Re: JFF Plugfest question

Hey Nate,
Thanks for provoking a great discussion! While this first plugfest is merely eyes-only, it is just the first of a series of interop demonstrations. We believe this approach allows a greater number of solutions providers to work together towards functional credential portability. As we progress along our roadmap, we know the level of technical difficulty will increase and it will be even more important to attack these interpretive differences collaboratively. In this round, it will be really interesting to see how each of the 20+ participating wallet providers will interpret the standards, where these interpretations differ, and what challenges they faced in implementation, given their different architectural choices. I imagine this will also provide valuable information to those working at both the W3C and at 1EdTech, and perhaps better join the discussions in these communities. Since you are active in both communities, please do continue to bring the 1EdTech community perspective into these conversations.
sharon

From: Nate Otto <nate@ottonomy.net>
Date: Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 5:52 PM
To: Kerri Lemoie <kerri@openworksgrp.com>
Cc: public-vc-edu@w3.org <public-vc-edu@w3.org>, Dmitri Zagidulin <dzagidulin@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: JFF Plugfest question
Thanks, Kerri, absolutely understood. The participants in the plugfest are merely engaging in display for human eyeballs, not any machine actionability use case that depends on achievement.id<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinkprotect.cudasvc.com%2Furl%3Fa%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fachievement.id%252f%26c%3DE%2C1%2CQ8YzLoQMGd-TTI0dvlvZHPwRzH7DL4QpZsqBNhRXrN1bu4y-g4OrP_j0S62m34Ukc1ekYh5Jyc3f_BXlTOgfw1Xw9Pkc6NxxxHKlqoZb%26typo%3D1&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=%2F90GwOucmwLM2QDJHuq%2FOTJ95C692uM%2BhKxFcj4Xu5A%3D&reserved=0> or a potential alternative mechanism. This is an aside to the original question in the thread about requirements for the plugfest.

Though it is very relevant to discuss the concept of a defined-achievement-bundle-with-criteria-as-offered-by-a-specific-achievement-creator within VC-EDU-land, as the use cases are Open Badges core use cases, any substantive proposal that would affect the scope of Open Badges should be an agenda item within that standards group at 1EdTech. To some extent, this is known to be on the agenda already<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FIMSGlobal%2Fopenbadges-specification%2Fissues%2F428&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=FDJMqH%2BR4k1NQZiZA2zevmrWnsEDOfFo9XYe%2BXJPDGY%3D&reserved=0>, but I'm not sure the chairs realize that Dmitri or others may be potentially proposing a fundamental change to the core Open Badges use case for defined achievements by dropping the connection between achievement.id<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinkprotect.cudasvc.com%2Furl%3Fa%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fachievement.id%252f%26c%3DE%2C1%2CIG7PFyNJIMGjbDkAGU9fC562G7rJj2n9rOafFLAuFpfZyOoeKuhv_KyUqKlXzQRp9PN-mxZZVpusAwJ_bV4w-q37lmZDHGPdHl8kDiYwmPOZZUPFVD3YSrI%2C%26typo%3D1&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=nLJOfpZFlrw8LVh7IFMO%2FSjDyZQlz4bTNEq0tMAUTCo%3D&reserved=0> and its specific issuer, or that the in-progress standard may fail to deliver well on the most essential Open Badges use case.

Nate

On Tue, May 31, 2022 at 2:37 PM Kerri Lemoie <kerri@openworksgrp.com<mailto:kerri@openworksgrp.com>> wrote:
Hello all,

We should continue this discussion (either in this thread or at a VC-EDU call) but I want to reiterate that this topic does not affect the requirements for the Plugfest.

Thanks,

K.


On May 31, 2022, at 5:31 PM, Nate Otto <nate@ottonomy.net<mailto:nate@ottonomy.net>> wrote:

@Dmitri, thanks for replying with your thoughts.

