About REVEAL

“Essentially, my idea amounts to the hypothesis that all social integration depends on reliable forms of mutual recognition, whose insufficiencies and deficits are always tied to feelings of misrecognition, which, in turn, can be regarded as the engine of social change” —Axel Honneth^[1]

The objective of REVEAL ("Recognition of Experience Validation of Experience, Achievements and Learning") is to:

• Provide support to existing informal and formal networks in becoming active Learning Recognition Networks (LRN), i.e. recognising the learning that takes place in a way that makes it visible
• Explore the potential of loosely coupling informal and formal 'recognition (validation/certification) as a means to remove current barriers to recognition, especially for people with low qualification(s) or literacy.

What are the necessary conditions for people and communities experiencing misrecognition (school dropouts, disabled, refugees, unemployed, etc.) to become their own emancipators? What conditions, instruments, and processes could facilitate the transformation of stigmas of misrecognition into catalysts for emancipation for both individuals and communities?

The premise of REVEAL is that every individual has the capacity to recognise and harness this power for emancipation. The power can only be activated if one is aware of its existence and had the opportunity to practise and strengthen it.

The problem with misrecognition is that its victims are not simply suffering from a lack of recognition, which may be corrected with better or more recognition. When one is misrecognized, it negatively affects one's ability to recognise others and themselves.

We could rephrase the initial question as follows: what environments, instruments, and processes can be conducive to enabling misrecognised individuals and communities to recognise and utilise their power for mutual emancipation?

Those questions are explored by REVEAL through the lenses of Local Recognition Networks (LRN), the basic blocks of an open recognition ecosystem:

• What are they: identification of existing LRNs
• How do they come to life, grow and die: analysis of LRN dynamics
• What instruments and practices could contribute to their development: exploring the potential value of Open Badges and Open Recognition

REVEAL proposes to explore a change of paradigm: moving our attention from the “struggle for recognition^[2]” to the “struggle as recognition”, not just claiming more/better recognition, but using recognition as an instrument for mutual emancipation, recognition not just as a goal to achieve in some distant future, but a practice where recognition is a trigger, the starting point of new narratives, the fuel for the “emancipation engine.”

Open Badges were designed to make informal learning visible. They have proven to be an effective method of open recognition. But how could they enable recognition as an emancipatory practice? This conversation was the focus of the first part of the project.

Recognition as emancipatory practice

How can a recognition practice be truly emancipatory? What are the best ways to ensure that a recognition practice does not result in misrecognition? Which indicators could be used to determine whether a recognition practice is emancipatory or alienating? Does emancipation / alienation come in varying degrees?

Starting from the hypothesis that everyone has the power to recognise, this power doesn't exist in a vacuum, but in relation to others who have the same power (or not!). All the entities with that power form an ecosystem, a recognition ecosystem. Power distribution in this ecosystem can be more or less equal, depending on how open the ecosystem is.

What is the nature of this power and how does it work? How does it affect the dynamics of a recognition ecosystem and how does this ecosystem affect the rest of the world?

A thought experiment might help us explore these questions. For simplification, let’s imagine that everybody has something like a recognition capital and that capital is the fuel to the empowerment engine. The more recognition capital, the more potential power to act. Now imagine Sofia: she is a school dropout (pushed out), unemployed and from an ethnic minority: with a recognition capital close to null, she might feel disempowered to act in a world that misrecognises her.

Sofia’s recognition capital can be increased by receiving a positive recognition or… by offering a recognition to someone else. Let’s imagine that Sofia recognises^[3] Amadou who is in a similar situation. If Amadou accepts her recognition, Amadou and Sofia’s own recognition capital will have increased. Moreover, if Sofia observes that, being recognised, Amadou feels empowered to act, she might realise that she also has such power, that recognising others is a channel to have some impact on the world.

