Create Award badges and certificates in D2L Brightspace

Awards to recognize student accomplishments

The Awards tool enables instructors to provide merit-based awards to students. There are two types of awards: Badges and Certificates.

• Badges are awarded based on any criteria determined by the instructor. They are meant to provide digital markers that represent accomplishment throughout a course or program. For example, an instructor might create a badge that is based on posting 5 discussion posts, or on perfect attendance, or on academic excellence. These items are the types of trends that can help a student to succeed in a course or program.
• Certificates are also awarded based on criteria determined by the instructor. Certificates are similar to Badges; however, they include a PDF that students can print. Certificates typically indicate an official statement of certification or award at the end of a program, but can be awarded during the course for other criteria as well. Certificates can be awarded based on achieving a milestone that a student can use for further academic or career success, such as passing a practical exam.

Badges and Certificates can be automatically awarded based on release condition criteria or can be manually awarded.

Create a new badge award

You can create a badge award in your course.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. Click Add Award to Course.
3. Click Create Award.
4. Enter a name, description, and criteria for the new award.
5. Select the Badge award type from the drop-down menu.
6. Set the availability as the Make this available to other award creators and their courses option. Then, check the Restrict award to checkbox to restrict it to the specific course you are working in.
   
7. Set the expiry options to Never. Examples of awards that never expire are certificates of merit for passing a course, or badges for perfect attendance.
9. In the Choose Award Image area, do one of the following:
   • To select an image from the Awards library, click From Existing Library. Search for and select an icon, then click Select.
   • To upload an image to the Awards library, click Upload New Icon. Select an image from your device to use as the icon, and the icon preview displays on the page.
12. Ensure that the Use this award in the <current course> now checkbox is selected.
13. Click Save and Close.

Add release conditions to an award

You can add release conditions to an award and release other content or another award to students when they achieve the award requirement that you define.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. Click Course Awards.
3. For the award, click Edit Properties.
4. Under release conditions, click Create.
5. From the Condition Type menu, select the release condition.
6. Complete the associated Condition Details.
7. Click Create.
8. Click Save.

To learn more, check out these resources on creating and attaching release conditions.

Add an existing award to a course

When certificates and badges have been created by your administrator, they are accessible on the Add an Award page.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. Click Course Awards.
3. Click Add Award to Course.
4. If you want to filter the list to your own awards, click Show only Awards I Created.
5. Select the awards you want to add from the list.
6. Click Add Award to Course.

Review awards for a Classlist

You can review the awards that you've granted for students in your course.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. On Classlist Awards, click on an icon under the Course Awards column to review the awarded badge or certificate for the student.

Manually issue an award

For scenarios such as when a student is successful at a practical test, you can manually grant awards.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. On Classlist Awards, select one or more students in the Classlist.
3. Click Issue.
4. From the Select an Award menu, select an award.
5. In Evidence field, enter a reason for granting the award.
6. Click Issue.

Revoke an award

In some cases, you may want to revoke a previously granted award. You can use the Search Classlist function to search for a specific student.

1. Navigate to the Awards tool.
2. On Classlist Awards, select one or more students in the Classlist.
3. Click Revoke.
4. From the Select an Award menu, select an award.
5. In the Revoke Reason field, enter a reason for revoking the award.
6. Click Revoke.

Create new Certificate Templates

When creating an award certificate, you can select a certificate template.  If the default templates provided with Awards do not meet your needs, you can collaborate with your local D2L Campus Site Admin or Campus Trainer to design a certificate template for your course.  For example, certificates can be created using Prepare Form in the Adobe Acrobat DC Pro software program.

Observations and Limitations with Awards

• A deleted award remains associated with the courses.
  Note: An instructor creates an award and shares to all other courses, then another instructor uses the award in their course.  If the original instructor deletes the award, the other instructors will be able to continue using the award in their current course (regardless of whether or not a student was earned the award).
• Any shared award can be edited by the owner, and will affect ANY course.  The original instructor who edits the award will update the award in all shared courses.
• After meeting an award release condition, it may take up to 5 minutes for the award to be issued to the student automatically within Brightspace.
• Students can always notice the award release condition(s) if they have access to the award in the Awards tool.