[MINUTES] VCs for Education 2025-12-15

統 Notes

Dec 15, 2025
Meeting Dec 15, 2025 at 10:54 EST

Meeting records Transcript <?tab=t.pqn9mj9h8chj> Recording
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRC1xmqQNnWPFBceE8-VX4MyuSUpg1WD/view?usp=drive_web>
Summary

The meeting focused on the interoperability between US academic transcripts
and the Europass Diploma Supplement, highlighting the US initiative to
standardize academic transcripts into the Comprehensive Learner Record
(CLR) B2 standard. Discussions emphasized that both CLR v2 and European
Digital Credentials are based on Verifiable Credentials (VCs). Challenges
in standardization, the evolution of US credentials, and European adoption
hurdles for infrastructure like EBSI were explored. The importance of eIDAS
electronic seals for trust in credentials, including employer-issued
micro-credentials, was also a key theme.
Details

*Notes Length: Standard*

   -

   *US Academic Transcript and CLR B2 Standard:* Mark McConahay detailed
   the US initiative to standardize academic transcripts using the
   Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) B2 data standard, including guidelines
   for representing conceptual components. This effort was recognized by
   Simone Ravaioli as having potential for interoperability with the Europass
   Diploma Supplement.
   -

   *Evolution of US Academic Credentials:* Mark McConahay traced the
   history from paper-based transcripts (pre-1980s) secured by signatures and
   seals, to digital PDFs using encryption and PKI. The CLR emerged to capture
   learning outside traditional classroom settings, though initially also
   expressed as PDFs and separate from academic transcripts. The core
   principle is that all credentials (academic records, CLRs, digital badges)
   should be expressed and verified uniformly.
   -

   *Challenges in Standardizing Credentials:* Mark McConahay highlighted
   that US credentials exist in separate verticals, with limited institutional
   adoption of CLRs and micro-credentials. Previous attempts at digital
   transcript standards (Speedy/PESK) faced low adoption due to being a "heavy
   lift." CLR's flexibility was chosen for digital learning expressions, but
   this flexibility necessitates guidelines for consistent rendering.
   -

   *Interoperability between CLR and Europass:* The similarities between
   CLR and Europass Diploma Supplement led to discussions about international
   collaboration. Simone Ravaioli noted the European push for native
   acceptance of Open Badges (VCs) in the Europass wallet. CLR was proposed as
   a technical specification for a digitized Europass Diploma Supplement,
   particularly relevant as CLR v2 is a Verifiable Credential.
   -

   *Technical Foundation and Ecosystem of Credentials:* Tim Couper stressed
   that Open Badges, CLR v2, and European Digital Credentials are all based on
   Verifiable Credentials (VCs). One EdTech is increasing its focus on the
   interoperability and portability of achievements across these credential
   types, aiming for cross-country recognition through mapping processes and
   the establishment of a One EdTech entity in Europe.
   -

   *Technical Challenges of Digitization:* Ildiko Mazar identified a
   technical challenge with JSON's handling of order, impacting the rendering
   of complex documents like the Diploma Supplement. Efforts are underway to
   introduce a new property at the ontology and application profile levels to
   fix this ordering issue.
   -

   *Adoption of Verifiable Credentials in Europe and Security:* Sheela
   Kiiskila outlined adoption challenges for the European Blockchain Service
   Infrastructure (EBSI), including national acceptance requirements and data
   governance/GDPR concerns. The eIDAS electronic seal (eSeal) is gaining
   acceptance, with models for centralized issuance by quality control bodies
   or alliances. Ildiko Mazar added that European Learning Model (ELM) and
   European Digital Credentials (EDC) use a double security system: an eSeal
   and mandatory linking to an accreditation record for all accredited
   credentials.
   -

   *Interoperability Obstacles and Employer Credentials:* Dmitri Zagidulin
   inquired about obstacles to CLR v2 and European transcript
   interoperability. Tim Couper cited historical governance issues and the
   need for dedicated expert groups. Defining extensions for flexible
   standards like CLR v2 and Open Badges formally is also necessary work. The
   discussion touched upon employer-issued micro-credentials, with Ildiko
   Mazar explaining how opening the Europass wallet to VCs addresses
   restrictions for non-formal providers. Sheela Kiiskila emphasized the
   importance of eIDAS-compliant eSeals for higher education institutions to
   trust employer-issued micro-credentials.
   -

   *Data Integrity and Future Work:* Phillip Long raised concerns about
   data integrity standards between CLR v2 and European signature methods,
   noting country-specific designations requiring broad EU agreement. Tim
   Couper acknowledged this as a long-term challenge requiring the right
   groups to initiate conversations. Participants expressed excitement for
   future updates and collaboration.

Suggested next steps

   - Tim Couper will provide links to the case or the Edu API specs.
   - Ildiko Mazar will be working on implementing the new property on the
   credential level.

Text:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-vcs-for-education-2025-12-15.md

Video:
https://meet.w3c-ccg.org/archives/w3c-ccg-vcs-for-education-2025-12-15.mp4
統 Notes

Dec 15, 2025
Meeting Dec 15, 2025 at 10:54 EST

Meeting records Transcript <?tab=t.pqn9mj9h8chj> Recording
<https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aRC1xmqQNnWPFBceE8-VX4MyuSUpg1WD/view?usp=drive_web>
Summary

Mark McConahay detailed the US initiative to standardize academic
transcripts into the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) B2 standard, which,
along with the historical evolution and challenges in credential
standardization, highlighted opportunities for interoperability with the
Europass Diploma Supplement, as recognized by Simone Ravaioli. Simone
Ravaioli and Tim Couper emphasized that all major credential types,
including CLR v2 and the European Digital Credential, are based on
Verifiable Credentials (VCs), suggesting CLR as a technical specification
for a digitized Diploma Supplement, despite technical challenges related to
JSON ordering noted by Ildiko Mazar. Sheela Kiiskila discussed European
adoption challenges for the European Blockchain Service Infrastructure and
the importance of eIDAS electronic seals for ensuring trust in credentials,
including employer-issued micro-credentials, which also addressed
interoperability obstacles raised by Dmitri Zagidulin and data integrity
questions from Phillip Long.
Details

*Notes Length: Standard*

   -

   *US Academic Transcript and CLR B2 Standard* Mark McConahay described
   the US initiative to standardize the traditional academic transcript by
   placing it into the Comprehensive Learner Record (CLR) B2 data standard (
   00:19:07 <#00:19:07>). This effort also included creating guidelines for
   consistently representing the transcript's conceptual components. The
   discussion with Simone Ravaioli recognized the similarity to the Europass
   Diploma Supplement, suggesting opportunities for interoperability (
   00:20:23 <#00:20:23>).
   -

   *Evolution of US Academic Credentials* Mark McConahay detailed the
   history of US academic credentials, moving from paper-based transcripts
   with sign and seal trust factors before the 1980s to digital PDF artifacts
   secured with encryption and PKI technology (00:21:41 <#00:21:41>). The
   CLR emerged to capture and express learning outside the classroom in a
   governed way, though often also expressed as PDFs and initially separate
   from the academic transcript (00:23:17 <#00:23:17>). Mark McConahay
   emphasized that a credential, whether a traditional academic record, a CLR,
   or a digital badge, should be expressed and verified uniformly (00:26:14
   <#00:26:14>).
   -

