1. GRASS – Open Badges for Grading Soft Skills
Funded with support from the European Commission, within project Grading soft skills: GRASS, No LLP-1-RS-KA3-KA3MP
GRASS – Open Badges for Grading Soft Skills
Dr Niall Seery
Dr Donal Canty
This communication reflects the views only of authors, and the commission cannot be held responsible for any use, which may be made of the information contained therein.

2. EU LLP Project
Grading Soft Skills (GRASS) is a 3-year research project financially supported by EU focusing on representing soft skills of learners of various ages and at different levels of education in a quantitative, measurable way, so that these skills can become the subject of formal validation and recognition.
The project is being developed with the support of the Lifelong Learning Programme (LLP) of the EU, the flagship European funding programme in the field of education and training.

3. Aim https://sites.google.com/site/llpgrassproject/
The overall aim of this project is to create mechanisms that enable to continuously support, monitor, assess, and acknowledge development of learners' soft skills with the help of state-of-the- art ICT tools.

4. Objectives Novel pedagogical approaches
Incorporate pedagogy in daily practices
Multiple levels of education
Rich, structured set of soft skills metrics
New model and ICT framework
Mechanisms for acknowledging, grading and awarding learners' soft skills
Incentive policies for teachers

5. Partners Serbia: Sweden: Croatia: Ireland: University of Belgrade (UB)
First Grammar School of Kragujevac (FGSK)
Sweden:
KTH Royal Institute of Technology (KTH)
VäsbyNew Gymnasium (VNG)
Croatia:
University of Zagreb (UniZg)
Landsurveying school (LS)
Ireland:
University of Limerick (UL), Ireland
Coláiste Chiaráin (CC)

6. Application Cases Partner AC Soft Skill KTH Math Coach VNG Sociology
Communication, Collaboration, Problem Solving, Self Regulation
VNG
Sociology
Communication, Knowledge Construction, Self-Regulation UB
Computer Programming
Enthusiasm, Innovation, Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, Leadership
FGSK
Civic Education (CE)
Teamwork, Collaboration, Communication, Active Listening, Conflict Resolution
UNIZG
Electrical Engineering
Communication, Collaboration, Innovation, Creativity LS
English & Geodetic Measurement
Communication, Peer Support, Self-Regulation CC
Junior Cycle Key Skills
Communication, Collaboration, Innovation UL
Initial Teacher Education
Articulate, Collaboration, Creative, Knowledgeable, Proactive, Responsible

7. Challenges Badge Currency Teacher Pedagogy Capture of Evidence
Assessment validity
Subjectivity of assessment
Discrimination of Quality

8. Currency Learning Outcomes Award Stakeholders Soft Skill Metric:
Category of Soft Skill
Soft Skill
Importance Statement
Pedagogical Approach
Task/Content
Assessment Metric
Learning Outcomes
Award
Stakeholders

9. Pedagogy Intent Context and Situation Untangle Assessment
If you are measuring Soft Skill – You have to teach them
Context and Situation
Age appropriate development supporting hard skill acquisition
Untangle
Exclusivity of Soft Skill evidence
Assessment
Recognition and identification of Quality

10. Assessment

11. Application Case UL Graduate Attributes Knowledgeable Creative
Responsible
Collaborative
Articulate
Proactive
UL Graduate Attributes

12. ASSIST
Multi-disciplinary awards initiative open to students in the Technology Teacher Education programmes in the University of Limerick
It is managed by the Technology Education Research Group (TERG) in partnership with the GRASS consortium
Structured around the UL graduate attributes the project focuses on developing pedagogical approaches and ICT tools and services for representing soft skills in a quantitative, measurable way, so that they can become the subject of formal validation and recognition.

13. Graduate Attributes

14. Badge Constellation
ASSIST Award
Graduate Attributes
Soft Skills

15. Capturing Multi-Modal Evidence

16. Contribution to an Individual
Problem
Contribution
Solution

17. Contribution to Community
Contribution of Resources to Entire Online Community

18. Capturing Multi-Modal Evidence

19. ASSIST Award Programmes support development of Soft skills
Students target badges
Generate evidence
Submit for assessment
Feedback/Award
Actualise badges for recognition of skills

20. Assessment Suitability of traditional grading (A,B,C,D,E, F, NG)
Measure of the efficacy of your actions
Educational transaction
Self
Peer
Objective
Developmental association
Holistic Weighted Judgement

21. Assessment Validity Construct Content Criteria Threats to Validity
Construct irrelevant variance
Construct under-representation

22. Future Work Develop badging infrastructure that will incorporate:
Generic Soft Skill Awards
Context Soft Skill Awards
Developmental Recognition Awards

23. Thank you Questions Contact details: Donal.canty@ul.ie