Air presenter. More information can be found here.
Kiwi Connexion’s badge earners like the concept of Open Badges and are naturally pleased to receive acknowledgment for the work they do. Most of the Kiwi Connexion badge earners belong to the 55+ age group and sharing their Open Badges to Open Badge Passport or elsewhere online hasn’t been a priority but this will hopefully change during time. “Digitally produced recognition is a perfect fit for the whole Kiwi Connexion experience and ethos,” David says.
David tells that they are planning on releasing a new Open Badge in the next few months for participants to earn and the future of Open Badges as a part of kiwiconnexion.nz looks very bright as they are doing a lot of Mahara content creation.
Lahti University of Applied Sciences (Lahti UAS) is an international higher education institution that offers studies in the fields of culture, business, social and health care, technology and tourism. Around 5000 students are now studying in Lahti UAS towards a Bachelor’s or a Master’s Degree and there are around 400 employees. Lahti UAS is an active collaborator with partner universities, companies and other organisations in Finland as well as abroad. A brand new campus is also being constructed and it will see daylight in 2018 bringing together all different sectors of education.
Jenni Meriläinen, Adviser at the Development Services – eLearning Unit of the Lahti UAS, tells us they started to pilot Open Badges first in 2014 in order to find more flexible and nuanced ways of acknowledging skills and accomplishments of both students and staff members and to make staff’s learning visible. In addition to this, they were looking for online tools to help visualise and illustrate learning and skills.
Jenni Meriläinen, Adviser at the Development Services – eLearning Unit of the Lahti UAS
“Open Badges infrastructure also provides security and reliability that mere digital images don’t.” Jenni explains. They started to think about the guiding principles for Lahti UAS’s Open Badges strategy right from the beginning to avoid badge inflation and to create a meaningful, consistent and sustainable Open Badges system.
Lahti UAS uses Open Badge Factory for implementing their Open Badges strategy. Jenni says that OBF is versatile and offers all the tools they need for badging. They’ve been using especially the “Badge application” feature a lot.
“When talking about students, Open Badges have been used mainly as a supplement to the existing credential structure to recognise student achievements in a more nuanced way and to signal finer-grained skills. With Open Badges, we value learning in new and diverse ways that move beyond standardised measures that don’t capture the full richness of learning activities and achievements.” Jenni explains.
One challenge Lahti UAS has faced with Open Badges is how to meaningfully combine the old and new ways of recognising learning and skills because it is so easy to think about this from the old perspective. They also want to find a good balance to their badging strategy so they won’t limit the possibilities too much with too strict and detailed definitions.
Lahti UAS is designing a training program for teachers where the pedagogical and digital skills they develop will be acknowledged with Open Badges. Teachers will be required to demonstrate the acquired skills in their actual teaching and courses in order to earn Open Badges.
“Teachers think the concept of Open Badges is very good but naturally it always takes time and effort to establish any new idea fully. Some students haven’t been accepting the badges they’ve been issued, which implicates that the purpose and possible benefits of Open Badges haven’t been properly communicated or understood by the students. This will also take some time, advising and encouraging.” Jenni concludes.
NUI Galway, the largest and oldest University in the West of Ireland, was founded over 170 years ago and the University has grown massively both in size and reputation over the years. NUI is among the top 2% of universities in the world and they’ve got recognition as being one of the best universities because of their international outlook.
Iain Mac Labhrainn, Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching at NUI Galway, observed that there has often been difficulty in obtaining widespread recognition for informal learning and professional development activities. Typically, recognition was only available through completion of full-scale Postgraduate Diplomas and Masters, but even these can sometimes fail to capture the specific skills of participants in such programmes. “We work with academic staff and aim to develop their skills in teaching and learning; some of the areas covered are clearly identifiable skills or knowledge and were very amenable to being badged”, Iain says.
First year students’ study skills, as well as their adaptation to higher education were also a concern. Whilst students were able to access self-study materials in their own time, the lack of some formal recognition of achievement may be demotivating for many. Again, such a situation seemed a perfect scenario for the use of badges.
