The Cell EXPLORERS badges are out!

The Cell EXPLORERS Badges have now been awarded to all Cell EXPLORERS team members fulfilling requirements for each badge. Congratulations!

We have awarded a total of 87 badges to 63 team members from NUI Galway, Athlone IT and University of Limerick. These includes 67 demonstrator, 7 leader, 8 Communicator, 6 creator and 3 achiever badges. Well done!

These badges recognise and reward team members for their participation to the Cell EXPLORERS programme by awarding them a digital badge matching their specific involvement.

The Cell EXPLORERS badge collection, shown below, includes the demonstrator badge, the initial badge to claim before claiming leader, creator or communicator badges. To collect these four badges automatically led to the attribution of the achiever badge. The Master badge is awarded to team member who can secure funding to run their created activities. Note that a key requirement for badge award is to have completed the Cell EXPLORERS guarda clearance procedure. Learn more about our criteria here! Digital badges are an online method of recognising, accrediting and displaying achievements, skills or participation. The Cell EXPLORERS badge received by our members acts as a verifiable record of their participation as a Cell EXPLORERS team members. The badge can be claimed via a link that gives access to the Open Badges Passport, a mini e-portfolio system where one can store and display badges online. In practice, one can collect badges from multiple organisations, store the badges online and display them as one choose, eg. on website, social network or blog.

Thank you to Blaneth and Grainne from NUI Galway Centre for excellence in Learning and Teaching for guiding us through setting up our badge system, designing such colourful badges and awarding them to our team members.

NUI Galway is currently leading a national initiative, investigating the use of badges in Higher Education. If you are interested in learning more about badges, please get in touch at: http://allaboardhe.org