MyCredsTM | MesCertifTM Virtual Skills Passport Pilot Project for micro-credentials - A project creating verifiable credentials for the educational records of Canadian post-secondary institutions.
MyCredsTM provides learners and graduates access to a secure digital wallet where they can view and share their official, verified educational credentials on a 24/7 basis – anytime, anywhere.
This pilot project is extending the MyCredsTM network capabilities by leveraging innovative technology and digitization principles to deliver self-sovereign identity (SSI) and verifiable credentials.
To bring this idea to life, various partners and stakeholders are involved in developing an innovative platform to transform the future of academic credentials.
The Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC) is a national body of registrars and enrollment services professionals of recognized colleges and universities. The association is the owner of MyCredsTM | MesCertifTM, a platform that offers an official document exchange network and digital credential wallets for students and graduates.
MATTR is a market leader in providing a platform for offering digital identities and verifiable credentials. MATTR has taken digital trust and interactions over the internet to the next level, contributed to the standards community and shaped the future of the digital identity space.
For this project, the MATTR platform is enabled to support Digitary in shaping up the credential generation, verification, and revocation capabilities.
Digitary provides solutions in the educational sector to issue and verify the digital credentials for educational degree certificates, transcripts and other sensitive documents online.
For this project, Digitary, in collaboration with MATTR and ARUCC, is enabling the complete value chain of digital credentials. The Digitary CORE technology powers the ARUCC MyCredsTM National Network.
In this project, there are various standards and specifications are being used to establish the integrity of the educational credentials. Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0: A globally unique persistent identifier that does not require a centralized registration authority and is often generated and/or registered cryptographically. Decentralized identifiers (DIDs) are a new type of identifier that enables verifiable, decentralized digital identity. A DID refers to any subject (e.g., a person, organization, thing, data model, abstract entity, etc.)
Following are the key benefits associated with DIDs.
- DIDs are globally unique, highly available and cryptographically verifiable
- A user can prove the ownership of one Preserves the user's privacy, transparency and trust
- Improve audit trails to support compliance
For more details about the DID specifications, visit here. Also, you can watch some videos on the same topic on the MATTR YouTube channel here
Verifiable Credentials are a W3C standard data model for expressing cryptographically secure digital credentials on the web.
Though they are both part of the VC data model, Verifiable Credentials - VCs are distinct from Verifiable Presentations - VPs. Presentations are typically generated or derived from VCs and presented by credential holders for verification.
The VC data model defines two concrete data syntaxes, JSON and JSON-LD. JSON-LD allows the VC data model to be extensible and interoperable while remaining distributed in its architecture.
Here are a few advantages of having verifiable credentials.
- Defined by a common standard (W3C) that enhances interoperability
- Cryptographically secured using digital signatures
- Provides control over the information sharing
- Multiple credentials in a single presentation
To learn more about the VCs data model, refer to the details on W3C here. Watch a few videos on this topic published by MATTR here.
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community that develops open standards, protocols and guidelines that ensure the long-term growth of the Web.
For more details, visit W3C website.
Below is the list of specifications on which W3C has worked in the space of decentralized identities.
DIF is an engineering-driven organization acting as the center for the development, discussion, and management of all the activities required to create and maintain an interoperable & open ecosystem for decentralized identities.
Following are the notable specifications from DIF.
The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet.
For more details, please visit IETF website.
Following is the list of specifications that IETF has contributed to in terms of identity space.
The OpenID Foundation is a non-profit international standardization organization of individuals and companies committed to enabling, promoting and protecting OpenID technologies.
For more details, please visit OIDF website and the specifications below.
An interop profile, short for interoperability profile, is a specification that defines the technical requirements and standards that must be followed to issue, verify, and use verifiable credentials across different systems and platforms.
Interop profiles are important for ensuring that verifiable credentials can be exchanged and verified seamlessly between different organizations, platforms, and systems. By following a common set of technical requirements and standards, organizations can ensure that their verifiable credentials are compatible with other systems and can be trusted by all parties.
Interop profiles help to ensure that verifiable credentials can be trusted and used by different parties, which is critical for the widespread adoption of this technology. By following a common set of technical requirements and standards, organizations can benefit from the interoperability and portability of verifiable credentials, while also maintaining the security and privacy of the underlying data.
For ARUCC, we have published an interop profile that refers to as a specification document and covers the patterns and examples used for the Verifiable Credential issuance and verification of the educational records requested by a post-secondary institution in Canada. These credentials are issued based on the JSON-LD format as defined by W3C.
For more information, please refer to the specification for the ARUCC Interop Profile and the GitHub repository.
To onboard a verifier or industry partner onto the ARUCC ecosystem, they are required to complete certain steps in the onboarding process. The following guide will assist industry partners who wish to verify a learner's credentials.
For more details, please refer to the Verifier Guide and follow the steps in the guide to onboard as a Verifier in the ARUCC ecosystem.
Thank you to all our partners and contributors who have been involved in this project such as ARUCC, Digitary and MATTR.
Copyright (C) 2021 T-Systems International GmbH and all other contributors
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