Iain continues:
All in all, people were taking part in multiple training courses and developing their skills but this wouldn’t necessarily be captured on their official transcripts, or if so only in the form of a note of participation rather than an indicator of skills and capabilities developed.
NUI Galway started to look at Open Badges to solve all these issues. In addition, there was a realisation that badges within courses can also help students feel a sense of progress and motivation.
Iain Mac Labhrainn, Director of the Centre for Excellence in Learning & Teaching, NUI Galway
The University uses Open Badge Factory for creating, issuing and managing their Open Badges. “OBF is simple to use, flexible, scalable and offers the opportunity to integrate with a number of important platforms like Blackboard, Moodle and WordPress. The platform provides a greater control over badge issuing, categorisation and delivers useful analytics”, Iain notes.
NUI Galway issues different types of Open Badges: ’internal badges’ for students attending existing courses to motivate and encourage them to progress; and ’external badges’ aimed to make sense to a wider world of employers, educational institutions and civil society. The latter are tightly associated with clearly specified criteria and evidence and mark a definite capability or achievement.
The university is also developing Open Badges at the national level via its participation in All Aboard, which aims to develop digital skills and confidence in the use of technology in the Irish higher education sector.
There have been some challenges when they’ve explained what Open Badges are to traditional educators, as the word ‘badge’ can sometimes appear too trivial. With these audiences they use the phrase ‘digital micro-credential’, which has helped acceptance. The University is also engaged in refining policy and guidelines regarding badge issuing to ensure that the quality standards are maintained and that the badges have recognised value to those who use them. Iain states that so far the reaction to Open Badges, both internally and externally, has been quite positive: “Certainly, many have commented that they feel a sense of achievement when the badge is issued to them and often enquire about what other badges are available. But we need to show how the badges fit in the context of personal professional profiles, professional social networks and so forth.”
NUI Galway intends to issue more badges in the future and that the criteria and design process for badges are carefully managed. This is the best way to ensure that the badges issued have real meaning for the badge earners and other parties. “With our guidelines and with the support of national projects, we feel very encouraged about the future”, he concludes.
Sivis Study Centre provides adult education and activities for nearly 70 member organisations. These organisations consist from the fields of health, education and culture, citizens’ advice, nature and the environment as well as other specific areas of activity. The study centre’s aim is to develop and foster multiple civic activities and to support its members’ adult education activities. Sivis Study Centre employs around 30 people and has five offices in Finland.
Marion Fields, coordinator for Sivis Study Centre, tells how Open Badges fit the field of voluntary work very well because there will always be a lot of informal situations related to voluntary work that contain learning.
“Associations have very extensive study modules as well. A lot of learning happens in associations that didn’t get recognised in any way previously and this is where Open Badges stepped in,” Minna Pesonen, educational coordinator for Sivis Study Centre continues.
Minna Pesonen, educational coordinator for Sivis Study Centre, Finland
Marion Fields, educational coordinator for Sivis Study Centre, Finland
The work behind Sivis Study Centre’s Open Badges strategy started in 2013 as they took part in the TEKES (the Finnish Funding Agency for Innovation) project that was coordinated by Discendum (Open Badge Factory developers). The project got them thinking what type of Open Badges they could issue for their staff and what type of badges could be issued from different training and education activities. The strategy morphed between 2013-2014, as the project was active: “The TEKES project actually worked as a wonderful starting point for us,” Minna notes. “We had our own working group that was dedicated to taking our Open Badges strategy forward,” Minna continues.
The visual appearance was decided early on and it has stayed pretty much the same ever since. Sivis Study Centre focuses on issuing Open Badges from different training and educational sessions. At the moment they have two specific content lines that they issue badges from: educational competencies and association competencies. They are also considering issuing staff related Open Badges in the future.
Minna, who takes care of the technical part and issuing at the moment, says Open Badge Factory is user-friendly and provides good reporting tools. The study centre uses especially the Badge Application feature of the service. She chuckles: “Open Badge Passport is also outstanding compared to Backpack! I like looking at the Gallery section to see what type of Open Badges are being issued around the world.”
