Add an API endpoint for accessing metrics on publicly-shared badges

[toolness]

I'm thinking about prototyping some things that make the badge ecosystem more visible and useful, and I realized it might be nice to have the backpack index, and expose through an API, all badge classes that exist in at least one public user portfolio/group.

This would allow us to harvest useful data from the ecosystem, while also respecting users' privacy. Even better would be if the API could provide a rough estimate of how many users have instances of said badge shared in at least one of their public portfolios/groups.

Any thoughts on this, @stenington and @brianloveswords?

[iamjessklein]

:+1:

[kayaelle]

Hey Atul,

Would this make it possible to search for any badges issued - the badges themselves with only the image, issuer, categories, standards & criteria? Damian and I were talking about this recently. That would be pretty awesome. The only catch we could see is if the issuer wants the badge to be private.

Thanks,

k

On Jun 19, 2013, at 7:59 PM, Atul Varma notifications@github.com wrote:

I'm thinking about prototyping some things that make the badge ecosystem more visible and useful, and I realized it might be nice to have the backpack index, and expose through an API, all badge classes that exist in at least one public user portfolio/group.

This would allow us to harvest useful data from the ecosystem, while also respecting users' privacy. Even better would be if the API could provide a rough estimate of how many users have instances of said badge shared in at least one of their public portfolios/groups.

Any thoughts on this, @stenington and @brianloveswords?

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[toolness]

Yeah, it'd totally make that possible--though only badges that have been shared on at least one public portfolio, since that's the closest proxy we have to knowing whether the issuer wants the badge to be private. That said, it might be a good idea to include that kind of information in the next revision of the badge spec; Jonathan Zittrain has some great ideas on embedding privacy-related metadata into things to ensure that we're respecting everyone's needs.

[kayaelle]

That's great! And seems to be a fine way to start. Being able to search for badges would really open up and connect the ecosystem. We'd be psyched to try out the prototype.

re: badge specs - there seem to be valid scenarios where an issuer would not want a badge to ever be public. That also opens up the idea of per badge privacy vs. collection privacy.

In this discussion: https://github.com/mozilla/openbadges/issues/850

I mention privacy only per badge but now thinking privacy per badge as well as for collections would be better. Anyway - that's a different topic.

Thanks!

On Jun 20, 2013, at 8:17 AM, Atul Varma notifications@github.com wrote:

Yeah, it'd totally make that possible--though only badges that have been shared on at least one public portfolio, since that's the closest proxy we have to knowing whether the issuer wants the badge to be private. That said, it might be a good idea to include that kind of information in the next revision of the badge spec; Jonathan Zittrain has some great ideas on embedding privacy-related metadata into things to ensure that we're respecting everyone's needs.

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub.

[iamjessklein]

@toolness an I started sketching a bit about what could be a possible MVP for the prototype. Here is the coffee shop brainstorm sketch:

You can see that we are addressing user stories, mvp requirements as well as what field from the specification we will be pulling data from.

cc/ @emgollie

[emgollie]

Fantastic Mr. Badger is nodding. Thanks @iamjessklein @toolness.