While this thought experiment is based on an oversimplification^[4], it could be useful to inform the design of the instruments that might contribute to creating the conditions for individuals, in particular those victims of misrecognition, to become the actors of their own recognition and emancipation.

What the thought experiment elicits is:

1. Recognising others is a means to achieve one’s own recognition: if I offer a recognition and that recognition is accepted, then I am also recognised.
2. Recognition is not a zero sum game: mutual recognition means that both parties are becoming more recognition-rich.
3. Recognition and empowerment are closely connected: they are both about power and its [unequal] distribution. There is no true empowerment without the power to recognise.

To paraphrase Thomas Jefferson, who wrote

“He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me"

one could write:

“He who accepts recognition from me, receives recognition himself through recognising me."

While sharing knowledge does not increase—nor decrease—the knowledge capital, it distributes it, sharing recognition increases and distributes recognition capital. And its growth is potentially geometrical!

How can we use this property when using Open Badges? How could Open Badges contribute to the development of recognition capital, not only for individuals but also for communities?

From Open Badges to Open Recognition

Open Badges were invented in 2011 by the Mozilla Foundation (publisher of Firefox) with support from the MacArthur Foundation to address one issue: how to make informal learning visible? Most of the things we learn outside formal education remain invisible: there is no certificate or diploma to show for them. Your family, friends, neighbours or colleagues might know about what you know and can do, but beyond? Open Badges solved that problem by giving every community and individual a simple tool to capture that information and share it safely with… the whole world!

Open Badges, however, did much more than ‘just’ create the conditions for making informal learning visible, they revealed the profound asymmetry of our recognition systems: on the one hand, we had those with the power to issue Open Badges on the other, those allowed to claim them.

The inventors of Open Badges designed the Mozilla Backpack, a kind of digital wallet, where users could store the badges earned, but not issue their own badges. The code to create badges existed—otherwise there would be no Open Badges— but the designers of the Mozilla Backpack, followed later by the designers of the Open Badge Passport, decided that the possibility to issue Open Badges should be reserved for special kinds of entities and “authorities.”

 

	Badge Recipient	Badge Issuer
Need a Backpack	No	Yes
Can issue Badges	Yes	No
Who	Organisations, institutions, etc.	Individuals

In the minds of the designers of the Mozilla Backpack, and later Open Badge systems^[5], only recognised “authorities” would need to issue Open Badges, as they were the only entities that could create badges that would have any value for the rest of the world. The corollary of that design choice was: the recognition provided by an individual has no value, or so little that it is probably not worth a badge. Conversely, if only recognised “authorities” had the possibility to issue Open Badges, why force them to hold a Mozilla Backpack.

The asymmetry of the initial Open Badge technology merely reflected the asymmetry of formal recognition systems and therefore tended to confine Open Badges practices to support the “formal recognition of informal learning.” The “Informal recognition of informal learning” remained to be explored.

Understanding the limits imposed by the initial Open Badge technology led to the publication of the Bologna Open Recognition Declaration^[6] (BORD) a call for a more “open” approach to recognition inviting individuals and communities to be the active co-constructors of an open recognition ecosystem.

Open Recognition is to recognition
what Open Learning is to learning

The idea of Open Learning emerged in the 60s and 70s, leading to the creation of the first Open University, in the UK. We had to wait until 2016 for a first formulation of the idea of Open Recognition. Just as Open Learning is about providing everyone with access to learning opportunities, regardless of background or circumstances, Open Recognition is about providing everyone with the opportunity to be recognised, regardless of background or circumstances. Moreover, recognition is not limited to the recognition of learning or something that happened in the past (you learn something, then this learning is recognised) but as the very condition for learning: if recognition is a fuel for learning, lack of recognition or misrecognition are barriers to growth.

When REVEAL started in 2020, we had very little experience with the “informal recognition of informal learning” which is at the heart of Open Recognition: it was REVEAL’s mission to fully explore the potential of Open Badges to “opening-up access to recognition.”