Sivis Study Centre has ideas for new Open Badges related to informal learning and some are already ready for issuing. They are satisfied that they’ve taken Open Badges into usage. “As always, when we are talking about a new concept or service, it has taken a bit more time for us to take the idea of Open Badges to different associations. But this was expected and we will stay dedicated to Open Badges and getting more associations involved.” Marion concludes.
University of Oulu is a science university operating internationally that researches humans and cultures in changing environments as well as the possibilities new technology creates in advancing the well being of humans and the environment. Over 14,000 students study there on a yearly basis and around 3,000 degrees gets fulfilled each year. Almost 3,000 people work in the University of Oulu.
The University of Oulu has extensive experience in online learning and the very first online course was implemented already in fall 1998 with an LMS called Telsi. Back then, the university was using multiple different learning management systems. Their own programs were being developed at the same time regarding online teaching and LMS’s and they were researching online learning also in wider spectrum. User-friendliness, clearness, accessibility and reliability were required from the learning management system.
Optima was chosen as the learning management system because of its usability and extensive functionalities. At that time Optima was the only product where the instructor was able to give task specific feedback to students. The initialisation happened little by little and they have ordered tailored training events from time to time from Discendum as new features have been published to the platform.
The interviewees were Training Managers Titta Koski and Katja Pura from University of Oulu’s training services
The usage of Optima has expanded during the years as the reputation of it being a cost efficient and reliable platform has spread throughout the big organisation that the University of Oulu is. Dependability and the versatility of the features have been in key position. Because of this, flexibility of teaching and accessibility have increased and Optima has been utilised for example in executing and accomplishing third semester studies (summer studies) regardless of the place. Courses and study modules are being executed in Optima in all ten faculties. The scale is wide - in some courses Optima operates mainly as a distribution channel of materials and in some study modules its features are being utilised in various ways.
The reliability and functionality of Optima have been excellent during the whole long history of its usage. It has been easy to access support and it has been possible to solve together with Discendum different tailoring needs the University of Oulu has had.
Guiding and scouting activities began in England in 1907 and Finland became one of the first scouting countries already in 1910. This is the biggest youth movement in the world and it aims to actively support the growth of children and youth by taking into account their individual qualities. Doing things together in a comprehensive way is the core idea for the Finnish Scouts and their activities. There are 65,000 scouts in Finland and over 45 million worldwide. A great number of volunteers also work for the Scouts.
Anna von Zansen, eLearning Manager for the Finnish Scouts, tells how the scouts can’t always introduce all of the skills they learn from scouting in school or work for example. Obviously, young people learn skills and gain knowledge during their free time but this can remain invisible to teachers and employers. Certificates are given to those who complete training sessions and it’s possible to write the name and length of the task to a CV after completing a position of trust. Learning however doesn’t end there as people learn new skills, knowledge and attitudes in scouting that are beneficial in working life. “One challenge was how to tell about these skills and learning without using scouting slang so that non-scouters would also understand what a volunteer learns in a scouting camp”, Anna explains about the challenges.
Internationally, the Scouts and the EU had made specifications regarding skills and competencies and the Finnish Scouts started to work more closely regarding the specifications in 2015. Due to this, they organised a competition in the social media and outlined some Open Badges; the first Open Badge was designed together with Sivis Study Centre. As more operators took part in the project, they needed a clear vision on what was being done in the Scouts with Open Badges and why.
For creating, issuing and managing Open Badges the Finnish Scouts use Open Badge Factory. The peer assessment feature of Badge Applications was developed to answer the needs of the scouts in 2016. They used this feature for the first time in the Roihu 2016 camp, where over 16,000 people took part in. Anna also describes Open Badge Passport, platform for receiving and saving Open Badges, easier to use than the Mozilla Backpack.
Anna von Zansen, eLearning Manager, Finnish Scouts
Anna, who has also acted as the chairman of the Scout’s Open Badge team, tells that the focus group for Open Badges are K-15 scouts who can benefit from badges for example when applying for a job or as a part of their education.
The fact that the concept of Open Badges is still quite new to a lot of people has been a little challenging and requires effective communications and engaging people. Applying for badges can’t also be too difficult. “A badge based on youth’s self-assessment is our most popular badge.”
