Abstract

Today, the Open edX platform offers powerful learning tools, but it lacks modern mechanics that would hold learners' attention and support their long-term motivation. Learners often start learning but do not complete the course or lose interest without additional incentives for activity. This results in low completion rates and limited community engagement.

This initiative proposes to implement a Gamification Service that includes avatars, badges, a points distribution system, leaderboards, and personalized dashboards. Learners will be able to express themselves through avatars, earn achievements in the form of badges, compete in rankings, and track their progress in a convenient visual format.

Learn more about Gamification Service at the recent Open edX Virtual Meetup:

Thus, gamification is a way to:

1. Significantly increase learner motivation.

2. Increase course completion rates.

3. Expand online learning project ROl.

We propose to launch this Gamification Service as an installable solution (“box”) for Open edX.

Context & Background

Modern online courses face the challenge of retaining learners' attention, as low course completion rates and limited community activity negatively impact the quality of learning. The current experience of Open edX users is based largely on traditional progress tools (grades, certificates), which are not always sufficiently motivating.

Global studies show that MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) completion rates are often below 15%, which highlights the scale of the engagement challenge.

In the field of EdTech, gamification has been proven to be an effective mechanism for retaining and motivating learners. It fills important gaps in UX:

• Learners rarely see their progress in a visually appealing way.

• There is no immediate reward for regular but minor efforts.

• There are no elements of competition and social recognition that motivate many learners.

• For new learners, the learning process often seems dry and monotonous, which increases the risk of early dropout.

Platforms such as Duolingo and Coursera have successfully integrated gamification, proving its role in boosting daily activity and retention. Without similar features, Open edX risks falling behind in learner engagement.

Scope & Approach

The Gamification Service covers four main areas.

Platform Avatar

Launch a platform-wide avatar system where learners can select and display an identity image tied to progress and achievements. This is expected to improve learner engagement and platform stickiness, as measured by avatar adoption rates.

Open

Choosing a platform avatar on Performance dashboard

Your Avatar Widget

Enable learners to personalize their experience with an avatar widget that evolves as they progress.
This evolution fosters a stronger sense of personalization and belonging, measured by avatar selection rates and engagement with the evolution features.

Open

Avatar section on Performance dashboard

Avatars Settings

Enable course authors to configure and assign avatars to courses directly through the admin interface, giving educators control over avatar customization. This capability will encourage broader adoption and creative use of avatars by course creators.

Open

Avatars settings page

Open

Avatars evolution - Avatars settings page

Your Badges Widget

Introduce a widget allowing learners to view and showcase their earned badges directly on their personal dashboard. This feature is expected to enhance learner motivation, measured by widget usage and badge-sharing frequency.

Open

Badges section on Performance dashboard

Badges Settings

Enable course authors to configure and assign badges to courses directly through the admin interface, giving educators control over reward design. This feature is expected to drive greater adoption of badges by course creators.

Open

Administrative interface - Badges settings page

Points Vault Widget

Create a centralized vault where users can view and manage accumulated points, ensuring transparency and reinforcing the value of earned rewards. This is expected to drive greater reward engagement, measured by point redemptions and learner logins to the vault on the Performance page.

Open

Points Vault Widget

Points

A system of instant rewards and long-term engagement, providing learners with immediate motivation, sustained interest, stronger commitment to course completion, and a greater sense of achievement.

Open

Points distribution section on Performance dashboard

Performance Page

Introduce a performance page to display a learner’s progress and achievements, integrated seamlessly into the learner experience. This improves learner awareness of performance, measurable by page visits and time spent.

Open

Performance dashboard

Leaderboards

This feature introduces two types of leaderboards: a platform-wide leaderboard and course-specific leaderboards.

• The general leaderboard allows users to track their progress and compare themselves across the entire platform. It includes an on/off switch so that admins can control its visibility. Its goal is to increase engagement and foster healthy competition, with success measured by leaderboard usage and session duration.

• The course leaderboard focuses on achievements within a single course, encouraging localized competition among peers. Its impact is measured by improved course retention, participation rates, and interactions with the leaderboard.

Both leaderboards are integrated into dashboards that display progress, achievements, and each learner’s place in the community.

Open

Leaderboard dashboard

Badges and Leaderboard can operate at both the course level (within a specific learning program) and the platform level (across the entire learning environment).

The main beneficiary is the course participant, who receives a more motivating learning experience. Secondary beneficiaries are staff and superadmin, who increase the effectiveness of courses thanks to increased engagement.

