It's Badging Time!

Digital badges, or virtual images that indicate skill or accomplishment of the earner, have been shown to be effective tools for supporting learning, credentialing, and other purposes. However, they are sometimes ineffective, demonstrating incompatibility between badging applications and purposes. To this end, recent research has become increasingly detailed in its examination of the specific design attributes of badges. This paper continues this trend by examining the topic of digital badging lifespan in order to create a common terminology for use in research and practice, and to lay a foundation for future discussion and research on badging lifespan, an area that has received little attention. This paper's primary contribution is the proposal of three types of badging lifespans: momentary badges, permanent badges, and semi-permanent badges. These types are not meant to be exhaustive, but can be used to more precisely describe badging system design and experimental manipulations in badging.