   *Challenges in Standardizing Credentials* Mark McConahay noted that
   credentials in the US exist in separate verticals, with a small number of
   institutions participating in CLRs and micro-credentials (00:24:56
   <#00:24:56>). Earlier attempts to create a digital standard for
   transcripts, called Speedy (now PESK), were robust but had low adoption
   (around 17% of institutions after 30 years) due to being a "heavy lift" (
   00:27:22 <#00:27:22>). The CLR standard, being more flexible, was chosen
   as a common format for bringing new expressions of learning into the
   digital context (00:28:51 <#00:28:51>). However, CLR's flexibility meant
   various ways existed to express concepts like chronological ledgers,
   necessitating guidelines to standardize rendering for reviewers (00:30:29
   <#00:30:29>).
   -

   *Interoperability between CLR and Europass* The recognition of the
   similarities between the CLR and the Europass Diploma Supplement led to the
   idea of international collaboration, particularly at the Global Digital
   Negotiators (GDN) conference (00:33:07 <#00:33:07>). Simone Ravaioli
   highlighted parallel European developments, specifically the push for
   native acceptance of open badges (which are Verifiable Credentials (VCs))
   in the Europass wallet (00:34:43 <#00:34:43>). Given that the Diploma
   Supplement format is also being reviewed, they proposed using CLR as the
   compelling technical specification for the new, digitized Diploma
   Supplement (00:36:22 <#00:36:22>). Simone Ravaioli suggested this
   initiative is relevant for the task force because CLR v2 is a Verifiable
   Credential (00:38:04 <#00:38:04>).
   -

   *Technical Foundation and Ecosystem of Credentials* Tim Couper
   emphasized that all discussed credential types, including Open Badges, CLR
   v2, and the European Digital Credential, are based on the power of
   Verifiable Credentials (VCs) (00:39:16 <#00:39:16>) (00:41:57 <#00:41:57>).
   Tim Couper noted that the move of Open Badges into a VC standard was one of
   its best decisions (00:40:49 <#00:40:49>). One EdTech is increasing its
   focus on the interoperability and portability of achievements across these
   credential types, aiming for recognition across countries (00:43:23
   <#00:43:23>). This work involves mapping processes between Open Badges,
   CLR, and other standards, supported by the establishment of a One EdTech
   entity in Europe (00:44:31 <#00:44:31>).
   -

   *Technical Challenges of Digitization* Ildiko Mazar noted a key
   technical challenge with the JSON format's handling of order, which impacts
   the rendering of complex documents like the Diploma Supplement (a "CLR on
   steroids"). They explained that they are working to fix this ordering issue
   by introducing a new property at the ontology and application profile
   levels, which will allow reintroducing the Diploma Supplement credential
   type (00:48:37 <#00:48:37>). Tim Couper confirmed that ordering is a
   classic challenge (00:50:00 <#00:50:00>).
   -

   *Adoption of Verifiable Credentials in Europe and Security* Sheela
   Kiiskila outlined significant challenges for organizations adopting the
   European Blockchain Service Infrastructure (EBSI), including the
   requirement for entire countries to accept and maintain nodes, as well as
   data governance and privacy issues related to GDPR (00:53:53 <#00:53:53>).
   Sheela Kiiskila noted that the eIDAS electronic seal (eSeal) method is
   becoming more accepted in Europe, with potential models where a quality
   control body or alliances centralize the issuance of VCs (00:55:13
   <#00:55:13>). Ildiko Mazar added that the European Learning Model (ELM)
   and European Digital Credentials (EDC) implement a double security system
   using a legally binding electronic seal and mandatory linking to an
   accreditation record for all accredited credentials (00:56:56 <#00:56:56>
   ).
   -

   *Interoperability Obstacles and Employer Credentials* Dmitri Zagidulin
   raised a question about the obstacles to interoperability between CLR v2
   and the European transcript, to which Tim Couper responded that historical
   governance issues and the need for dedicated expert groups have been
   challenges (00:58:13 <#00:58:13>). Tim Couper also mentioned that
   defining extensions for flexible standards like CLR v2 and Open Badges in a
   formal way is part of the work needed (01:00:56 <#01:00:56>). The
   discussion also touched upon employer-issued micro-credentials, where
   Ildiko Mazar explained that opening the Europass wallet to VCs like Open
   Badges addresses restrictions faced by non-formal providers. Sheela
   Kiiskila added that the eIDAS compliant eSeal is critical for higher
   education institutions to trust employer-issued micro-credentials,
   preventing issues with modified documents (01:02:11 <#01:02:11>).
   -

   *Data Integrity and Future Work* Phillip Long asked for clarification on
   potential issues regarding data integrity standards between CLR v2 and the
   European signature methods, which he understood to be country-specific and
   require broad EU agreement for change. Tim Couper acknowledged this as a
   long road ahead, stressing the need to gather the right groups to start the
   conversation (01:05:11 <#01:05:11>). The participants expressed
   excitement about the work and commitment to future updates and
   collaboration .

Suggested next steps

   - [ ] Tim Couper will provide links to the case or the Edu API specs.
   - [ ] Ildiko Mazar will be working on implementing the new property on
   the credential level.

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当 Transcript

Dec 15, 2025
Meeting Dec 15, 2025 at 10:54 EST - Transcript 00:00:00


*Ildiko Mazar:* Oh, hello. Now it's unmuted.
*Eric Shepherd:* Good afternoon.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Good afternoon. Uh, where are you calling from? I thought
you were morning.
*Eric Shepherd:* Yes, I am morning.
*Ildiko Mazar:* That is so nice. Thank you. Good morning, Sheila.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Hi. Hi. How are you?
*Ildiko Mazar:* Good. Long time no see.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Yeah. Today's topic draw,
*Ildiko Mazar:* Hope you're well.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* you know, drew me in.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Yes, I'm interested too. I'm slightly worried that the
presenters aren't here yet, but technically they still have a minute to
join and uh they are very experienced, so not to worry too much. Here we
are. Well, Mark Oh, no sound. I think the mic might be muted by default.
And now you're unmuted.
*Mark McConahay:* Think that should do
*Ildiko Mazar:* It does do it. And Tim, hello.
*Mark McConahay:* it.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Good to see you.
*Tim Couper:* Hey, nice to see you as well. Hi everyone. My camera's gonna
tilt


00:06:16


*Ildiko Mazar:* Yeah, now you're straight.
*Tim Couper:* better.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Hello. We're going to wait a couple of minutes if you don't
mind uh for people to trickle in. It's still early in the morning in some
parts of the world. We expect uh participants from America. But uh if you
want in the meantime to test your screen share, it should be very
straightforward.
*Mark McConahay:* True
*Tim Couper:* The music
*Mark McConahay:* enough.
*Tim Couper:* stop.
*Ildiko Mazar:* And hello Dimmitri as well. Do we know if Simona is going
to join? We have a share screen.
*Mark McConahay:* All right.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Amazing.
*Mark McConahay:* And are you guys seeing that?
*Ildiko Mazar:* Mhm. Yes, we
*Mark McConahay:* All right.
*Ildiko Mazar:* do.
*Tim Couper:* Yeah, we hope Simone is uh joining us.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Let's give him a couple more minutes. Hello, Ted.
*Mark McConahay:* So actually I guess when um when we presented this at the
GDN um I think the slides we used were you? I think so.
*Ildiko Mazar:* I I recognize some. Yes.


