Lumen Badges: Overview and System Functionality

A brief overview on the Lumen Badges proposal system and how to navigate certain standard features.

About Lumen Badges

Lumen Badges is a form in the Lumen suite of tools that facilitates proposals and approvals of digital badges/microcredentials offered  in alignment with the official UW-Madison Digital Badging Policy and supported by the Learning Engineering Group at the Division of Continuing Studies (DCS) at UW-Madison. All new badges, proposals to change, or to deactivate/discontinue must be proposed through Lumen Badges. Badges are not reflected in Guide, as they are not a transcripted UW credential.

Roles and Responsibilities

All questions regarding badges must be directed to Sarah Korpi (sarah.korpi@wisc.edu). This includes help with filling out proposals, implementation, cost, etc.

Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research (DAPIR) administers the forms and adjusts the workflow associated with proposals, but doesn't have any other responsibilities.

Policy

Digital Badges

Policy Number

UW-1088

Responsible Office

Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research

Type

University Policy

Rationale/​Purpose

This policy defines the parameters for use of digital badges at UW-Madison.

Policy

Students seeking to document specific learning achievements recognized by employers and other audiences may use digital badges offered by UW-Madison to provide durable, reliable, shareable and verifiable records of well-defined and specific competencies, skills and/or knowledge.

Digital badges are associated with competency, skills, and/or knowledge gained through participation in certain learning activities offered and assessed exclusively by UW-Madison. Though the technology and tools used to create and issue digital badges can also be used to maintain digital archives for participation in camps, conferences, or workshops, such digital records are not digital badges as defined in this policy. They are, instead, digital participation awards and fall outside the scope of this policy governing the official UW-Madison badge and its associated imagery.

Digital badges may augment or complement, but may not duplicate, transcripted credentials. Similarly, badges are not to be awarded merely for completing a regular, credit-bearing course. All communication and promotional materials related to digital badges must clearly state these limitations.

Digital badges must be offered in conjunction with a formal or informal UW-Madison learning experience and cannot be earned through assessment only. Credit-based offerings can include portions of courses or combinations of courses. Non-credit offerings may include continuing education, employee professional development programming, seminars, workshops, or other events that involve a learning experience and assessment activity. The learning experience, not the badge itself, determines whether admission, financial aid, and/or enrollment policies and processes pertain to an individual’s experience, e.g., a student seeking both a degree and a badge may be eligible for financial aid while a learner seeking only a badge is not eligible for financial aid.

While elements of for-credit courses may relate to meeting digital badge requirements, badge completion is not a substitute for, or component of, for-credit coursework nor are badges recorded on the university transcript. Digital badges are non-credit credentials intended to supplement traditional academic transcripts and resumes for learning by highlighting demonstrated competency, skills and/or knowledge in a defined area or discipline.

Once issued, badges are controlled by the learner. Badges are designed such that they cannot be altered, and are verifiable, shareable, and discoverable.

Parameters for Offering Badges

  • Badges may be offered by any UW–Madison division or department (sponsoring unit).
  • Proposals to create, change or discontinue a digital badge must be made through the Lumen Badges form.
  • A digital badge represents an assessed successful outcome of a learning experience at UW–Madison. When designing a learning experience that will include the offering of a digital badge, the resources to assess the student’s learning must be included in the program structure, management, and budget.
  • Consistent with other UW–Madison credentials, the unit seeking to offer a digital badge must consult with their school/college continuing education director, academic dean and/or academic planner, or divisional director. In all cases, proposals to offer badges that include for-credit course activity must include support from the academic program, academic unit, and academic dean in the school/college offering the courses.
  • Proposals are approved by the head of the division or their designee. Considerations for granting approval are to evaluate the academic quality, market need, and financial sustainability of the learning experience.
  • Once approved, the badge will be added to the campus badging system and can be included in announcements of the learning experience.
  • Badge completion will be recorded using the current campus badging system administered by the Division of Continuing Studies.
  • The sponsoring unit is responsible for collecting and issuing learner completion records in the campus badging system.
  • The sponsoring unit is responsible for the cost of badge set up and training in the campus system as determined by the Division of Continuing Studies, and must include the ongoing cost of assessment and issuance of badges to completers in their budgets for providing the learning experience.
  • Badges will not be included as a separate page in Guide. An announcement of badges used to signify successful assessment of learning may be included in the Guide only if the learning experience is associated with an appropriate academic program included in Guide.

