Student engagement is both a ubiquitous and broadly defined term in education. Engagement is the "conceptual glue" that connects student agency, social influences, organizational structures, and school culture. Of particular interest to the work presented in this paper, is how engagement and agency are interrelated, and the role of this relationship in online learning--particularly in formative assessment and peer feedback. This paper reports the use of digital badges to support student learning and promote engagement in higher education. The purpose of the Open Badges project was to explore whether open badges can support learning in online environments through peer feedback. Findings indicate that participants demonstrated engagement attributes that encompass affective, behavioural and cognitive indicators however, our projections about the motivation for achieving the badges were opposite of what was expected.