Introducing the Open Recognition Toolkit (ORT)
Open Recognition is not just about credentialing; it’s a holistic approach to acknowledging talents, skills, and aspirations. It empowers individuals and communities to define their own frameworks, create their own labels, whether emergent or implicit, and apply their own contexts.
That’s all well and good, but how does this work practically? Isn’t assessing and marking learning something that happens to us? What does this even mean?
The Need for ORT
To enable more people to get started, we’re leading a community-driven project that seeks to make Open Recognition accessible to all. We call it the Open Recognition Toolkit or ‘ORT’ for short. As it happens, the word “ort” in German means place, so this tool kit is the place to go when trying to implement Open Recognition in your communities, projects and programmes.
“[The] focus [of ORT] is on how we communicate well with those who don’t have Open Recognition as part of their mindset when it comes to overall awarding and credentialing. [The] goal is to make things easier for people wherever they are in the ecosystem. There are many stakeholders and there is different messaging depending on context, including earners who don’t know that this can be useful (if at all)…” (Stella Porto, Inter-American Development Bank)
What’s Inside the Toolkit
The toolkit is a work in progress, but it will feature practical examples, templates, and guides. We’re also looking to include real-world case studies, and we need your help to scope these out.
We’ve started by identifying personas who represent the types of people and roles who will find this toolkit particularly useful. We’ve also begun to identify existing resources that we can use to help people facilitate in-person learning experiences, Open Recognition creation workshops or messaging outlines.
The goal is to use our personas and build out a toolkit that can be useful in the various and complex contexts that we know people have when it comes to recognition.
How to Get Involved
Joining is simple: attend our regular community calls, contribute to the Badge Wiki, or engage in discussions on the ORE community group via the Participate platform. There are no prerequisites — just bring your enthusiasm and willingness to contribute!
Timeline and Future Plans
We’re aiming to complete the scoping phase by the end of this month. Content development will follow in October, with testing scheduled for November. The grand launch is planned for ePIC 2023 in Vienna this December. To stay updated, join our community and participate in our calls.