Opening up access to recognition

How do we move from the awareness of the need for open recognition to actually practising it? How could Open Badges help us in achieving REVEAL’s goals?

To intentionally make “something” visible, this “something” needs to be recognised in the first place. Therefore making learning visible should be interpreted as the act of making visible the recognition of that learning:

• Someone learns something;
• An entity (self, other individuals, communities, institutions) recognises that learning;
• An Open Badge is created to make the recognition of that learning visible.

When someone says “this badge recognises that you are a Chef,” it is a figure of speech (metonymy) which really means: this badge makes visible the recognition you have received as a Chef. A badge cannot recognise, only an entity equipped with a brain can. What a badge can do, and it’s a lot, is make that recognition visible.

Understanding the act of making learning visible as the act of making the recognition of learning visible is critical to explore the potential of Open Badges to open recognition:

• If Open Badges were invented to make informal learning visible
• And making learning visible is in fact making the recognition of learning visible
• How could Open Badges contribute to the different forms of recognition, whether formal, non-formal and informal?

The table below elicits the crossover^[7] between informal and formal learning and recognition.

	Informal learning	Formal learning
Informal recognition	The “hidden continent” of recognition	Institutional reputation, brand, endorsements
Formal recognition	Formalisation of diverse forms of Prior Learning and Experience	Diplomas, certificates, accreditation, etc.

The understanding that there is a hidden continent led to the design of the “Recognition Space: the four quadrants,” (c.f. figure below) a means to map existing recognition and Open Badge practices—and, possibly, imagine new ones!

Recognition Space: the four quadrants

Looking at the “Recognition Space,” how could we “open recognition” in the different quadrants:

• Conform: open access to formal recognition by extending formal recognition of external (prior and emergent) learning and experience, delivering “open diplomas” and “open certificates” co-constructed with students;
• Include: open social integration by making visible the contributions of individuals and communities to the common good;
• Enable: make recognition actionable by developing services exploiting Open Badge metadata, treating them primarily as starting points, “telescopes to the future” rather than certified “rearview mirrors to the past”.
• Empower: recognise individuals and communities (emerging and formalised) as active contributors to an open recognition ecosystem where every entity is invited to recognise and be recognised e.g., facilitate the emergence of self-advocating groups.

Despite Open Badges opening access to recognition to people who wouldn’t have been recognised without them, recognition practices were not fully open: the power to recognise remained primarily in the hands of institutions and organisations: most practices remain related to formal recognition of informal learning, only a handful to the informal recognition of informal learning.

The tendency towards formal recognition of informal learning was facilitated not only by cultural norms but by the initial Open Badge specifications and its supporting technology, mainly the Mozilla Backpack. Institutions could issue badges but were not required to have a Backpack, while individuals were encouraged to have a Backpack to show their badges but didn’t have the possibility to issue badges^[8].

While opening access to formal recognition could be interpreted as a first step in the right direction, one should not neglect potentially adverse effects: with Open Badges, institutions of formal education now had the means to extend their reach beyond the curriculum and “colonise the informal space.” How many times do we hear “grades are not enough,” that from now on, students should [get badges to] show their mastery of “21st century skills,” “soft-skills” or other “essential skills.” What is at risk here is the transformation of formal institutions of education into some kind of recognition panopticons, prying over what happens in the school yard, student associations, clubs, extracurricular activities and one’s personal life as the places where evidence of “21st century skills” are being produced.

The REVEAL Maturity Model

One key question REVEAL explored was: how can we raise the level of awareness of individuals in such a way that it leads to autonomous action, how do we move from the awareness of the need for open recognition to actually doing it?  What instruments could facilitate individuals’ realisation of their power to recognise and move from being aware of that power to using it?

Unlike recognition, empowerment is not something that can be offered to someone. The only way to empower is to create the conditions for a person or a community to (re)claim power. And for REVEAL, the main instrument to create the conditions for empowerment was the Open Badges standard for opening up recognition.

