Rowan Huijgen, Programme Manager of the Pre Academic Programme, discusses what edubadges are and how they can be implemented into a programme such as the one she works on. Read more about what uses and advantages an edubadge has, you might even be inspired to request one for your activity!
Maybe you have heard of edubadges and are familiar with the concept, or perhaps you have never heard the term before. Edubadges is the platform for digital certificates of the Dutch higher education community. These badges allow Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) to award staff and students for engaging in and successfully completing extracurricular activities that add value to our community.
Edubadges in the context of PAP
The Pre Academic Programme (PAP) is a summer course that prepares incoming first year students for a successful journey at EUR. In groups, they are led by a team captain who is currently studying at EUR. This is their contact person during and after the programme. “The students who become team captains deserve a lot of credit for all the support they offer our new students, working hard during and even after the PAP wraps up”, Rowan explains. This is why Rowan is excited to start offering edubadges to the team captains “We want to give them the opportunity to earn edubadges to reward them for all the hard work they put in.”
How does it work?
An edubadge is awarded to a student or staff member (in education) via the SURF edubadge portal. They are used for tertiary education throughout the Netherlands. EUR staff members responsible for students’ extracurricular activities or activities that further strengthen our education, can request the development of a badge on the platform corresponding to that activity. If approved, this badge is than developed and gets a spot in the catalogue on the platform.
The staff member responsible for this activity can award the badge on the platform to students or staff members in education after successful completion of the activity. Recipients of the badge can then share it with their network through social media such as LinkedIn. EUR staff or students who wish to develop a new edubadge must fill out a request on MyEUR. With this request, they specify the activity they would like to create an edubadge for, as well as the intended recipients of the certificates. This is then checked with the edubadge-coordinator of their faculty.
What does the future look like?
The edubadges project is a collaboration between EUR faculties, M&C, HR, Risbo and the CLI. In the future, the CLI hopes that edubadges will be available across schools and organisational units of the EUR, for the wide range of activities that both staff and students participate in that honour Erasmian values. The PAP is a great project to offer edubadges, giving students much earned recognition for their hard work. “We did not have anything similar to this in the PAP before”, Rowan says, “and we are very happy that we now have the opportunity to reward students and show them that their hard work has a meaningful impact on the EUR community.”
More information
If this has sparked your interest in edubadges and you would like to implement or request them, or if you simply have any questions regarding them, check out this page or contact Bram van Essen (bram.vanessen@eur.nl).