00:08:13


*Mark McConahay:* Yeah.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Uh I feel absolutely flattered and uh very very happy
because this is uh to not just talk the talk but walk the walk as well. So
we we talk about interoperability and uh working together but this is
exactly the proof. So I'm very excited.
*Mark McConahay:* And Tim,
*Ildiko Mazar:* Okay.
*Mark McConahay:* how are you doing?
*Tim Couper:* I'm doing very well, thank you. Yeah, it's good to see you.
*Mark McConahay:* Good to see you as well.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Sorry.
*Tim Couper:* Looking forward to the uh the
*Mark McConahay:* Yeah, same here.
*Tim Couper:* holidays.
*Mark McConahay:* Although I I will tell you that it uh it is very very
cold here. Um gosh, since the rest of the world uses Celsius, so it's about
-7 - 19,
*Ildiko Mazar:* What state is that?
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Yes. Yeah. I'm from Indiana,
*Mark McConahay:* Indiana.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* too. I was I was told it will never get this cold in
December and - 19 last
*Ildiko Mazar:* Oh my goodness,
*Mark McConahay:* That's right.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* night.


00:09:16


*Ildiko Mazar:* that sounds torturous.
*Mark McConahay:* Now, by the end of the week, oh gosh,
*Ildiko Mazar:* But
*Mark McConahay:* my translation to C is not very good.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* It was plus eight by end of the
*Mark McConahay:* Yeah. I mean,
*Sheela Kiiskila:* week.
*Mark McConahay:* it'll get it'll get up up to maybe 15 20
*Ildiko Mazar:* okay.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Well, we'll see.
*Ildiko Mazar:* All right.
*Mark McConahay:* Celsius.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* I'm not believing that anymore.
*Ildiko Mazar:* That's very extreme. But even even here in Catalonia where
normally it doesn't rain, it's been torrential rain for two days now. But
anyway, I think we have Simona now and a healthy enough group.
*Tim Couper:* Wow.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Uh so we can get started if you don't mind with the usual
announcements and disclaimers. So most of you know because there are not
many new people in the room.
*Tim Couper:* Heat.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Anyone can participate in these uh VC edgy calls. Uh
however, all substantive contributions to any CCG work items must be
members of the CCG uh group with full IPR agreement signed in the meeting
invite.


00:10:20


*Ildiko Mazar:* You will find the link to this. Um we use Google Meet to
conduct their calls and these meetings are recorded and transcribed as you
can already see. you were uh warned by this or about this uh you can
contribute to the conversation by typing in the chat or you can raise your
hand and we will give you the floor and the machine generated minutes uh
and the audio recording will be shared uh in our GitHub repo. Now it's time
to introduce and reintroduce oursel. If there's anybody who feels like
they're new or haven't been here for a while, uh please uh feel free to
take the floor and introduce
*Mark McConahay:* Well,
*Ildiko Mazar:* yourself.
*Mark McConahay:* I'm uh I'm new to the group. I'm uh Mark McConna. I'm uh
the innovative credential coordinator at ACRO. Uh been doing that for the
about four years now. Yeah, right around four years. Before that I was the
associate vice provost and registister at Indiana University in Bloomington,
*Ildiko Mazar:* Thank you, Mark.
*Mark McConahay:* Indiana.


00:11:28


*Ildiko Mazar:* It's my ignorance, but I thought you are just a a returner.
Everybody else seems to know you. So, good to have you.
*Tim Couper:* I'll introduce myself as well. Um so um my first time on one
of these calls.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Um,
*Tim Couper:* My name is Tim Cooper. Um I'm based in the UK. I'm the chief
architect. So um I work with um some of these standards that all of us will
know open badges and CLR and those kind of things. Nice to meet you all.
*Ildiko Mazar:* welcome to the VC Educ.
*Tim Couper:* Thank
*Ildiko Mazar:* Um, do we have any announcements for events happening in
the unless there are any many more
*Tim Couper:* you.
*Ildiko Mazar:* people
*Mahesh Balan:* Oh, I u just want to reintroduce myself.
*Ildiko Mazar:* new
*Mahesh Balan:* I have participated um many times before. I'm the CEO of a
company which does employee rewards but uh I have a new hat on not this one
but the one called uh uh you know I'm pursuing a doctorate at Claremont
Graduate University uh which is uh very interested in pursuing some of the
ideas that this group has been talking about.


00:12:35


*Mahesh Balan:* I believe we might have one more person Felipe. Filipe you
want to say a word about yourself?
*Felipe Negritto:* There we go. Sorry, I couldn't find the the mute button.
*Mahesh Balan:* This
*Felipe Negritto:* Good good morning. Uh my name is Phipe Negrito. Uh I am
I'm a professor at Columbia Graduate University. I have the fortune of
meeting Mahesh and talking about getting into this topic and we're doing
some research in a in a partnership with a with a Japanese company that's
interested also in this topic. Uh and we're also working on a paper. So
there's lots of angles of interest for us. Uh so thank you for having me. I
I am really interested and appreciate being here.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Where's Sheila? You have your hand up, too.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* I thought I'll reintroduce myself too with the changes.
Um, hi, I'm Sheila Kiskila. Uh, I've been in Europe till about 6 months
ago. Uh, I just finished my PhD defended about less than 3 weeks ago.


00:13:42


*Sheela Kiiskila:* uh and my dissertation topic was micro credentials and
how universities can issue especially in alliances worrying about data
governance and how skills and competences can be included into micro
credentials which can be extended to degree certificates or anything and
that's my whole life for the past four and a half years. I just moved to
Indiana um a few months ago. I'm in Westfield. Mark, uh I would love to
connect with you and uh see if I can um you know, I kind of know the US
field because I worked here for a long time in Silicon Valley and then
moved to Europe and went into education. So I just thought I'll uh say that
uh at the moment I'm here and
*Tim Couper:* Congratulations.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* still looking into the education field.
*Tim Couper:* We
*Ildiko Mazar:* Well, yeah,
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Thank you.
*Ildiko Mazar:* congratulations on the defense.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Thank
*Ildiko Mazar:* That's nice to see.
*Tim Couper:* are
*Sheela Kiiskila:* you,
*Mark McConahay:* And so Sheila, real real quick,
*Ildiko Mazar:* It's
*Mark McConahay:* where are you in Indiana?


