The Importance of a Digital Backpack

By: Justin Ferriman • September 27, 2013
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Today we are seeing all kinds of great features popping-up in the elearning space – one of which that is really gaining in popularity is the use of gamification within courses.

There are multiple ways to incorporate this, but when it comes to elearning, the most popular by far has been the ability to issue badges and points for completing courses, lessons, and quizzes.

For the learner, these badges and points are added incentive for completing course content. They provide a visual representation to what they have achieved – and depending on how it’s used, these can be “cashed-in” for prizes or other rewards.

This type of gamification is available on a handful of platforms, but never has it been easier to implement than on WordPress. In fact, there are many options out there in the form of both free and paid plugins.

That said, there is one important aspect of these programs that you must consider – can learners take their achievements with them?

This is often referred to as the “digital backpack”, and as learner, it is a very real incentive to any achievements based program. Earning points and achievements is great, but these can only do so-much good if they exist only on the site that they were obtained on.

It is ideal that users can take their achievements with them. Whether they are earning points or badges on a cooking site, and then the next day for a professional institution, it just makes sense to allow that learner to compile these achievements into a central, platform-agnostic location.

When I think about MOOC offerings today, I see a huge opportunity and wouldn’t be surprised to see some form of “achievement backpacks” implemented in the near future (if it isn’t already).

If you’re implementing elearning (especially on WordPress) choose a solution that makes it easy for users to take their learning with them. In the short-term, a centralize achievements platform might work, but a program with long-term considerations certainly needs this kind of functionality. This trend will quickly become the norm in digital learning, you may as well set the proper foundation from the start.

Justin Ferriman

Justin started LearnDash, the WordPress LMS trusted by Fortune 500 companies, major universities, training organizations, and entrepreneurs worldwide. He is currently founder & CEO of GapScout. Justin’s Homepage | GapScout | Twitter