Related UW–Madison Documents, Web Pages, or Other Resources

Approval Authority

Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs

Policy Manager

Vice Provost for Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research

Contact

Associate Director, Data, Academic Planning & Institutional Research -- Michelle Young, MEYOUNG@WISC.EDU, (608) 262-2143
Assistant Director, Learning Engineering Group -- Sarah Korpi, sarah.korpi@wisc.edu, (608) 890-3364

Effective Date

03-24-2022
Source: View policy UW-1088 in the UW-Madison Policy Library

Requesting access to Lumen Badges

If you do not already have access to the Lumen suite of tools, fill out this Qualtrics form.

Searching for a proposal

Step-by-step how-to

  1. Navigate to the landing page for the proposal type. Requires UW login.
  2. Enter your search in the field to the left of the green Search button.
    A screen shot of the Lumen Programs landing page with a red box around the Search box.
    1. This can be the program name (full or partial). Do not use abbreviations or terms not in the official SIS description.
    2. This can be the program key (found at the bottom right of the proposal).
    3. New programs will not have a code. Searching with an asterisk (*) will pull up all proposals and the new proposals filter to the top. The text that displays will show up in the second column (program transcript description, course title, etc.)
  3. Hit enter on your keyboard or click the green Search button.A screen shot of the Lumen Programs landing page with the green Search box highlighted by a red box.

Tips and tricks for searching Lumen

  • Click on the header bar will sort the proposals based on the column you select i.e. clicking status will sort all programs based on their status, added, edited, deleted.
  • Use an asterisk (*) as a wildcard.
    • "Math*" returns results starting with Math (Mathematics, Math for...)
    • "*Math*" returns results with "Math" listed somewhere in the title (Certificate in Math, Data Science and Mathematics...)
    • "*Math" returns results where the last word is Math
  • The search looks at the Code and Title field. These fields only use the exact title/name and do not use abbreviations.
    A screen shot with a red box around the "program code" and "program name" field on the landing pages for Lumen Programs.
    • GCRT* pulls all graduate/professional certificates
    • MS* pulls all master's degrees starting with MS (MS, MSB)
  • If you are looking for a specific type of proposal, use the Quick Searches drop-down. These have pre-defined queries by module i.e. Lumen Courses has a different drop-down than Lumen Programs.
    A screenshot of the landing page of Lumen Programs with a red box around the Quick Searches drop-down.
  • Characters, such as apostrophes, reduce search optimization e.x. *Women's* returns no results, but "Women*s" returns 6 items.

How to start/edit a proposal

How to start a proposal

  1. Navigate to the Lumen Badge's landing page (requires UW login).
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge landing page.
  2. Click the green "Create a Badge proposal" button. A new window will open.
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge landing page with a red box around the "create a badge proposal" button.
  3. Fill out all required fields (outlined in red).
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge form showing the fields required outlied in red.

How to edit a proposal

  1. Navigate to the Lumen Badge's landing page (requires UW login).
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge landing page.
  2. Search for your proposal.
  3. Click on the proposal you want to edit.
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge landing page with a proposal selected in the rolly bar.
  4. Click the green "Edit Program" button. This will open a new window.
    A screen shot of the Lumen Badge landing page with the green "Edit Program" button highlighted by a red box.
  5. Fill out all required fields (outlined in red).

Saving or submitting a proposal

The software does not automatically save proposals.

There are three ways to save a proposal:

  1. Click the "floating save" button (stays at the bottom of the browser as you scroll).
    The "floating save" button highlighted with a red box.
  2. Scroll to the very bottom of the proposal and click the gray "Save Changes." This will save changes and close the edit window. This does not submit to workflow.
    A screen shot of the three buttons that display at the bottom of the form with the "Save Changes" button highlighted by a red box.
  3. Scroll to the very bottom of the proposal and click the green "Start Workflow." This will close the window and submit the proposal to workflow if all required elements have been filled in. The proposal cannot be edited again from the landing page; additional revisions must be made in workflow by an approver or rolled out of workflow for any user to edit.
    A screen shot of the three buttons that display at the bottom of the form with the "Start Workflow" button highlighted by a red box.

Submitting to workflow

When you have finalized your edits and are ready to start the approval process, click the "Start Workflow" button which can only be done when editing a proposal. All required fields must be filled in. If they are not, the form will automatically bump you up to the element that has not been populated.

Canceling changes

If you determine you do not want to save change, click the red "cancel" at the bottom of the form.
A screen shot of the three buttons that display at the bottom of the form with the "Cancel" button highlighted by a red box.

If you clicked the "floating save", canceling will remove all change made since the last save (when you clicked the floating save). If you need to remove all changes that have been made/revert the proposal back to the last approved version, the proposal must be shredded.