The designing process of their own Open Badge ecosystem has started nicely and the Finnish Scouts already have a great number of badges to be applied for. The feedback from badge earners has also been enthusiastic but informing everyone about Open Badges has to continue actively.
“Our next step is to ask the district operators to take part in the designing process and we will try to expand the knowledge regarding Open Badges further”, Anna ends.
Patria is a trusted provider of defence, security and aviation life-cycle support services and technology solutions and it employs around 2,800 people. The State of Finland owns the majority of Patria with 50.1 % and Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace from Norway owns 49.1 %. Patria’s products and services include for example armoured wheeled vehicles, mortar systems and ammunition products, support services for aircraft and helicopters as well as pilot training, maintenance of army material for the Finnish Defence Forces, development and integration of systems for command and control and situational awareness as well as their life cycle support services.
Patria operates in a field where both the employees and officials are required to have a long and standardised qualification to perform different tasks. It’s also important to be able to systematically manage this development of skills. Katja Viiankorpi, Human Resources Specialist, tells Patria wanted to shift towards the digital age and this way also enable standardised procedures with the help of online learning. The student also gains flexibility from online learning because it’s usually not dependable on time and place.
“The aim of online learning was that all Patria employees would get the same high-class material in order to work in Patria,” Katja says. They also wanted to strengthen the orderliness of studying, strategic coupling as well as the ability to report about accomplishments. Also, they wanted to widen the possibilities to do skill development across organisation borders and make the skill development that happens in different business operations more visible.
The features of the new LMS needed to answer to Patria’s versatile needs. Katja listed the things they needed from the LMS: the usability of data, data protection, sustainable competence development and deployment of common policies in Patria.
“The biggest expectations and questions that we had were related to data protection because some of our training material is confidential and information has been classified by authorities. Also, integrations and data transfer brought challenges to us. We wanted to transfer regular information about the employees to the new learning management system automatically from our HR system so admins could concentrate on content development and development of learning and skills instead of manual maintenance,” Katja notes.
The systems that Patria was already using didn’t enable online learning or good quality and all-round reporting so they decided to find out what other services were out there.
Totara Learn stood out from the options available in the market because the platform was versatile and cost-efficient. On top of this, the service was ready for use and didn’t need customising. “Because there are so many settings and ways to use the service, we have found a way to do things to meet nearly all of our needs.”
The implementation process started so that they first got to know Totara Learn as a SaaS service through course material that was public. This was how users got experiences on usability, quality of the service and how it would answer to Patria’s needs. “Integrations were successful and there weren’t any bigger obstacles. We started operating with big masses already in the beginning and this naturally was a little intimidating. 1700 Patria workers completed the online course for Ethical Operation after the implementation,” Katja recalls.
Totara Learn was different from its rivals also in the sense that the learning platform was built keeping businesses in mind. Because of its versatility the admin users of Totara Learn need to make themselves very familiar with the platform’s secrets because there’s a massive amount of ways to use the service. It’s also very beneficial to know the real needs and processes of the organisation. “Both HR knowledge and detailed knowledge regarding the technical side of Totara Learn are needed.”
The absolute best thing about Totara Learn is its comprehensiveness and the possibility to connect development discussions, learning plans, competencies, learning and performance reporting into one entirety. “As a developer I am of course drawn towards the endless possibilities; although we have implemented Totara Learn in a quite extensive way there’s still functions that we are not using and a lot to learn,” Katja laughs.
Katja Viiankorpi, Human Resources Specialist, Patria
Katja thanks Discendum’s customer service attitude, know-how, Totara Learn helpdesk and contact people: “There haven’t really been many things that would not have been answered or solved!”
In addition to online learning, Totara Learn is also used for managing training and registration and Katja believes that the management of training events has become better and easier. Online courses are utilised widely and they’ve been able to make even longer training periods more intensive because conversation has continued in Totara Learn after face-to-face training days.
“Big expectations are now related to learning plans that have been introduced in development discussions and are being actively created. I believe that we will gain more orderliness to learning and for us HR professionals they will be very helpful on directing and planning competence actions. We also want to make learning that happens through work more visible,” Katja mentions.
