In 2013, Gecon.es was contracted by Compartia to participate in Badgeculture innovation project, an initiative in which Marinva also has participated, supported by the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of the Spanish Government through the Acción Estratégica Economía y Sociedad Digital (AEESD) funding programme.
It’s important to highlight that the objective of such types of research & innovation programmes are not to fund any digital proposal, but to fund innovations in the digital ecosystem. This is why the results of the projects are not ready to market products but pre-competitive prototypes with the fundamental functionalities developed, enabling teams to focus in testing the innovations. This prototype can be tested at https://badgeculture.com/ (we encourage you to register!)
It has already been finalist in two awards! City Open Challenge by Ferrovial at Vitoria-Gasteiz (Spain) (link) and Moscow Open Challenge (link).
The core of this innovation project is the citizenship participation in cultural tourism and educative activities through a digital badges credentialing system, meaning, through the application of gamification techniques.
Fundamentally, the project developed as it follows:
- During 2013 tasks related with the initial research on the project were developed: Gamification, Micro-credentials & OpenBadges, ludo-pedagogic models and market research.
- During 2014 tasks related to gamification & storytelling and functional design were done, and the software prototype was developed.
- During 2015 pilots test were ran and finishing touches to the prototype were deployed.
BadgeCulture has represented a great opportunity to put our expertise at the service of a highly innovative project in the Spanish national context.
The experience with Compartia and Marinva has been very positive. Compartia is a very dynamic team that invests heavily in R&D and always keeps one foot out of their comfort zone, adding in all of their projects a very interesting innovation factor. With them we have participated in many projects and we can say that the relationship is more than consolidated. We encourage you to discover their prototypes and their R&D in http://compartia.net
That an initiative of two small SMEs like Compartia and Marinva secured funding from the Ministry of Industry, Energy and Tourism of the Spanish Government for a technological project about Gamification & OpenBadges is already a landmark in itself.
That it has come to fruition at the stage of precompetitive prototype development and pilot testing is yet another important milestone.
From Gecon.es, although contracted only for some specific tasks, we think have contributed our bit, especially in the design of Gamification. We are very pleased with our contribution to the project and we want BadgeCulture to grow in all its glory. In addition, participation in Badgeculture has allowed us to generate new ideas, new partners and new projects like BadgeRank & BadgeScore.
What have we learned?
- A lot about OpenBadges. They may not be the immediate present (society still needs to understand its value), but it is the future, not the only one, but a very useful alternative to current accreditation systems of competences.
- A lot about ludo-pedagogical models and the creation of tools for their implementation.
- Several tricks to do focus groups more entertaining and creative.
- Storytelling. Fundamental to generate recurrence and interest. It has to be synchronized with Gamification at a low level.
- Gamification Frameworks. Those are necessary and also a source of ongoing research.
- Machinations. We love it!
We remind you that for more information you can visit the site of Compartia and we encourage you to try the Badgeculture prototype!