A Content Analysis of the Emergent Scholarship on Digital and Open Badges in Higher Education
Higher education is subjected to demands of accountability and reform in terms of cost and student success (Morris, 2016), with some American states also demanding shorter times to degree and alternate pathways that recognize prior learning in other settings (Ohio Department of Education, n.d.). Education reforms refer to policies and practices that promote academic quality including learning and assessment, and student success in terms of ease of access, achievement, retention, and completion (Klein-Collins, 2012; Klein-Collins & Wertheimer, 2013). Some information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as asynchronous web-based distance education, open-source materials, flipped classrooms, and massive open online courses (MOOC’s), have been credited with several reforms that have changed, even disrupted (Christensen, Horn, & Johnson, 2008) the access to and delivery of higher education (Leon & Price, 2016; Morris, 2016).
