Motivate and reward students for achievements with Digital Badges – gamify learning to unlock exclusive perks such as special courses, personalized coupons and more!
Available with Thinkific Plus
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In this article:
Step 1: Add the Site Page Templates section
Step 2: Add the Badge Definition section
Step 3: Add the Badge Container section
Digital Badges and Certificates
About This Feature
Harness the power of gamification to boost student motivation with Digital Badges. Celebrate and incentivize progress as students earn badges for accomplishments like course completions, sign-ins, and tenure. Each badge can unlock rewards of your choosing, from access to exclusive content and communities to discount offers on additional content and more!
Digital Badges allow you to reward your students with badges earned based on predefined criteria. These badges, whether awarded or “locked” until criteria are met, can be displayed on the student dashboard and/or site pages. In addition to earning badges, your students can earn a reward tied to the completion of certain actions.
Digital Badges allow you to:
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Increase student motivation
Create a sense of challenge and anticipation, motivating students to complete tasks and reach milestones to earn rewards.
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Grant rewards
Incentivize student participation by displaying visual public badges or unlocking rewards such as extra learning content, custom discounts, and custom discounts for additional products
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Personalize learning experiences
Digital Badges empower you to tailor the learning journey, creating customized experiences by unlocking content after certain milestones that cater to individual student journeys.
Important Considerations
- Digital Badges are available for customers on all Plus plans. If you're already a Plus customer and would like to access this feature, reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager to learn more. Curious, but not yet on Plus? Discover how Plus can supercharge your business growth.
- Digital Badges are not enabled by default. Please reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager to learn how to add this feature to your site or to check if it is included in your existing plan.
- Digital Badges are not available via the Thinkific or a Branded mobile app.
- Digital Badges are different from Thinkific Certificates. See the section below to learn more.
How It Works
The Digital Badges feature utilizes Site Theme pages and Site Builder to define rules for digital badges and set up how those badges are viewed. The badges can be added to any Site Builder page.
Looking for ideas on where to display your badges? You can display them on a private custom page, link to the page in the header, add them to a Student dashboard, and even display badges on a product landing page!
When creating a badge you can edit the badge appearance, specify badge eligibility (who can see and earn the badge), badge criteria (what action or actions must be completed for the student to earn the badge), and a reward (what the student receives when a badge is awarded).
See the available badge criteria below:
Any one or a combination of the following criteria can be used to award a badge:
- Sign-in count (e.g. a learner has signed in X number of times)
- Days since the learner account was created (e.g. a learner has had an account for X number of days)
- The learner is enrolled in:
- A course
- A bundle
- Any course in a bundle
- All courses in a bundle
- A community
- The learner has completed:
- A course
- Any course in a bundle
- All courses in a bundle
- The learner is enrolled in a minimum number of courses (the minimum value can be specified by you)
- The learner is enrolled in a minimum number of communities (the minimum value can be specified by you)
- The learner has been awarded a certificate
- The learner has uploaded an avatar (profile picture)
- The user is an Affiliate
- The learner has completed:
- All custom fields
- All required custom fields
- Specific custom fields (specific fields can be identified by you)
The badges can be displayed together in a badge container (see the image above) or as individual sections. When displayed together in a badge container, badges can be clicked on and the detailed badge information, including the badge description, eligibility criteria, and a task list will be displayed.
Once the badges are set up, eligible students will see locked badges on the page you added them to. Once badge criteria are met, the badge will be awarded and students will be able to claim their reward (if included).
Set Up Digital Badges
Digital Badges are not enabled by default. Please reach out to your dedicated Customer Success Manager to learn how to add this feature to your site or to check if it is included in your existing plan.
Badges can be added to any Site Builder page. To add badges, you need to add the following section to a site builder page:
- Site Page Templates - this section is a required section that allows badges to be configured and displayed accurately.
- Badge Definition - this is the section where you can configure badge information, eligibility, and criteria. Each badge requires its own section.
- Badge Container - optional. This section allows you to display all of the badges together and create a popup with badge information. You can have several badge containers to display different groups of badges.
See the detailed steps below.
Step 1: Add the Site Page Templates section
To start the setup, you will need to select the page where you want to display badges. Badges can be added to any Site Builder page. Before you can set up and configure individual badges, you will need to add the Site Pages Templates section:
- From your Admin Dashboard, go to Channels
- Select Website
- Open the page where you want to display badges
- Select +Add section
- Search for and add the Site Page Templates section on the page.
The Site Page Templates section should be listed first in the list of badge sections you add and only include one of these sections. You do not need to change the settings for this section.
Step 2: Add the Badge Definition section
The Badge Definition section is the section where you can configure badge information, eligibility, and criteria. Each badge requires its own section and you can add as many badge definition sections as you want to one page.
