There are both supportive and critical opinions on the use of Open Digital Badges in education. Several authors express concern related to motivation in earning badges. The main argument is that learners will focus on accumulation of badges (extrinsic motivation) rather than on the process of learning (intrinsic motivation). There is also fear that badges run the risk of contributing to the ’gamification’ of education or bring too much structure and hierarchy to learning that is not inherent in informal learning.
Some authors express concern how meaningful badges can become if any organisation is allowed to give them out for any reason and quality and status inevitably vary from one badge to another while many badges may not be designed well from an instructional design perspective, and do not guide learning effectively for a learner.
Some authors argue that badges may not appear as credible to potential employers as a paper credential from a recognised higher education institutions. Halavais (2012) just concludes that if badges are poorly applied, they will be bad and if used well, they can lead to peer learning and authentic assessment (Virkus, 2019).