REVEAL used a model already exploited in other projects related to Open Badges and previously ePortfolios to structure the exploration of opening-up recognition: the maturity model. REVEAL’s maturity model defines four different “postures” of the actors in relation to recognition:

• Becoming aware of the power of recognition of self and others;
• Experimenting with new approaches, processes and tools to be recognised and recognise others (like, retweet, quote, etc.);
• Integrating recognition in one’s social and/or professional practices;
• Transforming the environment, the way we work, think and operate.

From that model we inferred a Maturity Matrix that frames the different elements contributing to opening up recognition (table below).

 

	Awareness	Experimentation	Integration	Transformation
Definition	Individuals are aware of the opportunities and benefits to recognise and be recognised	Individuals and communities are experimenting with recognition practices	Open Recognition practices are an integral part of life and work activities	Open Recognition practices have transformed the way the people, communities  and organisations operates
Positioning question	What is the level of awareness of Open Recognition?	How many initiatives are currently exploring Open Recognition?	Is Open Recognition integrated in practices and policies?	How does Open Recognition transform practices and policies in other domains?
Action (examples leading to)	Seminars, webinars, workshops	Personal or group exploration, defining Open Recognition projects	Define and share practices and policies	Benchmarking across organisations
Tools (supporting)	Leaflets, learning resources, badges	Documentation of projects and practices, development of practitioner supports	Tool deployment, adaptation Recognition dashboard Review policies and practices	Benchmarking, impact measurement tools
People (supporting)	Ambassadors	Trainers, mentors	Governance body members, senior managers	All
Indicators (success)	Number of participants / badges claimed, number of emerging initiatives	Number of Open Recognition projects and their impact	Integration in individual and organisational practices	Impact by ripple  effect
Badges (how it is made visible)	“Open Recognition Ambassador” “Open Recognition Inquirer”	“Open Recognition Mentor” “Open Recognition Experimenter”	“Open to recognition” “Open Recognition Practitioner”	“Open Recognition Champion”
Impact (of visibility)	Raise awareness beyond institutional borders	Emergence of communities of practice	Emergence of communities of practice beyond institutional borders Transformation of practice	Emergence of a continuum between informal, non-formal and formal recognition

Open Recognition Maturity Matrix

From the Open Recognition Maturity Matrix we can extrapolate the components of the REVEAL ecosystem made of:

• The communities, formal and informal, underpinning Local Recognition Networks
• The individuals members of those communities
• The enabling organisations and staff (initially, the REVEAL partners)

The promise of Open Badges in achieving REVEAL goals

What we have seen so far:

• Open Badges were designed to make informal learning visible
• Making learning visible is really about making the recognition of that learning visible
• Open Badges are conducive to the development of Open Recognition practices
• Open Recognition practices are about fully exploring the four quadrants of the “recognition space” with special attention to informal recognition practices.

The main objective of REVEAL is the creation of Local Recognition Networks(LRN)  as a means for the members of a community to be active participants in an open recognition ecosystem.

The function of Open Badges in that context is to:

• Make a community and its members, visible, for example:
  • A “Community Member” badge
  • A “Community Backpack” where members can interact and make visible the recognitions produced in the LRN
• Facilitate the conversations within the community and beyond to recognise the aspirations, competence, talents, achievements, contributions, etc. of their members
  • Co-creating community badges, selfie badges and endorsements.
  • Documenting badges with practices
• Facilitate the conversations across and beyond communities
  • Use shared taxonomies and vocabularies, for example using frameworks like ESCO, ISCO, SOC, NOS, and others to identify badges.

One particular objective of REVEAL was to be accessible to people with low literacy, disenfranchised and, more generally, misrecognised. This made it critical to apply the principles of design for all^[9].

We believed that Open Badges would work wonders, until we discovered that Open Badges could be an obstacle to recognition.

Next article: Open Badges don’t work as expected!