To add and configure a badge:
- On the same page from Step 1, select +Add section
- Search for and add the Badge Definition section to the page
- Edit the Badge Name and Subheading settings group
- Upload the badge Image
You can use Accredible's free Badge Designer tool to create badge images. - Edit the Call to Action (Locked) settings group
This will show up when a badge has not been earned yet. - Edit the Call to Action (Unlocked) settings group
This will show up when a badge has been earned. - Edit the Badge Eligibility settings group
Badge Eligibility determines who will be able to see and earn the badge. Select Ignore (Everyone is eligible) to allow any students to earn the badge. Otherwise, select whether all or any criteria must be met and specify the criteria. - Edit the Badge Information settings group
- Edit the Badge Popup settings group
If a badge container is added (step 3 below), this setting determines the behaviour and the look of the badge popup. - Edit the Badge Containers settings group
- Show unearned badge as 'greyed out'?: check this box to show the badge as greyed out until it is earned. After it is earned, the badge will become colourful.
- Use Badge Container: if using a badge container (step 3 below), leave this option checked.
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Badge Containers IDs (one per line): if using multiple badge containers, specify Badge Container IDs where this badge should be displayed. Out of the box, the badge container ID called Default is used - do not change it if you are using one badge container only. Note that the Badge Container IDs must match exactly.
The same badge can be displayed in multiple containers.
- Edit the Badge Page Section settings group
This section determines whether the badge will be displayed as an individual section. If you are not using a badge container, you must select the Individual Section option to display the badge as its own section. If you are using a badge container, you may choose either option. If you are using a badge container and chose the Individual Section option, the badge will be displayed in the badge container AND as a separate section. - Select +Add Criteria
Specify what criteria should the student meet for the badge to be awarded.You can add multiple criteria, each as a separate block. They will each appear on the tasklist and each of the criteria must be satisfied in order for the badge to be awarded.
Step 3: Add the Badge Container section
To display all badges together, you can add a badge container section. This section is optional. When adding or removing the Badge Container section, confirm that steps 10 and 11 in the badge definition setup step correspond to your choice.
To add and configure a badge:
- On the same page from Step 1, select +Add section
- Search for and add the Badge Container section to the page
- Edit the Section Headings settings group
This is the heading and subheading that will show up on top of the badge container section. - Edit the Display Options settings group
- Edit the Badge Container settings group
Repeat the steps if you want to add multiple badge containers.
If using multiple Badge Containers, make sure that each container has a unique ID.
Student Experience
When visiting a page where the badges were added, the students will see only the badges that they are eligible for, determined by the badge eligibility settings. If badges were added to a badge container, students can see them in the same section and click on each badge to learn how to earn it.
If badges were added to each individual section instead, students can scroll on the page and see badge information.
Badges will remain locked until all badge criteria are met, after which the badge will be awarded and students can claim their reward (if included).
Digital Badges and Certificates
Digital Badges are different from Thinkific Certificates. Thinkific Certificates let you reward and motivate your students by celebrating and providing proof of course completion. The certificates can only be awarded after a course completion and they can be shared by students to their social networks.
Digital Badges are a way to encourage and reward a variety of different behaviours, such as engagement, customer loyalty, etc. Badges serve to gamify the learning experience, motivate students by recognizing their achievements, and encourage them to engage more deeply with the course material. This builds a connection between you and your students while encouraging consumption of the learning content/courses. The badges cannot be shared on social networks.
Frequently Asked Questions
Open Badges are digital images embedded with verifiable data about the represented award. They are issued following the Open Badge Standard developed by the Mozilla Foundation and meet the specifications and technical standards for embedding verifiable information into portable image files.
Thinkific Digital Badges are not considered to meet the Open Badge Standard.
Badges are highly customizable. You can set multiple criteria for each badge, customize the appearance of badges, adjust where and when these should be shown, and define the copy to be used in badge descriptions and notifications. You can also upload your own badge image. Accredible has a free badge designer tool that you can use to create new badge designs.
Badges are awarded based on whether the specific badge criteria have been met, regardless of when it was met. For example, if a badge that was set up today requires users to sign in 20 times for it to be awarded, any learner who has already logged in 20 times before the badge was created will automatically receive the badge.
When you update the badge criteria, the new criteria will apply, regardless of whether the learner has met the previous criteria or not. If a learner still fulfills the updated requirements, they will retain the badge. However, if the learner no longer meets the new criteria, the badge will become locked again.
No, there is no limit to the number of badges that can be created or awarded.
When a badge is awarded, it will become unlocked on whatever page you added the badges. You can use additional methods of notifying students of new badge completions. For example, if a badge is awarded after the successful completion of a course, you can also use a Custom Completion Page or a Course Completion Email to alert learners that a badge has been awarded.
Yes! Each badge can include a call to action, that if clicked by the learner, would unlock some additional value, such as a coupon for a discount on future course purchases, or new exclusive content the learner gains access to.
Currently, we do not support badge activity tracking or reporting.