Allow badges to be "baked" into HTML pages

[toolness]

I think it would be really great if badges could be baked into HTML pages, or even if multiple badges could be baked into a single HTML page.

This could be done via a <link> tag in the document header, e.g.:

<link rel="openbadges-assertion" href="badge.json">

Or, in the case of multiple badges per page, it could be done via a data-assertion attribute on an <img> or <div> element. Or something else.

This has a number of benefits:

• It would allow users to simply think of a badge or badge-group as the URL of the human-readable version of the web page containing their badge(s). They could then just paste the page's URL into a backpack or other badge tool.
• It would allow search engines and other computerized agents to glean information about the badge(s) on a page without having to manually download and inspect every image on the page to see if it's baked.
• Baking an assertion URL into a HTML page via a <link> tag or some kind of data- attribute arguably requires less technical expertise and server-side storage than baking a PNG.

Note that this proposal is distinct from a HTML Microformat for Open Badges, which prescribes a way to encapsulate all the information about a badge/class/issuer in HTML. The proposal described here merely prescribes a way to associate a web page with one or more JSON assertions.

An alternative to this proposal might be to somehow merge it with #1, so that the same specification could be used to advertise the badge classes an issuer provides and associate issued badges with a web page. But that might be trying to kill too many birds with one stone.

[timothyfcook]

Moving to archive. Baked badgeAssertions are accessible via a URL.