Planning Awards
Awards is one of the most used tools on Brightspace. Using the Awards feature increases learner engagement and improves their learning experience. Knowing they will receive an award when finishing up a module or a course can greatly motivate learners. This post will discuss some techniques to create a consistent Awards experience for all learners using Brightspace.
Availability of Awards
Awards are available at both the Organization (Org) level and Course Offering level. Administrators can set up Course Offering awards by selecting an award (badge or certificate) from the Org level. Doing so will create a consistent award experience for learners, meaning that the award name, description, criteria, image, issuer information, certificate template, etc., would be the same.
Another benefit of selecting an award from the Org level is that if there is a change to the award at the Org level (i.e., an icon update or a certificate template update), the change would trickle down to the award that is used in a Course Offering.
Figure 1. Edit Award Alert would pop up when editing an award.
Uniqueness of Awards
Each award has a unique ID, and from the perspective of technical operation, Brightspace developers can perform an API (Application Programming Interface) call to retrieve a specific award’s information. For more information about Awards API, please visit Retrieve a particular award on the Brightspace Developer Platform.
Figure 2. Org level award with an ID of 80 in the URL.
Figure 3. Using the same award at the Course Offering level.
Take a moment to review Figures 2 and 3. Notice from the URLs that the award created at the Org level (6606) has an ID of 80, and when the same award is used at the Course Offering level (7538), the same ID 80 would be shown in the URL. Keep in mind that any changes made to award ID 80 would propagate to all Course Offerings or instances that are using this award.
Example of using Awards from the Org level
When using awards created from the Org level, having them in a series of similar courses makes the most sense. For example, consider a sales team with five onboarding courses that newly hired employees must pass and receive a certificate at the end of each course. A recommendation in this instance would be to have a generic sales onboarding certificate award created at the Org level and use it in each of the five courses. Note that when doing so, the administrator or award creator would need to configure the Release Conditions for each course offering award.
Exception of custom badges
With custom badge awards with custom badge icons, if the custom badge icon is unique to each Course Offering, then it is recommended to keep the badge award only at the Course Offering level to retain the uniqueness.
To learn more about Awards and how to set up an award, please visit the Awards section on Brightspace Community.