Totara Learn end-users have mainly been very satisfied with the new LMS; trainings and processes are kept simple and the transparency and the ability to report data has been received very well with the managers. They sometimes get feedback about the navigation of Totara Learn as it’s possible to get lost there in the beginning because the service is so versatile.
Katja tells they’ve liked using the service and after a year’s trial period they’ve now taken the next step; a more closed version of Totara Learn has been installed to Patria’s own server. The access management will be built to correspond to official authority requirements so that it’s possible to use the platform also for training confidential and classified material. “This will open a lot of new doors in regards of implementing and reporting about training programs that are aimed at personal certifications.” In addition they’ve considered implementing competencies and it’s already in the planning stages. “Now, we concentrate on establishing procedures we are already using and to ensure that they support the strategic development of our organisation,” Katja ends.
Eight charity associations together with representatives of the Finnish government founded Finland’s Slot Machine Association (RAY) and it started its operations in 1938. From the very beginning, funds acquired from the slot machine games have been used for developing the public health. RAY, Fintoto and Veikkaus merged into a single gaming company called Veikkaus Oy (Ltd.) owned by the Finnish State on January 1st 2017.
RAY has around 1,700 employees all over Finland and some of them work during the weekends and at night. For this reason, organising traditional training sessions is not only difficult, it is also expensive, Training Manager Hannu Heinonen states. RAY needed a time saving and cost effective tool to share training material fast to different recipients and that’s when Totara LMS came to the picture. This was especially important considering their employees, so that the know-how and skills regarding new game products could be ensured effectively.
The flexibility, ability to modify reporting according to business needs, load tolerance and the visibility settings of online courses, as RAY offers training also to their partners, were all substantial criteria when it came to choosing a new online learning environment.
Hannu Heinonen, Training Manager, Veikkaus
RAY ended up choosing Totara as their LMS because of the platform’s developed and business centred reporting features and because the courses are easy to direct to right recipients as well as easy to find. Hannu mentions, that especially the latter mentioned features are key factors to benefit from the platform and for the user experience.
Hannu thinks that Discendum did a good job with managing the commissioning project although transferring a large amount of courses from the old LMS to the new one didn’t happen exactly without challenges. Creating the user groups and visibility settings also took time. “A good thing was that the project model forced us to think about the target groups and the targeting rules.” Hannu lists moderate pricing and well-managed development in cooperation with an international community of users as Discendum’s strengths.
Totara’s benefits have been quickly seen internally: the new LMS has crucially improved user experience and it is easier than before for managers to track performance through reports. Hannu says that Totara is being used in a strong and comprehensive way in internal vocational training, implementing product know-how as well as sales and responsibility training aimed at partners. The certification feature offered by Totara has made it possible to track the fulfilment of statutory training.
“We are now testing the HR features of Totara and it’s our meaning to expand the training offering also to partners. User experience has absolutely gotten better and people are revising things also at their own time because of the comprehensive course offering,” Hannu concludes.
Saimaa Vocational College, Sampo, offers vocational education for adults and young people as well as training and development services for organisations. Sampo raises qualified multi-taskers: the cooperation between different vocational sectors and the possibilities of different learning paths help each of their student to find their own path. There are around 4,200 students and 470 staff members in Sampo.
Kati Minkinen, lecturer, first started to use Kyvyt.fi ePortfolio service with Juha Kiukas, a teacher from the business sector. Minkinen has previously used Kyvyt.fi when she was studying to become a teacher and she did assignments regarding her studies with the help of the service. “I had positive experiences about the service and wanted to start using Kyvyt.fi with our own students as well” Kati explains.
So Kyvyt.fi was utilised in Sampo back in 2010 and all of the staff was informed about the new tool. The implementation project was done with a group of graduate students and it went smoothly without bigger challenges. This group of students did their final project to Kyvyt.fi. A year later, all specialisation students did their final project to the ePortfolio service.
Kati has also seen the development of Kyvyt.fi as she has been using the service for years.
