Achievement Overview

An Achievement is an indicator of an accomplishment, skill, competency, or interest students can achieve. Achievements help keep students motivated and congratulate them for their participation in a course. With Achievements:

• Instructors can create course badges and set criteria for students to earn the badges.  
• Instructors can view which students earned a course badge.
• Students can review the requirements to earn a course badge.
• Students can view both earned and unearned course badges.

Achievements support learning in many ways:

• Supports self-directed learning pathways. Instructors can give learners tasks, goals, or quests with clearly defined criteria. Learners have more flexibility in how they approach their activities; they might choose to focus on a particular area of development before moving on to another. This flexibility can replace a set sequence to personalize learning.
• Engages and motivates learners. Some learners respond to extrinsic motivations. They feel accomplishment when they complete tasks.  Teaching methods can use achievements to add game mechanics to a course.
• Adds transparency to learning. Course badges that define the skills and competencies in a course can help students:
  • Follow how they’re developing competencies. 
  • Understand and articulate to others what they’re learning. 

IMPORTANT NOTES 

• The Achievements tab is hidden from students in courses that don’t have any achievements. Instructors still see this tab regardless of whether Achievements are used in the course or not. When an instructor adds the first achievement to a course, the Achievements tab will become available to students. 
• Once created, Achievements copy from course to course if a full course copy is completed.  Achievements cannot be copied granularly where content is selected individually. 
• Achievements can be viewed in Student Preview mode if desired.

Creating Badges

Note: Before you begin, ensure that you have at least one graded activity in your course. This activity must be worth at least one point.

1. Enter your course and select the Achievements tab from the upper menu.

 

2. Select New Course Badge in the upper right corner. This will bring you to a new page.

 

3. On this page, in the upper left corner, give your badge a name, and add a description. Additionally, you may modify the badge’s appearance using one of the existing images. Lastly, you must set the requirements to earn the badge. 

 

4. Requirements to earn a badge can be set for one or multiple graded activities in the course.  To set an earning requirement, click the drop-down under “Gradable Item” and select the desired activity. This activity must be graded. Next, select a grade requirement.

a. You may add as many earning requirements as needed by selecting + Add Performance Criteria. Students must meet each of these requirements to earn the badge.

b. In the example below, students must receive eight points or higher on Test 1 to earn this badge.

 

5. In the bottom right corner, you may choose to save your badge as a draft or publish it. Published badges are visible to students regardless of whether they were earned and cannot be edited. Badge drafts are invisible and may still be modified as needed.

 

6. Lastly, you may remove or edit existing badges by returning to the Achievements tab and selecting the three dots on the right side of your screen.

Reviewing Badge Recipients

1. To see who has earned your badges, return to the Achievements tab and click on your badge.

2. Once you have entered this page, select Recipients from the upper menu.

3. Here, you may review the users who received the badge and the date when it was earned.

Viewing Students Who Earned Badges

From the Achievements tab, the list of students who have earned badges available in the course can be viewed by clicking on the number of students in the Recipient category for each respective badge:

 

Once clicked on, the students earning that badge are then displayed along with the date/time the badge was earned.

 

Student View of Achievements

On the Achievements tab, students can review the details of badges and the requirements to earn them. They can also determine which badges they’ve earned, and which remain unearned. When a student earns a badge, the badge displays the date and time the badge was earned.

 

Achievements & Student Preview Mode

Instructors can access Achievements through the Student Preview. This helps instructors preview achievements from the student perspective, providing a more accurate representation of the student experience. Instructors can also verify that the Achievements tab is available for students in their courses. 

Image 1. The Achievements tab visible in the Student Preview.

Additional Notes

• Once published, achievements cannot be edited nor taken away from students. You may only delete them.
• You must post the scores earned for the graded activity associated with a badge in order for students to earn and view their achievements.
• You can copy achievements between courses if it is a full course copy completed.  Achievements cannot be copied granularly where content is selected individually.