Digital badges present librarians with new ways of engaging with patrons including recognizing patron achievement and improved communication. This session will provide an overview of digital badges--including an explanation of underlying pedagogical aims--and will address badging as “code-shifting” or using different communication methods for different audiences. Finally, it will present a major collaboration between Portland State University Library and disciplinary faculty to integrate badges in undergraduate courses, providing librarian and disciplinary faculty perspectives.

In our presentation for Online Northwest we hoped to provide a basic overview of digital badges, discuss theoretical underpinnings of badges that lead to using badges for instruction, to shift “code” (or how we perceive institutional systems and instruction), and to discuss a collaborative project that is currently developing a digital badge curriculum for information literacy and critical thinking in undergraduate Community Health courses at Portland State University.