Kati Minkkinen lecturer, SAMPO
In Sampo’s Social and Health Care sector, final projects are done with Kyvyt.fi. They’ve wanted that the service would be utilised within new students right when they start their studies when it would be easier to store their development and make their skills and competencies more visible. Unfortunately this hasn’t become a reality with all students.
The most challenging part has been to make the students understand and to become motivated about creating their own portfolio and how to use the service in a comprehensive way right from the beginning. “After the confusion and suspicion, some excellent productions have been made” Kati explains. She sees a lot of benefits in using the service: different ways to learn and work, more meaningful things to do, modern tools, students produce more colourful and lively materials.
Kati hopes that Kyvyt.fi would be utilised right from the beginning when a new student starts their journey in Sampo and recommends other operators in the educational area to start using the ePortfolio service as well. “I personally have very positive experiences regarding Kyvyt.fi. Also, students’ feedback has been positive and they like to document their final projects to Kyvyt.fi” Kati concludes.
SkillSafari is a Finnish organisation dedicated to creating successful careers through recognition and validation of skills with their Open Badges solution. Their approach is built on years of working with skills development. The badges they create and issue are based on international expertise like UNESCO ICT Competency Framework for Teachers, Finnish education system, high level research and practical needs of employees.
SkillSafari is offering their services in the continent of Africa at the moment. One of the key challenges in Africa is the quality of education, which also stems from the fact that while there is more education available, it’s not always meeting the bar in terms of quality. Education is often provided in an out-dated fashion and although new ideologies and technologies are valued, they have not yet resulted in bringing a larger impact in the quality of education.
One crucial priority and one of the key themes of the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals is making sure that all children receive quality education. “Technology can bring great improvements to education accessibility, relevance and inclusiveness. However, those goals can only be met when education is integrated with a clear strategy and new type of understanding of what it can do,” Satu Järvinen, founder and CEO of SkillSafari, explains. Africa with its young population provides a unique opportunity to innovate and find globally significant solutions that will pave the way to education’s next era.
Satu says that they believe they can support the working age population to become recognised as professionals by shifting the focus from providing learning to recognising skills in a scalable way.
SkillSafari is a badging company and at the moment their core business is to create and issue badges. The first idea of the service dates back a few years and took more shape in the following years as they found like-minded innovators and joined forces in developing the initial concept of the service. SkillSafari was then launched in December 2017, so the company is still fairly new.
There are two main sectors that SkillSafari is focusing on in their projects; they work on badges related to capacity building of teachers and small-scale entrepreneurship. They are hoping to expand their work towards vocational skills that the employers need and appreciate. “Badge applicants are mostly people interested in advancing their careers and gaining more skills to do so,” Satu mentions.
Since Satu was familiar with Open Badge Factory and had worked with Discendum in prior projects, it was logical to choose the platform as their badge platform. The badge application feature was also one of the key features for SkillSafari and not all other Open Badge platforms provide the same feature. “We also appreciate the open communication with Discendum (company behind OBF and OBP). They’re always open to hear about new development ideas and any findings we make in working with our customers. That is extremely important to us because as the badging scene develops globally, we need a partner who is flexible and adapts to the changing world we live in and we can better serve our customers.”
The main challenges they’ve had are related to accreditation and trust. As badges in their case stem from informal areas, it takes a bit more time for the education sector to get used to. Satu points out that working in Africa however gives more space to innovate and develop new approaches compared to many European countries.
“It’s important that people who are seeing badges can trust them, the issuer of the badge and everything in it. That is why we work towards creating trust around SkillSafari as an organisation. Technologies develop and I believe this issue will resolve with time,” Satu ponders.
SkillSafari has received encouraging comments from African education developers and industry leaders, with most of them coming back with the same initial response: “This makes sense”. The badge recipients have been overwhelmed with the new approach to gaining validation for skills: “This is really very useful, I am very happy“. Reactions have been good although the transparency of badging sometimes creates a bit of confusion. “The badging approach derives from new 21st century paradigms where openness and collaboration are more important than ownership and protection,” Satu explains.
The future is looking nice and bright for SkillSafari. There’s a clear interest to start issuing badges among customers across Africa. “We are still small but growing bigger at a nice pace. Right now the future is looking very good and full of badges,” Satu ends happily.