00:14:42


*Sheela Kiiskila:* Westfield.
*Mark McConahay:* Westfield.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Um,
*Mark McConahay:* Yeah, Indie basically.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Indie basically.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Sheila witted. So, congratulations.
*Mark McConahay:* Yeah.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Uh, your thesis sounds very interesting.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Thank you.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Would you would you be willing to share it with the
group?
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Sure,
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Uh, send a link to the mailing list.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* I can do that. My last paper is not published. So,
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Thank you.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* the online version will not have the last paper which
actually talks a lot about data
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* No problem.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* governance.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* I see. Well,
*Sheela Kiiskila:* But,
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* when when it is published or or or whatever,
*Sheela Kiiskila:* uh I'll sure enough thesis I can
*Ildiko Mazar:* Amazing.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* when you're ready to share, we'd love to read it.
Thanks.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* I can share now. I'll do that. Thanks.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Who would have thought we would have uh so many people
speaking up? Uh usually this is the the the quiet zone, but uh thank you
very much for the introductions and reintroductions.


00:15:31


*Ildiko Mazar:* And now on to announcements and reminders. Uh if there are
any events happening apart from Christmas, uh please uh share or add links
and dates and venues to the chat. Anybody has anything to announce or
remind us of? Tim, of
*Simone Ravaioli:* Well,
*Ildiko Mazar:* course.
*Simone Ravaioli:* hello everyone. Hey Sheila, good to see you back here by
the way and congrats again. Yeah, I mean it's an understatement. Sheila did
a ton of work in uh around the European blockchain service infrastructure
times on the use case diploma. So she has been a friend of this group and
um now uh on a different journey but I'm glad to see you here. Anyways so
two events happening one is the uh I flag for European colleagues the micro
credentials master class in Amsterdam. I I will post.
*Ildiko Mazar:* I will share the
*Simone Ravaioli:* Thank you. I think it's in February.
*Ildiko Mazar:* link.
*Simone Ravaioli:* I think it's toward the end of February. Um and then um
one tech also has its digital


00:16:37


*Tim Couper:* Yep.
*Simone Ravaioli:* credential summit coming up. I think in February and Tim
maybe like you have the dates more
*Tim Couper:* I should know them.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Andy.
*Tim Couper:* I'll I'll look them up. So, thank you for mentioning it. I
got them in
*Simone Ravaioli:* Maybe maybe also a couple of more things. These are not
events but so last week or this week um credential
*Tim Couper:* the
*Simone Ravaioli:* engine published their accounting credentials report in
the US and then with one tech um also um another publication uh was uh
launched and that's the badge count report. Um yeah, where badges the
number the count of badges really skyrocketed to I think 380 plus millions.
And so those are two um good things to flag I
*Ildiko Mazar:* You had a very eloquent LinkedIn post about them.
*Simone Ravaioli:* think.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Simona, always enjoy reading your posts.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Thank you. Thank you so much.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Okay, then finally uh we can get to the main event. Uh the
topic is uh titled can the US transcript and Europath diploma supplement be
compatible?


00:18:01


*Ildiko Mazar:* And uh I no longer need to introduce the speakers because
they introduced themselves at the beginning of the call. So I'm just going
to give over the floor to uh Mark and Tim. And thank you very much again.
Oh, and Simona, and thank you very much for um volunteering to share uh
your insights in this call.
*Mark McConahay:* Right. And and before we uh get started, I'll simply say
that uh what we're going to talk about here is the basically the same uh
session we talked about at the Grronican Declaration in Oslo. Um we seem to
be a fairly informal group here. It seems like most of you know each other.
So I would suggest that um although we are going to go through some slides,
let's keep it as conversational as possible.
*Tim Couper:* f***.
*Mark McConahay:* Don't be afraid to interrupt. I mean I don't want to
speak for Tim and Simone, but um just if you have a question, just
interrupt. It won't it won't cause any problems and um you know anything to
sort of increase dialogue.


00:19:07 {#00:19:07}


*Mark McConahay:* So I'm going to share screen now. Uh If
*Ildiko Mazar:* If you have a share link to the slides as well, if you want
to share them for the the minutes,
*Mark McConahay:* I
*Ildiko Mazar:* then we would appreciate that. I think you're in a
different version of the slides because I can only see Simona.
*Mark McConahay:* Oh, can you see it now?
*Tim Couper:* Yeah, we can.
*Mark McConahay:* Okay,
*Tim Couper:* Yeah.
*Mark McConahay:* very good. Um, oh, what happened there? I switched. It
doesn't matter though. So actually what we're what we're really going to do
is talk about
*Simone Ravaioli:* Nope.
*Mark McConahay:* uh and actually just give a little bit of history. Um so
as uh working in one edtech uh we're working in
*Simone Ravaioli:* Nice.
*Mark McConahay:* the digital credentials group the the OB3 CLRV2 product
group and for a variety of reasons which I'll get into in a moment. Um, we
were talking specifically about how we can basically put the
*Simone Ravaioli:* Thank you.
*Mark McConahay:* US traditional transcript, the traditional academic
transcript and place it in the CLR B2 uh data data standard.


00:20:23 {#00:20:23}


*Mark McConahay:* And for lots of reasons, we could already do it, but for
a variety of reasons, which again I'll I'll show you, we wanted to provide
uh all the users and particularly um to try
*Simone Ravaioli:* Thank
*Mark McConahay:* and come up with a set of guidelines for how to represent
the
*Simone Ravaioli:* you.
*Mark McConahay:* transcript conceptual components in a meaningful way and
in a more systematic or routine way. U talk about that in in a little bit.
But that was the nature of the overall discussion. When we were having that
discussion as we were going through all the elements of the US academic
transcript, Simone rightly said that this looks very similar to uh the
Europass uh diploma uh supplement. And as a result, isn't there an
opportunity uh for some interoperability discussions here? And so that
ended up being the nature of of this whole discussion. Um to get there, I'm
going to I'll quickly do this more quickly than I did it in in Oslo, but
I'm quickly would like to describe a little bit about what the US
environment is like.


00:21:41 {#00:21:41}


*Mark McConahay:* um you know for many many years and Simony would know
this as well as anyone since Parchment is really the the primary the
primary fulfilling uh vendor for transcripts in the US. Um traditional
academic credentials primarily transcripts and degrees.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Yes.
*Mark McConahay:* Uh you know for years before probably the 1980s uh these
were all done in paper. uh the trust factors were sign and sealed envelopes
and embossing the uh
*Simone Ravaioli:* Awesome.
*Mark McConahay:* record itself. Uh once we entered into a more digital age
uh those became PDFs and we used encryption techniques to in to basically
impose trust upon the documents themselves. um and used basically phone
home or or PKI technology in order to ensure trust when the reviewer opened
the the specific document. Um you know what I'll say though is that that
PDF that represented the transcript was primarily a digital artifact. And
yes, we did make use of transport mechanisms to basically speed along the
process of getting that um credential from one place to the other, get it
to the reviewer and still maintain trust, but when it was opened, it was
still just a digital artifact and not a true digital representation of the
credential itself.


