Gotta Earn ’Em All

Badges Bolster Daily Health Check Participation

01.26.2022

What started as a fun way to encourage participation in The University of Texas at Dallas’ Daily Health Check initiative has become a campus craze.

The Daily Health Check survey is an electronic communication that was launched by the Office of Research and Innovation in May 2020 to help gauge the prevalence of COVID-19 among the campus research community and pave the way for a return to research operations. The initiative later expanded and became a requirement for faculty, staff and students.

When participation began to dip during the fall 2020 semester, the office brainstormed ways to reverse the trend. The solution: achievement badges.

“We pretty much saw an immediate uptick after we launched them,” said R. Gabe Cavazos, assistant vice president for research data and information systems.

The reward system has been so popular that UT Dallas researchers have contacted the office to see how they can implement something similar in their projects, Cavazos said.

“We’ve had interest in reproducing the gamification component to help incentivize more regular participation in human-research projects and allow more specific calculations of completion and participation stats,” said Vanllelyn Garcia, software systems specialist. “This could enable researchers to target and communicate with low response rate participants and gather more data to evaluate outcomes.”

The badges – circular cartoons tacked on to the survey confirmation page – are rewards for reaching certain numbers of consecutive responses and for filling out the Daily Health Check on celebratory days, such as Halloween and Thanksgiving.

Cavazos has designed a few of the badges, but the majority are the creations of Garcia; Wun Chiou, assistant director of web software; and Amira Nickerson, web specialist.

It was a project that became a creative outlet for the group while working off campus during the pandemic. Chiou created the first badge on his tablet — a sketch of a chibi-style Temoc, the University’s mascot.

There are over 40 badges now, with more in the works. Comets can review their individual badge collection at utd.link/dhc-badges.

“Hopefully it has been as fun for the people earning the badges as it has been for the people working behind the scenes,” Cavazos said.

For more on the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic, visit utdallas.edu/covid/response.

–Paul Bottoni

Favorite Badges

Cavazos: “I like them all. The Tobor one was fun because the team — especially Vanllelyn and Amira — helped me learn vector illustrations. It was a nice learning experience.”

Chiou: “The Bernie/Temoc mittens one. They aren’t always timely, but that one was.”

Garcia: “They all have their unique characteristics. The style has evolved. The Love Jack one breaks out of the standard shape, and so does the holiday globe. I enjoy the ones that are a little bit extra.”

Nickerson: “The State Fair badge is one of my favorites because it’s the first one I did, but I also love the snow globe.”