For instance, Maya (a first-year learner) sees her avatar evolve as she participates in discussions, while Luis (a course author) configures badges to reward consistent weekly activity. This ensures motivation on both learner and educator levels.

Quick Demo

Admin's experience

Open

Student’s experience

Open

Events

Our system currently awards badges, avatars, and points based on the following Open edX events:

• edx_certificate_created - triggered when a certificate is issued.

• edx_forum_comment_created - when a learner posts a forum comment.

• edx_forum_response_created - when a learner replies in a forum thread.

• edx_forum_thread_created - when a new discussion thread is started.

• edx_forum_thread_voted - when a learner upvotes or removes a vote on a thread.

• edx_grades_problem_submitted - when a learner submits a problem for grading.

• edx_course_enrollment_activated - when course enrollment is activated.

• edx_bookmark_added - when a learner bookmarks course content.

• stop_video - when a learner completes a video.

In addition, we also support internal gamification events:

• rgg_achievement_obtained - when a learner unlocks an achievement.

• rgg_points_distribution - when points are distributed.

These events from the Open edX tracking logs serve as triggers for rewarding learners and encouraging engagement.

Development is focused on:

• Ease of integration into Open edX.

• An administrative interface for configuring rules.

• Flexibility (the ability to easily add/edit badges, avatars, and point calculation rules).

Ongoing governance (e.g., who defines new badges, point rules, and avatar sets) will be clarified during the pilot phase to ensure long-term maintainability.

Value & Impact

Based on industry experience, gamification typically leads to higher retention, more frequent logins, and stronger community participation. We expect a similar positive impact on Open edX learners.

The success of this initiative will be measured by:

• Increased learner engagement (frequency of logins, course activity, participation in discussions).

• Increased course completion rates (% of learners reaching the end of the course).

• Qualitative community metrics (number of interactions between learners, exchange of experiences).

• Administrative efficiency (ease of setting gamification rules for course authors).

Expected impact:

• The Open edX platform will become more attractive to learners.

• Learners will see tangible progress and instant rewards for their activity.

• Teachers will be able to increase learner retention and learning outcomes.

• Organizations will receive a competitive educational product with a modern motivation tool.

Potential risks:

• Learners feel discouraged by low leaderboard positions.

  • This will be addressed through opt-out options and by emphasizing personal progress as much as peer comparison.

Out of Scope/Future prospects

Custom Events

Enable course authors and administrators to define custom events. (e.g., “Achieve a perfect score (100%) on [five] [ten] [twenty] [fifty] problems in a row”). Provides maximum flexibility in gamification design.

Your Challenges History

Add a “Your Challenges History” widget on both the Challenges Page and Performance Page. This widget will link to a dedicated history page where learners can review completed challenges, including details of the challenger, date, associated course, and results.

Penalties

Introduce a penalty system built around a set of rules triggered by learner actions (e.g., inactivity, missed deadlines, or low engagement). When penalties are activated, they may reduce points, revoke rewards, or issue humorous “anti-badges” (e.g., Procrastinator). This balances the reward system by introducing accountability and playful consequences.

Challenges

Create a dedicated Challenges Page as a central hub where learners can manage all challenge-related activities. Users will be able to extend challenges to peers, review challenges they’ve received, accept or deny them, and monitor challenges that are currently in progress.

All future features are envisioned as modular extensions, ensuring that new widgets and events can be added with minimal impact on existing infrastructure.

Implementation Plan

Frontend part - Migration to MFE

Creation and migration of the existing codebase into the new MFE frontend-app-gamification, along with further improvements such as:

• TypeScript support

• Paragon Design Tokens

• Code refactoring for the Open edX ecosystem

• Updating links in the frontend-component-header

• Documentation

Backend part - Addition of tutor-contrib-rgg to the Open edX Core Codebase

The tutor-contrib-rgg plugin provides the backend implementation - a Tutor extension that integrates gamification features directly into the Open edX platform. This approach keeps gamification isolated, easier to test, upgrade, and optional for deployments.

Repository

• https://gitlab.raccoongang.com/foss/rgg/tutor-contrib-rgg

This plugin automatically enables seamless installation, configuration of several dedicated repositories that serve as independent components within the gamification ecosystem:

• edx-gamma-bridge - tracking event listener. Sends all OeX tracking events to the gamma API endpoint.

• edx-gamma-dashboard - installable API module to render HTML views in OeX for learner dashboard and leaderboard.

• gamma - responsible for storing models in the database and making them accessible via API.

Named Release

Verawood

Proposed By

Raccoon Gang

Additional info

• Installation Manual

• User Guide

• Opensource Repository