00:23:17 {#00:23:17}


*Mark McConahay:* And so that that was that's where we are and and quite
frankly in the US you know uh basically 80% almost 83% of all digital
credit or all credentials are are transmitted in this form as PDFs. Well
later and I would say this is mostly in the teens but there were really
some some instances where this was going on earlier earlier there was a
whole idea of capturing learning that happened both inside which we did in
the academic record uh but also outside
*Simone Ravaioli:* Yeah.
*Mark McConahay:* the learning environment outside the classroom these
became what and I won't get into full history but comprehensive learner
records and these were means to capture and express learning that happened
in a governed way uh but weren't represented on the transcript. Now
primarily there are exceptions to this rule but primarily these were
expressed as PDFs
*Simone Ravaioli:* Hey.
*Mark McConahay:* as well. uh there were early adopters. they became a
little more prominent particularly as we got into right around 2020 around
the the time of the pandemic but still it was they were kind of separate
things there were they weren't embedded they weren't enclosed they weren't
in uh basically have an intersection with the the transcript and of course
what everybody is most familiar with is micro credentials badges isn't um
all of these these other expressions of single achievements primarily.


00:24:56 {#00:24:56}


*Mark McConahay:* Yeah, they could they could be stacked. They may have
some eligibility requirements but primarily they were the expression of a
single achievement and those have come along in various forms and those
have grown immensely in the last 10 12 years or so and they are expressed
either as a digital wallet or some more commonly in um in a web portal of
some sort with various types of functionality and all of those have gained
some traction here in the US. Now take a look at this diagram. One of the
things that we were trying to deal with and particularly at ACRO the
American Associate of Collegiate Registars and Admissions Officers.
*Simone Ravaioli:* What is it?
*Mark McConahay:* One of the things we were dealing with here is notice
that all of these are in verticals. basically uh uh particular registars
and the typical uh 4,300 or so US institutions of higher education
primarily only dealt with the lefthand side traditional academic records.
Yeah, there are bleeding edge players who were doing CLRs and micro
credentials and badges, but totally speaking, they represented a small
number of a small number of institutions who were meaningly participating.


00:26:14 {#00:26:14}


*Mark McConahay:* Not only that, they are expressed so completely different
uh that in essence uh there wasn't interoperability between them. And I
would go further to explain that but in the interest of time um I'd just
simply say they kind of existed in their own worlds and in their own
verticals particularly all the the vended solutions. So as we move on what
we really wanted to do at Acro and and elsewhere in in the in the business
space is basically express that a credential is a credential. I don't care
if it's the old academic record, if it's a CLR, an expression of learning
that happened outside the classroom, um, or special circumstances that
happened inside the classroom not expressed on the transcript, or a digital
badge, a single achievement. A credential is a credential. They all ought
to be expressed in the same way. A receiver shouldn't have to discriminate
whether or not it's an academic or a transcript versus a badge. They all
ought to be expressions of learning and they all ought to be verified in
such a way that the


00:27:22 {#00:27:22}


*Simone Ravaioli:* Thank you.
*Mark McConahay:* the reviewer can trust that this was expressed by the
issuer and thus have confidence in um in what they're reviewing. So that
was the fundamental idea. Now, a little bit of context. Um,
*Simone Ravaioli:* Oops.
*Mark McConahay:* back in 1989, ACRO as well as some others created a
digital standard for transcripts called called Speedy. I can't come up with
I don't know what that acronym stands for. Totally never remember it. Now,
it's called PESK. Uh but in essence that digital standard although well
done originally done in an EDI standard or EDI basis um it was was well
done and it really represented faithfully all the elements of the academic
record. The problem was it was a heavy lift uh for most institutions and
unless there was an external mandate of some sort usually by the state it
was not adopted
*Simone Ravaioli:* Hey,
*Mark McConahay:* and so even after greater than 30 years uh we still only
have about 17% of the institutions who have adopted it and as a result
although I mean that still represented close to a million records being
exchanged in this manner it was just again 17% of of what those records
were.


00:28:51 {#00:28:51}


*Mark McConahay:* So what we wanted to do is basically find a common format
and that common format was basically the common comprehensive learner
record. Again, this is an expression that came up in the late teens uh by
one atte uh in its first expression and turns out that in fact the CLR
standard does a really pretty good job of capturing all the elements of the
academic record. Um and you know and you think about it, it has uh we we
not only have a summitive component like the degree but we have all the
courses that were that basically supported either uh the degree itself or
more it actually additionally it supported a major uh it may have supported
a minor and and basically you could sort all of that out um because this
was the metadata of the summitive degree someone haven't met this or didn't
have the summitive degree yet at least you saw the progression toward their
academic objective which was that summitive degree So you can see that all
the elements that we're we're working on there. So we decided then that
this was a perfect way to sort of bring these new expressions of of
learning uh into the digital context and start making them equal start
making them basically the same uh range of credentials that could be
expressed on behalf of the institution.


00:30:29 {#00:30:29}


*Mark McConahay:* And so the thing we learned about the CLR though unlike
the pesk expression of the academic record is that the CLR was eminently
flexible. In other words, there are various concepts in um in an academic
record. For example, it's a chronological ledger, right? the way we've laid
out at least in the US the learning that's occurred. We organize them by
the semesters in which those courses were taken and what we've done then is
use that as a header and all of the courses fit underneath and thus there
are uh summary statistics associated with each one of those. Well, think of
that conceptual notion and within the CLR standard, there are various ways
that you can basically build that conceptual model. um at le and and
actually as I was doing it right around uh 2019 or so, you could come up
with three or four reasonable ways to express this particular concept and
organize those relationships um within the within that CLR standard. So the
problem with that is that now we've built in uh a little bit of complexity
for the reviewer.


00:31:53


*Mark McConahay:* So now he if you did any forrren programming back in the
day, you've got if then else's to deal with. Well, if I need if I get a
transcript from Indiana, how are they expressing this semester association?
How are they semester this this semester concept? So we needed to we wanted
to provide guidelines and standardize how those might be done and limit the
amount of effort it would take for a specific reviewer to render it and
adjust it into their specific domains. So that was the whole idea. By the
way, the the other extreme was the PES standard which was very very
specific. And as a matter of fact, because it was so specific, various
dialects of of the pest standard became prominent based upon primarily
based upon the states that they originated in. And so that became a problem
in and of itself. So what we wanted to do is to provide that kind of
context. And over here on the right hand side of the slide you see the
kinds of things that we were worried about and had to express the um the
other component and I should have said this a little earlier.


00:33:07 {#00:33:07}


*Mark McConahay:* One of the powers of the CLR standard is the ability to
express associations. And so think of the the summitive degree the the
summitive u credential which is the degree and all the things that support
it. Well within the CLR record you can actually express those kinds of
associations and make that happen. So that's what that's the work that we
were doing. Simony was on the the same subgroup and as we were working
through these issues we recognized that in fact you know this is not
dissimilar from the the Europeass diploma supplement a lot of the same
elements are there and wouldn't it be grand if all of a sudden we couldn't
start to bring these together so that's where we were that's where we came
up with the idea for doing something in the GBN and conference and I think
that's what led us here and so one last view um I won't go into heavy
detail here but this is just a an uh a picture of the PDF transcript on the
left uh and on the right hand side is basically the mapping of the elements
of that transcript into the CLRV2 primary components And with that, I think
we're ready for discussion of open badges in Europass.


