Credential EngineCredential Engine

Credential Transparency Toolkit

There are many ways to get involved with credential transparency. Regardless of which stage of the process you find yourself in, Credential Engine has various resources you can use to learn about, plan for, and work to create a transparent credential marketplace. The resources in this Toolkit are designed to help inform and guide your work.

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Toolkit Resources

Competencies and Skills: Publishing and Consuming

The Registry includes many thousands of open competencies and skills that can be reused and linked to credentials, programs, courses, jobs, pathways, and more. Publishing competencies and skills to the Registry enables linked open data alignments to occupational and industry taxonomies (such as O*NET and NICE), as well as frameworks from education institutions, industry bodies, and government agencies. These resources provide context for the value of publishing and reusing competencies and skills, as well as how to publish to the Credential Registry.

Competencies and Skills

Learning and Employment Records (LERs)

Learning and Employment Records (LERs) provide interoperable, portable credentials that document people's skills, educational experiences, and work histories. LERs document learning and experience wherever they occur, including in the workplace, through education and training, community activities, or military contexts. These resources provide context for how CTDL makes LERs meaningful and valuable.

Learning & Employment Records
Implementers

Credential Engine and the Open Skills Network: Powering Connections in Learn and Work Ecosystems

The Open Skills Network and Credential Engine together support the development of rich, meaningful skills information publicly available and reusable on the web. The combination of data among connected skills, credentials, courses, and pathways from multiple sources is exponentially more powerful than information from any single source or system. And when all of this linked data is open, it can be used by everyone to support the needs of evolving learn and work ecosystems.

Competencies and Skills
Decision Makers

Open Skills And Rich Skill Descriptors: CTDL Enables Connections And Collaboration

With growing momentum for skills-based education and hiring, we all need to work together on shared solutions for more equitable ecosystems that enable everyone to have the skills necessary to thrive in a fast-moving and ever-evolving workforce. The Open Skills Network has advanced this work by releasing the open-source Open Skills Management Tool. The Western Governors University (WGU) Skills Library, developed by a team of experts, is now freely available. And the Credential Registry provides over 51,000 open skills from hundreds of sources, combined with valuable contextual information in the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL). We’re primed for innovation, with more great work underway, and you can contribute! We get a lot of questions about how to combine these solutions, so here is a concrete example and a what/why/how for using open skills collaboratively. Read the full blog to learn more!

Competencies and Skills
Decision Makers

The Value Of CTDL For AI

As uses of AI and machine learning are very quickly evolving for applications like skills mapping, learning opportunity recommendations, and career exploration, CTDL provides huge advantages for improved accuracy and relevance in these applications. The CTDL schema and CTDL data in the Credential Registry are highly useful for training and refining AI models because they are structured data that is organized, predefined, and formatted consistently. And the more data that is available in CTDL, the more thoroughly AI tools can analyze patterns in the linked open data and make valuable connections. Credential Engine is working with partners on innovations that combine CTDL as a rich data schema, the huge body of CTDL data that is already in the Credential Registry, and new AI-assisted tools that publish to and consume from the Credential Registry. This resource provides an overview of the value of CTDL for AI.

Benefits of Credential Transparency
Decision Makers, State Leaders & Decision Makers

Publishing Jobs Data With CTDL: One-Pager

Publishing linked open data about jobs increases opportunities for people to achieve their learning and career pathway goals spanning education, training, and work. Using the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) and the Credential Registry offers an open standard, transparent, and data-driven approach to bridging the gap between education and work in data ecosystems. It supports informed decision-making, effective skill matching, and collaborative partnerships for the betterment of learners, employers, and the economy. This one-pager provides key value propositions for improving the connections between learning and work in data ecosystems.

Align With Other DataIdentifying Data
Decision Makers, State Leaders & Decision Makers

The Learn-and-Work Ecosystem

Almost 1,000,000 credentials exist in the United States. It’s difficult to find relevant information about many of them, but The Learn-and-Work Ecosystem Guide, developed by the Lumina Foundation, highlights the many intersecting initiatives aimed at shedding light on the confusing marketplace and shows where Credential Engine and its technologies fit.

Align With Other Data
Decision Makers, Implementers, State Leaders & Decision Makers

Trusted Third Party Publishing Policy

Many state and regional partners have existing credential data collection processes; Credential Engine's trusted third party publishing policies are designed to streamline workflows for efficient publishing while ensuring buy-in and participation from credential providers.

Establish InfrastructurePublish & Consume Data
Implementers

Use Cases by Stakeholder

When a state commits to credential transparency, it unlocks a multitude of opportunities. This document outlines some of the many goals, initiatives, and uses that comprehensive and open source data about credentials can support.

Develop End User ToolsUse Cases
State Leaders & Decision Makers

Vendor RFP Language

This sample RFP statement has been developed in consultation with Credential Engine’s Higher Education Advisory Group to help communicate institutional expectations for credential data transparency.

Publish & Consume Data
Implementers

Best Practice for Publishing

In order to ensure users have a basic level of data points by which to compare credentials, Credential Engine developed a policy to require a minimum set of data for those adding their data into the registry.

Publish & Consume Data
Implementers
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