Invitation to Participate! Join the Issuer Registry Advisory Group

In today’s digital age, ensuring the authenticity of credential issuers is crucial for empowering decision-makers who rely on accurate credential information. The Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC) and Credential Engine are collaborating on a joint 2024-2025 project to explore the governance and technology needs for issuer registries being used within Learning and Employment Record (LER) ecosystems. This initiative aims to enhance trust in LERs by creating a model for interoperable issuer registries.

We are convening a targeted advisory group of subject matter experts to participate in the Issuer Registry Advisory Group. The group’s recommendations, expertise, and guidance will be instrumental in developing an issuer registry proof of concept through open community input. Participation in this advisory group will yield guaranteed outcomes and significantly impact the digital credentials ecosystem.

An issuer registry is a secure, trustworthy digital list containing verifiable information about organizations that issue credentials. Types of credentials could include LERs for academic achievements like degrees. These organizations, which could include associations, education and training institutions, government agencies, or others, usually have a common set of frameworks or criteria that must be met before they will issue a particular credential. An issuer registry ensures that anyone can near-instantly and easily confirm that an organization is authorized to issue the specified credentials.  

What to Expect

As a member of this advisory group, you will contribute as a subject matter and/or technical expert. Together, we will define the advisory group’s charter, generate use cases, identify governance criteria, contribute to an issuer and verifier data model and specifications, and provide guidance for decision makers and developers.

Join the Issuer Registry Advisory Group

Purpose and Benefits

The project will provide a foundation for replicable and scalable solutions for issuer registries. Some of the benefits of aligning on standards and frameworks for issuer registries include:

• Increased Transparency: Providing clear, accessible, and standardized information about credential issuers will help stakeholders make informed decisions.
• Supported Mobility: Standardizing a shared, open structure for issuer data transparency will facilitate the recognition and validation of credentials globally, supporting the mobility of learners and workers.
• Improved Trust: By verifying the identity and key characteristics of credential issuers along with governance models, we can help ensure that LERs are reliable representations of skills and achievements.

Who Should Join

We are looking for experts and aspiring experts across various fields, including education, training, policy, government, research, industry, and business:

• Aspiring Subject Matter Experts: Individuals who want to learn and contribute.
• Subject Matter Experts: Individuals with experience in designing, developing, or implementing issuer registries.
• Users of Issuer Registries: Professionals and product providers interested in using issuer registries in their work.
• Verifiers of Issuers: Organizations and product providers responsible for verifying the authenticity of credential issuers.
• Technical Experts: Individuals familiar with existing standards or technical implementations for issuer registries.

Participation Details

Meeting Schedule: Monthly meetings via Zoom, beginning in September 2024 and concluding by May 2025. Use the World Clock for the meeting time at your location. 

• Meeting 1: Wednesday, 2024-September-4, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 2: Wednesday, 2024-October-2, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 3: Wednesday, 2024-November-6, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 4: Wednesday, 2024-December-4, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 5: Wednesday, 2025-February-5, 11 am ET
• Meeting 6: Wednesday, 2025-March-5, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 7: Wednesday, 2025-April-2, 11 am ET 
• Meeting 8: Wednesday, 2025-May-7, 11 am ET 

We understand that interested people may not be able to attend every meeting.  All meetings will be recorded, and materials will be shared with all participants.

Join the Issuer Registry Advisory Group

Resources

Credential Engine and DCC will provide all necessary resources based on advisory group input and share them for ongoing feedback between meetings. All feedback and materials will be transparently available following an open development process.

Outcomes

The final products will include expanded use cases, real-world data examples, a data model and specifications, and governance best practices. All final outputs will be public information available under open licenses.

Processes

The advisory group will follow a defined process leading to specific deliverables and outcomes. Outputs will be reviewed via an open webinar for advisory group members and stakeholders.

Contact Credential Engine:  If you have any questions about this task group, please email info@credentialengine.org . This mailbox is monitored during normal U.S. business hours. Learn more via the Credential Engine Website.