00:34:43 {#00:34:43}


*Mark McConahay:* So,
*Simone Ravaioli:* Uh thank you Mark.
*Mark McConahay:* Simony
*Simone Ravaioli:* So whilst that was happening in the US and within one
tech around modeling a comprehensive learner record in Europe for years
we've been lobbying would be the right word or or advocating for um let's
say formal or legit acceptance of open badges as a technical spec inside
the Europe pass wallet. As many of you would know, at this stage, the
Europeas wallet or portfolio can now house in in a native way only European
digital credentials which are a specific format designed by the European
Commission which does look at verifiable credentials. So in in in in its
spec it is a verifiable credentials but it is yet another in instantiation
profile if you through it. So there was no native support for open badges.
Yes, you can upload a badge but you can only upload the image of it. It's
not going to read through the metadata and so on. So that is the good news
is that is being reconsidered and because uh of the to add traction to the
adoption of verifiable credentials lower capital V lower capital C. So
anything that is verifiable inside Europe pass the commission is now
opening up to um offering support native support for open badges which is a
great thing.


00:36:22 {#00:36:22}


*Simone Ravaioli:* And so while that is happening there is uh and the other
thing in motion is that in Europe the format of the diploma supplement
which is a transcript on steroids if you will something that is well
represented by CLR that format which today is a is a word template is being
looked at and so as this is happening we thought that this might be a
timely opportunity to suggest that the CLR as a technical spec be
considered to represent the new version of a diploma supplement which is
again now follow you know would be following uh a legit tax spec and given
that open badges are now being you know uh considered or the door the
Europe has door has been open maybe we could position CLR as a compelling
technical specification to represent a diploma supplement And that's hence
why we wanted to connect these dots and bring this idea to GDN which is an
international network and and and start to socialize this this idea and
when the time is right through our European connection make sure that the
um this suggestion of using CLR is um picked up by whatever working group
is working on the digitalization of the transcript of record sorry of the
diploma supplement and Mark I don't know if you want to scroll through a
couple of these slides all right so I mean this is really that was my slide
sort of


00:38:04 {#00:38:04}


*Simone Ravaioli:* connecting some of these dots again CLR happening open
bad in the US open badges being now accepted into Europe and in Europe this
new um revision of the diploma supplement could be the right opportunity to
pitch CLR2 because CLR R2 is a verifiable credential. So the reason why
this is relevant for this group is that we're talking about VCs. So this
this task force you know one of the task of this task force historically
has been to steward or contribute to stewarding um open badges into version
three which is a verifiable credentials and similarly you know that might
be something that this task force wants to be uh closed with as in using
CLR v2 which is a verifiable credentials as the right uh spec for diploma
supplement and Here I will hand it to
*Tim Couper:* Thank you.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Kim.
*Tim Couper:* I think we can probably skip over some of these slides
because uh given the audience here. Um but uh one one thing that we do like
to remind um um the audience at GBN was essentially was that there's a lot
more to a badge than than just the uh the image.


00:39:16 {#00:39:16}


*Tim Couper:* In fact, the image part of a badge we I think most of us on
this call know is actually optional. um it's the it's the data that's
inside it. So I think we'll skip forward a bit um again. Yeah, let's start
here. Um because I think this is probably useful uh for us to just recap um
and and just step back and and just see where we are today and um and how
we see together this might this this might evolve um this idea that around
the CLR uh which is a very open uh and very flexible um uh container unit
that's based on verifiable credentials. Um and just to pick up on the point
that uh Philillip I think Philip made earlier um we're talking about CLR
comprehensive learning record version two. Um the version one was not a
verifiable credential. So that's where we are. Um but as many on this call
know um open badges came out of uh the misilla um foundation and macarthur
um and um was developed there. Um and if you just press the next one uh in
2017 um it one edtech used to be known as IMS were asked to to steward it
and it's mainly because of the recognition that there's a kind of a wider
ecosystem that's there the the the credit and and for that goes into open
badges I I want to say this uh loud goes to the community and goes to not
one headtech but to the wider community.


00:40:49 {#00:40:49}


*Tim Couper:* Our role here is just to help steward and look after the the
process. And I'll talk about what's going on in that in more detail as we
move forward. But if you just skip on a bit. Um so this is where we are
since 2017. Uh open badges the first thing that happened in open badges was
was due to many any in this group moved into a verifiable credential and it
was one of the best decisions made for for open badges. Um in fact I came
into one edtech from the world of open badges. Um I came in from the
credentiing world. Um and it was the is the opportunities for for
leveraging verifiable credentials in in across education is the thing that
that drew me. Um we've seen the number of badges rise and as Simone
mentioned beforehand u right now the the results were just published last
week but we're talking um in excess of 380 million uh badges issued
credentials out there. So lots of lots of uh um credentials are growing
because of the rise uh of of the technology and alignment with policy.


00:41:57 {#00:41:57}


*Tim Couper:* That's the that's the thing that's driving this across across
the globe in different in different regions. Um but since then in parallel
if you just press next um the CLR was was introduced um uh in um kind of 20
2018 2019 time uh CLR1 and then later CLR 2 again based on verifiable
credentials and more recently than that the less standard is was B has been
developed uh uh in HR open as a way of expressing um kind of work readiness
uh type of um things. But this this is the point that we try to make across
across all of our um talks is that all of this is based on the power of
verifiable credentials. Um we're grateful for that for the for the work
that's done in this group and for the work that's done in in other groups
in this space. Um if you press next during this whole period as Simone
mentioned Europass the EQF the the the uh the the the the whole chain of
initiatives that have happened in Europe um which have got closer towards
credentials and verifiable credentials and blockchain and those kind of
technologies um have have been happening in parallel and and um the the key
point from our perspective is they all share this the same common
foundation.


00:43:23 {#00:43:23}


*Tim Couper:* If you just press next one more time. Um Oh, thank you. U and
um there which is the verifiable credentials on there also is the um is the
European digital credential and the European learning model which are um
are are um a different expression of of of credentials from the higher
education space within within Europe. And the thing that we're doing, we
announced this last year, uh is that we are increasingly under the new um
uh leadership of of one edtech um spending more and more time uh focused on
the interoperability of of these standards um ac across across into uh
especially with verifiable credentials, but um the portability of of
achievements across these credential types. That's where there's a key
focus of this. Um it's all about drive. We want to make sure that uh that
if you were earn a credential in one country that it can be recognized in
another country despite the the differences in sign signing and portability
and and trust models and all the various other things that on there.


00:44:31 {#00:44:31}


*Tim Couper:* It's a key objective for our for our groups and for our
architects teams to produce the artifacts and also the mapping um processes
to help help the the wider community be able to port backwards and forwards
between open badges CLR and the other the other standards that are out
there. Um one thing that we uh announced recently um was in order to
support this process we recognize that this a lot of this work needs to be
done in Europe. Um and so uh there is a one tech being established in
Europe specifically to focus on the on the um uh the the the the kind of
interoperability between the European standards both tech ones and noned
techch standards um and with the wider with the wider ecosystem of
standards that are available. It's a key central focus to to what we're
doing um and what the and is central to the to the uh to the whole
organization. Um so that's where there are three key standards which I
think are most relevant to help support the work that Mark has been done
has been and Simone has been discussing.


