Ensuring the authenticity of credential issuers is essential for empowering decision-makers who rely on the validity of credentials. Accurate and verifiable credential information is key for empowering learners and workers on their education and career pathways. 

The Digital Credentials Consortium (DCC), a network of leading international universities focused on creating an open infrastructure for academic credentials, and Credential Engine, a non-profit dedicated to credential and skill transparency, are collaborating on a joint 2024-2025 project to explore the governance and technology needs for implementing issuer registries within Learning and Employment Record (LER) ecosystems. 

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 and career achievements like degrees, certifications, or occupational licenses. The organizations that issue these credentials, which could include industry associations, education and training institutions, government agencies, or others, usually have a common set of criteria that issuers must meet before they are allowed to be listed on a registry. An issuer registry ensures that anyone can near-instantly and easily confirm that an organization is who it claims to be and is authorized to issue the specified credentials. 

With support made possible by Walmart, this joint initiative aims to build trust in LERs by developing guidance and a prototype for issuer registries. The project will address challenges with issuer identity verification, registry implementation, governance, hosting, and sustainability. All of this work is use-case driven and is being developed through the use of open standards and community input, including an advisory group and pilot. Part of the work will investigate utilizing CTIDs, Credential Registry accounts, Credential Registry Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) data, and the Credential Registry’s publishing system to support and strengthen issuer registries.

To kick off this work, Credential Engine and DCC have established the Issuer Registry Advisory Group. Participants in the advisory group will contribute as subject matter and technical experts, defining the advisory group’s charter, generating use cases, identifying governance criteria, and using existing open standards and specifications to develop an issuer registry prototype. This group is open and welcomes experts and aspiring experts across various fields, including education, training, policy, government, research, industry, and business. The use of issuer data in tools and services will help people make better decisions, reveal their skills and qualifications, and lead to more equitable outcomes, significantly impacting the digital credentials ecosystem.

An outcome of the project will be a research paper on existing and emerging issuer registry standards, governance, and specifications. We will document our findings and share them publicly to help guide decision-making and design implementations. 

As part of the development of a functional issuer registry prototype, we will manage a small pilot where we will work with selected collaborators to test the functionality, security, governance, impact, and replicability of the registry. 

For this project to be successful, we are relying on the contributions and collaboration of experts in the field. Issuer registries have the potential to increase the availability of quality information about providers, programs, credentials, and skills as linked, open, and interoperable data, and for these data to be used in user-facing tools to improve decision-making and advance the digital credentials marketplace. You can get involved in the following ways: 

  • Join the Issuer Registry Advisory Group: Participate in discussions and deliverables to build shared understanding and contribute to project success. You can learn more about this opportunity here and sign up here. 
  • Participate in the pilot: Participants will engage in testing a functional issuer registry and provide feedback and insights to refine the model for broader implementation. Invitations will be sent out later.
  • Stay informed: We will continue to provide updates on this project! Subscribe to Credential Engine’s newsletter and DCC’s newsletter to stay current. 

Contact us at info@credentalengine.org to learn more about this project.

Check out DCC’s Issuer Registries — Layering Trust for Verifiable Credential Ecosystems blog to learn more!

Learn more about Issuer Registries here.

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