> I want to suggest that -- the achievement.id<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinkprotect.cudasvc.com%2Furl%3Fa%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fachievement.id%252f%26c%3DE%2C1%2CQd1r7b0SFytQ8wKOKD8ozS-XfZFH8KmhcuQaRQXMXjjbvtauA15Yh8bmcKFh0HFv0qZ-PMs2-MjM_AtvrWUKBDn8KSzQzZsJCoaDJzsRXIyiLax8LGc-XMw%2C%26typo%3D1&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=iF8RX0hCEV2d2TFTcLI3UlCY1TIN0VmbWDEGqX9fh0k%3D&reserved=0> field is a non-idiomatic way of fulfilling that usecase. achievement.type would make a lot more sense, and would match the usage in the general Verifiable Credentials community.

I think you haven't quite grasped the use case for "Does the user have credential X?", for example for a credential certifying a user as being qualified to use a specific 3D printer in a specific maker space.

The scenario here is not "holder, please present any VCs that may be related to 3DPrinterAuthorization from any issuer", it is "holder, can you present that you hold the specific achievement issued by this specific organization that claims you have met the criteria of its specific training program for using this specific 3D printer?".

In Open Badges, a particular Defined Achievement has criteria and assessment that are particular to the creator. Other issuers are not permitted to issue valid credentials that are created by a particular achievement creator; this is pretty core to how Open Badges works. If we didn't have this default restriction, Harvard University might define a particular achievement for a Bachelor's Degree in Computer Science, and we wouldn't be able to differentiate between the real deal Harvard degree and impersonations. Open Badges has its mechanisms for doing this based on achievement.id<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinkprotect.cudasvc.com%2Furl%3Fa%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fachievement.id%252f%26c%3DE%2C1%2CyE-nCrFl04AomfmBUIEC9mSlUtgen9toPe3oLXPK4P49K7JXUpZ6Y5pjCx6fbusJx_8bsZ0QhLJjyajHujDPe3y7cEZIFztCGuTRupAdLQfBnPZEBxolY81wAw%2C%2C%26typo%3D1&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JFsxcIgE0h%2FfMXVcRPJ7n35GPNvxmQB5CM7%2BYyaPTu4%3D&reserved=0> and achievement.issuer/creator, and the workgroup will need to ensure that verification of this core feature still works efficiently under 3.0. It is use case #1 for Open Badges, so it's critical to deliver.

Open Badges 3.0 spec introduces a separate set of use cases (not "defined achievement") that correspond to something more akin to what you have paraphrased, "holder, please present any VCs that may be related to 3DPrinterAuthorization from any issuer", under the heading of "skills". That would be to ask for any VC that claims a user holds a particular skill, as recognized by any issuer, you would ask "holder, please present any VCs that claim that you hold skill 'htttps://sharableskills.example.org/skills/3DPrintingAdvanced'<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flinkprotect.cudasvc.com%2Furl%3Fa%3Dhttp%253a%252f%252fsharableskills.example.org%252fskills%252f3DPrintingAdvanced%2527%26c%3DE%2C1%2CpQhB-ntva0LeYKw9EJ4WD5bQ_EyRWo2QuQDg_bnMhO9WvnWOKKFbFRr6zcdkHjAinkAcpwZzcxeYFwkwwo8yOMbz8TtgKaaZEwSl4Kvs1ZPOUNhTxQ%2C%2C%26typo%3D1&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=2A0dcroBHLiTCYXL3JbacztFtR%2BpUFBWq0Rt%2BQZlhls%3D&reserved=0>." I expect the approach for this will depend on the "result.alignment.targetUrl" but am open to suggestions for alternate approaches. It's the critical 2 week period right now to deliver on this use case, so discussion<https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fgithub.com%2FIMSGlobal%2Fopenbadges-specification%2Fissues%2F339&data=05%7C01%7Csleu%40jff.org%7C6cac1570bf7b45c9e70908da434fdd0d%7C3bddf584e8d746c49804a0f3cdf0b0ca%7C0%7C0%7C637896307548003039%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=i6rdvMtL%2FoC0xQUpN04cj2twDwkqKdw%2FKKQGooSQ%2BoM%3D&reserved=0> is very welcome.

If it's your suggestion that IMS/1EdTech implement a significantly different mechanism in OB 3.0 for serving the most important use case in Open Badges than was used in 2.0, that's something that should be brought to the attention of the chairs of that workgroup immediately so that they can schedule appropriate time to address it before candidate final vote and release.

Nate