00:45:43


*Tim Couper:* And I think if you just keep on a few slides um keep keep
going down the next one. One more that one. That one there. Yeah. So, uh,
within the 1A tech space, there are three there there are three standards
or groups of standards. One of them is, um, open open badges and CLR.
They're the verifiable credentials. The other one is, um, case provides the
the links to um, the frameworks, the learning objectives. Um, and if you if
you uh watch out for some announcements in early 2020 uh 26, you're going
to see some large announcements about supporting the wider ecosystem for
case in order to support credentials. Uh and the other one is the the data
model, the edge API. And what we've announced and what we are currently
engaged in is activities to support interoperability between these one tech
standards and the European learning model and the European digital
credential. Um, so there's there's lots of uh work happening behind the
scenes to help make that a reality so that credentials can be recognized
both ways.


00:46:49


*Tim Couper:* Um, and CLR is is a key part of that. Um, so I'll hand back.
I think I skipped over some slides. I'm not sure if they're yours, Simony,
or Mark, but um, I'll hand over unless there's any questions for anybody.
*Simone Ravaioli:* I think this is where we could open it up for
discussion. I guess the next slides were highlighting like what are
possible you know approaches in making in in um having your pass accept
open badges but that's not exactly the the focus of this call. We can
circulate the slides.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* I mean, I'm I'm certainly curious about the especially
if anybody has links to the case or the Edu API specs. Those both sound
interesting.
*Tim Couper:* I can provide those. Yeah,
*Ildiko Mazar:* I shared the the case link. I think that's the the correct
one.
*Tim Couper:* certainly.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Tim will correct me if I'm wrong. Um I do have a comment um
on uh the diploma supplement. I I left some comments in the the chat uh as
well already and just wanted to share uh our issue and the the reason why
it initially when when we started deploying uh European digital credential
types we had generic accredited and diploma supplement but what we very
quickly realized is uh when what Mark already uh described you have the the
various courses that are happening in a a certain term term and there are
multiple terms.


00:48:37 {#00:48:37}


*Ildiko Mazar:* So there's a lot of children or uh sub achievements uh that
are uh documented in this uh CLR on steroids the diploma supplement. What
we very quickly realized is that uh Jason is not very good at uh respecting
order of uh claims and uh the various achievements that were on the same
level uh appeared in a random order in our uh rendering which is basically
how our European digital credential viewer uh uh displays the credentials
content. Currently we're working on uh fixing this ordering issue by
introducing a new property.
*Simone Ravaioli:* What?
*Ildiko Mazar:* This has already been implemented on the ontology and the
application profile uh level um in the standard and uh within the next few
months uh we will be working on implementing this on credential level and
then we will reintroduce the diploma supplement credential type. So if you
are interested uh in a smaller group or at the future uh VC edu call we can
uh revisit this because it it seems to me as a very lowhanging fruit uh to
approach this interoperability. We will have JSON files and renderings and
share links etc. So keep me informed please.


00:50:00 {#00:50:00}


*Tim Couper:* Thank you. That's a Yeah, so ordering is a is a classic case
and um yeah, so um very interested in that. Thank you. Any questions? Oh,
there's a question from what
*Ildiko Mazar:* My
*Tim Couper:* is
*Ildiko Mazar:* hashtag
*Tim Couper:* Yeah. Um, good question. So some of this so our role here is
to provide um there's there's several layers. Let's let's talk about this
in layers, right? So one is the the ontology mapping um which um is is the
first problem that that we're looking to to to to address we're addressing
that through um creating uh we've we've we've created a whole modeling
infrastructure where we can model both CLR open badges and also um uh
various versions of the EDCM and and other standards as well. So we've done
this already with PESK for example that Mark that Mark mentioned and we're
able to um demonstrate the the relationships between them where there are
gaps and those kind of things. That's that's the the highest level when it
comes to the um the signing piece.


00:51:27


*Tim Couper:* Um the the reality is with within within the European digital
credential you have to seal um and you you need to have a body who's able
to do that. So the reality is it's going to need to be a space where where
where an organization or a set of organizations have the ability to do to
ingest and resign and and resend out. Um there's been some work already in
in to ensure uh you can you can create joint or combined credentials where
they have the same attributes signed in different ways. Um but this what we
are in the process of doing is trying to make it so that the the patterns
are there and we'll see which ones stick. Uh that's that's our general
approach. Um this one I hope that answers the question. Yeah.
*Simone Ravaioli:* If I may jump in here and I will uh also call on Sheila
eventually to share like what she
*Tim Couper:* Yes.
*Simone Ravaioli:* is I mean what she's seen in in her work because this
notion of a trusted issue registry was part of the uh framing of the use
case diploma on from the European blockchain service infrastructure.


00:52:38


*Simone Ravaioli:* Now I think where we are is that there's been some early
adoption um depending on how you want to count there may have been 200
universities in Europe that have experimented with EPS or with issuing
verifiable credentials. But on the registry side, I don't I'm not aware
there's anything in production that relies on registries. Now, you cannot
have a conversation about VCs nowadays without either, you know, maybe 10
months ago was the wallet, now it's a registries. So like that
infrastructure doesn't exist in production in Europe, right? Um and so
there why there's some blueprints and and uh even great documentation and
code I think that's just not the way um academic credentials are is being
issued u in Europe and Europe as itself doesn't you know rely on this um
governance model whereby you would need to check a decentralized registry
um on that. So I mean Ilico you have your hands up and then um Sheila if
you want to jump in um that would be Go ahead Sheila
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Uh so I have a whole paper dedicated in the dissertation
on why


00:53:53 {#00:53:53}


*Simone Ravaioli:* then
*Sheela Kiiskila:* uh uh in Europe is um what are the issues for any
organization to adopt Pepsi. Um there are multiple issues uh to use that.
Uh finally even in our early adoption we did a early adoption program with
EPS we did one with uh uh European digital credentials using EIL and uh by
far the easiest way to go was with the ECIL um with the FC it's not just
the institution itself it's the whole country who has to accept it as a way
of life right the each country has to have nodes and which means that at
the highest level the ministry of education of each country has to uh put
up a node maintain it and uh there's a lot of uh you know data governance
issues there as well uh at least Finland uh finally decided I think last
year that they are not going to have the node we don't have a EPS node
anymore um so so that's a issue with almost all the countries and for all
the institutions just one or two institutions in a country deciding that we
are going to go the blockchain today wouldn't work.


00:55:13 {#00:55:13}


*Sheela Kiiskila:* Uh and there were also other uh issues like uh privacy
issues at least in Europe. uh even the DID is considered part of u uh a
person's uh identification and the GDPR prevents from even using a date uh
to issue the credentials and I think if I remember it correctly in the last
couple of years came up with a alternative uh to work around with that but
that came with other issues. So um so but with the ESIL it worked. we um
with the ECIL also one of the issues is that not all institutions are
technologically infrastructurally ready to issue these verifiable
credentials but that's when uh you know ILO's team and uh uh EDC came up
with a alternative where every institution if they cannot issue a uh issue
the verifiable credentials have a eal and go through all of that uh there
is something called mandated issue where uh say I think Ireland is looking
at it now where their quality control um body of the country is looking
into can we be the issuer for verifiable credentials for all the
institutions in Ireland right so so it can happen that way it can happen at
the institutional level it can happen at the alliance level which is what I
worked on we had country uh institutions from 13 countries and we
centralized it and and we issued verifiable credentials for all the micro
credentials offered by these particular inst in institutions uh of 13
countries.