Lumen Badges workflow

Lumen Badges utilizes a manual workflow (i.e. each badge has a distinct approval built once submitted to workflow). The first step is always DAPIR (APIR Admin) and the last step is always DCS Badge Admin. The rest of workflow is determined based on what's included in the proposal.

Typical workflow steps

  1. DAPIR (APIR Admin)
  2. Approval steps TBD
  3. Division of Continuing Studies (DCS Badge Admin)
  4. fyi notification to the person who submitted the proposal to workflow.

Red/green markup

The software utilizes "red/green markup" to visually indicate where content has changed in a change proposal.

  • Red means the text has been removed. The red uses strike-through to indicate it is being removed for accessibility.
  • Green means the text has been added. Green uses double lines under the text to indicate new text for accessibility.

A screen shot of an edited course proposal showing the red/green markup.

Checking the status of a proposal

If a proposal is "at rest" (the status is null/blank), there are no proposed revisions and the proposal is current. If there isn't a workflow step listed under the workflow column, the proposal is not in workflow. When a proposal is "in workflow," it lists the current step requiring sign-off in the scrolly bar. The example below is for courses, but the workflow status operates the same across the Lumen tools.

Step-by-step

The most up-to-date place to check the status of a proposal search for the proposal from the landing page:

  1. Navigate to the landing page for the proposal type. Requires UW login.
  2. Search for your proposal using the search functionality.
    A screen shot of the Lumen Courses landing page with the Search box and bar highlighted with a red box.
  3. Click on the proposal in the scrolly bar.
    A screenshot of the Lumen Courses landing page with a list of courses separated by gray/white colors under the course code, title, workflow and status.
  4. Look at the "Workflow" column or the workflow steps on the right side of the proposal. If there is no status, the proposal is not in workflow.
    A screenshot of the Lumen Courses landing page with the Workflow column highlighted by a red box.
    A screenshot of a course proposal with the workflow steps on the right side of the proposal highlighted by a red box.

Deciphering workflow by color

  1. The green steps mean the subject, school/college, or University Curriculum Committee has approved a course.
  2. Orange/Yellow means this is the current step of workflow.
  3. Gray means the proposal has not yet advanced to this step.

A screen shot of a proposal in workflow showing the orange/yellow, green, and gray colors.

Removing a proposal from the approval process

 

It is the responsibility of the proposer to ensure any proposal advances in a timely fashion.

Proposals that exceed the allotted time-frame per policy are "shredded" (removed/cancelled). Proposers are not notified of the shredding action. To ensure that your proposals do not get shredded, track them using the Lumen Tools viz1 (requires VPN and authentication) and ensure they progress through governance. Any proposal that reaches a university governance, DAPIR or Office of the Registrar workflow step will not be shredded. 

If you have determined you no longer need a proposal (changes aren't needed, proposal was not approved), email lumen@provost.wisc.edu and specifying which proposal needs to be removed.

Notes

  • Shredded proposals cannot be recovered, so retain a pdf version if you think you'll need it in the future.
  • Shredded new courses will have no record of ever existing once shredded.
  • Shredded change or deactivation (courses only) proposals will revert back to the most recently approved version of the proposal.
  • Shredding can only happen to the entire proposal (i.e. specific parts of a proposal cannot be shredding while keeping other parts).

Footnote

  1. The Lumen Tools viz does not include data from Lumen Structures, Exams, or Badges.
 

Linking to a specific proposal

 

There is an easy way to create a direct link to a specific proposal in Lumen. Each proposal has a unique key behind the scenes that always links to that specific proposal.

Each URL has the same stem:

  • Courses: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/courseadmin/?key=[insert key]
  • Programs: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/programadmin/?key=[insert key]
  • Structures: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/miscadmin/?key=[insert key]
  • Exams: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/examadmin/?key=[insert key]
  • Badges: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/badgeadmin/?key=[insert key]

Step-by-step how-to

  1. To find the unique key number navigate to either the landing page and select the proposal you wish to create a direct link for.
    Displaying the bottom of the course proposal form with the Lumen Key highlighted by a red box in the bottom right corner.
  2. Scroll to the bottom of the page. The key is in the bottom right corner of page.
    A screen shot of the course proposal landing page.

For example, this course's direct URL would be: https://next-guide.wisc.edu/courseadmin/?key=12112
 

See Also


Keywords:
Badges, Lumen Badges 
Doc ID:
138468
Owned by:
Melissa S. in Lumen and Guide
Created:
2024-07-16
Updated:
2024-08-02
Sites:
Lumen and Guide