00:56:56 {#00:56:56}


*Sheela Kiiskila:* So uh there's two different ways to do it in Europe. Um
as far as I know EIEL method is kind of getting accepted and more and more
people are actually open to using it once they figure out how to use it.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Indeed and then I because we have a long queue I'll very
quickly jump in. Indeed because ELM and EDCs was developed uh to service uh
multiple different uh use cases from nonformal learning to uh micro
credentials to full accredited credentials degrees uh vet uh certificates
transcripts of records and diploma supplements. we needed to develop uh
multiple uh application profiles and uh validations. So obviously what we
validate for a standard micro credential is a subset of all the available
uh verifications for accredited credentials that include diploma
supplements. We have this additional check for an accredititation status
and to link to an accreditation record in the European uh accredititation
database is mandatory for every accredited credential. And this is how we
make sure that nobody who's unauthorized to issue certain types of
credentials can get away with it.


00:58:13 {#00:58:13}


*Ildiko Mazar:* So we have a double uh security in this sense because we do
have the legally binding uh electronic seal of the institution on every
single u format valid European digital credential plus every accredited
credential is also linked to an accredititation record and if it's not
valid then uh the credential will fail the accredititation check. I shared
some links in the chat. Dimitri and then Mahesh.
*Dmitri Zagidulin:* Thanks. Uh, so and I and I apologize if I missed it.
Uh, and you went over it. I I'd like to get a better sense of so are there.
What are the what are the obstacles to the interop between CLRB2 and uh the
European transcript? Is is there is there major data model issues that
prevent translation from one to the other? Uh, is there not? Uh just just
want to get a get a sense
*Tim Couper:* Um so I can talk about one of the the one of the simp simpler
ones um um which is historically it's been one day um so because of the way
um the governance model works around it what we're looking for is an
audience who or a group who has has the expertise in both of these groups
to to to to do to to to to make that happen and um to do that within a
relatively um um


00:59:53


*Tim Couper:* um confined space, right? So that's been one of the
challenges that we are looking to address. Um and and and um um the first
part of that is to say, well, how do we how do we form the groups who can
bring that expertise together? Um and we feel that that um that's going to
be much easier to to happen with with the expertise that's in Europe. We
need European people uh myself included in that space. I'm I'm based in the
UK. Um but um we need uh so that's one of the things that's kind of stopped
us or or prevented us from making the progress we wanted to uh
historically. Um uh but putting away the governance side of things, the the
the reality is um um the pace of change has also been uh different. So
within the CLR the and the um open badges world um it's been taken a long
time to get to the point where we're we have final status. Um now both of
those standards are designed to be flexible.


01:00:56 {#01:00:56}


*Tim Couper:* They're designed to be extend extensible but what there
hasn't been uh until recently is a way of actually uh defining the
extensions that are relevant to to help the mappings in a formal way. and
um and so that's one of there's a there's a there's a few infrastructure
ecosystem things that that that are having to be that we're putting in
place to help support the groups who are working on this. Um so there's
there's a few there's a few non-technical as well as technical constraints
um that we're addressing one at a time. Any further questions on that?
*Sheela Kiiskila:* are muted elico.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Uh, I was just asking M to to speak.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Thanks.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Sorry. Yes.
*Mahesh Balan:* Thank thank you. Uh so part of my motivation in u in the
question was um uh what is the thinking around in when we talk micro
credentials about employer issued micro credentials now this becomes even
more complicated uh so I was curious if some of the solutions you know like
we have always talked about like you know just do a well-known on your
website or just a 509 certification


01:02:11 {#01:02:11}


*Tim Couper:* Yeah.
*Mahesh Balan:* And any thoughts on that particular angle of uh micro
predictions? Maybe Sheila has some ideas.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Ilico raised her hand. I think she can answer that quite
well.
*Mahesh Balan:* So
*Tim Couper:* Yeah.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Just a small comment that yes, this is one of the reasons
why the commission is uh uh moving towards uh opening uh the Europass
wallet to other VC and ELM compliant credentials such as uh open badges
because we realize that the restriction caused by the EIT compliant
advanced or qualified electronic seal excludes a lot of uh smaller training
providers, nonformal uh learning providers, uh employers etc.
*Mahesh Balan:* Got
*Sheela Kiiskila:* Although to be honest from coming from um higher
education
*Mahesh Balan:* it.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* institution point of view I'm still in my PhD mode right
uh coming from that having the ads compliant eil uh gives a lot of the
institutions a lot uh confidence right if you can get a um uh uh a micro
credential from a employer uh it might have all the information needed it
is at standard and it can even define the number of hours you're working on
it.


01:03:47


*Sheela Kiiskila:* But when it is not a complaint without a eil uh
institutions have hard time uh accepting it because we don't know if it is
you know modified. So just like even today even in US if you apply for a uh
any institution to a higher
*Mahesh Balan:* Yes.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* education when you apply with a with your degree
supplement or degree certificate they don't accept it directly from you
right you all always have to ask your previous institution to send
*Mahesh Balan:* f***.
*Sheela Kiiskila:* this takes care of that and so uh for me that actually
was a big advantage stitch.
*Ildiko Mazar:* Any comments uh before Phil? Okay, Phil.
*Phillip Long:* Um, thank you. I I'm just getting back to Demetri's
original question about um compatibility uh issues and then points of of
work that need to be uh initiated to address them. Um, I thought I put it
in chat, but I thought that there was still a problem with um data
integrity standards that are required um that differ between the CLRV2 and
European um signature methods for asserting the integrity of the credential
that is represented uh on the EU side.


01:05:11 {#01:05:11}


*Phillip Long:* And I did not I have not heard and this is perhaps my
ignorance uh showing clearly I have not heard any uh progress on that or if
there is if that's something that has potential for any kind of more rapid
progress because it's my understanding is that that's a designation that is
country specific and all the EU countries have to agree on a change if
that's to take place. Um, and that's a reasonable challenge. Thanks,
*Tim Couper:* it. Yeah, I'd agree with you. Um, it's it's a it's a long
road ahead of us. That's the way we think of it. Um, and the starting point
is to pull is pull together the the groups and and and start start the
conversation. So yeah, I think the key point is um I think we're all we're
focused on the same goal, the same same same target and um we are open and
if anybody in this group uh wants to reach out to me uh um uh for for more
details from one perspective, please feel free to anytime. Um but yeah,
it's a it's a long journey ahead of us.
*Ildiko Mazar:* I just noticed the time. My goodness. Uh time flew. Uh I
don't know if uh anybody has some burning questions before we close because
we are exactly on the hour. But uh if not then this is very exciting and uh
good luck with the uh the work ahead of you and please keep in touch and uh
we look forward to an updates in the coming months at some point maybe.
*Simone Ravaioli:* Please.


Transcription ended after 01:07:28

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