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.
Credential Transparency State Policy Examples
This resource provides sample State policy language and examples of existing state policies on Credential Transparency from Connecticut, Alabama, Texas, Florida, and Colorado.
Credential Registry Pathway Builder Informational Video and Resources
Explore our Credential Registry Pathway Builder and all related materials!
Credential Registry Badge Publisher Tool Overview Video and Resources
Explore our Credential Registry Badge Publisher and all related materials!
Counting U.S. Postsecondary and Secondary Credentials Report
Annual report series from Credential Engine helping to map the credential landscape.
ETPL Publishing Guidance
Learn more about the 'Why' and the 'How' on publishing the Eligible Training Provider List (ETPL) to the Credential Registry.
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.
Credential Transparency State Partnerships Overview
State and regional partners are working with Credential Engine to use the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) and publish data to the Credential Registry. Credential Engine’s technologies support numerous statewide priorities. This resource provides an overview of our current state and regional partnerships.
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.
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!
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.
Credential Engine Equity Advisory Council Report and Recommendations
Creating Equitable Futures for All Learners Through Credential Transparency
This Policy Brief explores how access to better credential information can be a useful tool for equity.
Credential Transparency Illuminates Paths to a Better Future: Infographic & Video
Both the infographic and video introduce the idea of credential transparency and help users understand the goals and value of the work.
Fact Sheets
Learn about how Credential Engine is bringing transparency and credential literacy to the marketplace for different audiences including higher education, the business community, and certification & licensure. Follow the link below to view all of our fact sheets.
Frequently Asked Questions
A selection of our most frequently asked questions and answers about Credential Engine's goals and technologies.
News and Media Features
This selection of press clips and other media are notable examples of how Credential Engine's work is being highlighted and gaining traction.
Roadmap to Credential Transparency
Supporting credential transparency efforts is key to building an education and workforce marketplace ready to take on the challenges of the 21st century economy. This roadmap outlines how policymakers and other state leaders can lead on these issues.
Slide Deck
This PowerPoint presentation describes who Credential Engine is, what we do, and how transparency leads to transformation. Partners can adapt and customize this slide deck based on their needs.
State One Pager
Learn more about how credential transparency and linked data can power better decisions in states for all learners and how Credential Engine supports states in this work.
State Policy Briefs
A series of policy briefs offers guidance to state leaders--supported by real state examples--on how to advance credential transparency.
State Solutions & Opportunities – Event Recording
Credential Engine hosted a virtual event on November 18, 2020 to hear from foundation leaders, state leaders, policy makers, quality experts, and more about concrete solutions and opportunities states can leverage to address these challenges.
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.
Forbes: Can Connections Between Data Systems Propel Economic Recovery? Three States Say Yes.
Three state policy leaders in Alabama, Connecticut, and Florida participated in an article for Forbes to discuss the momentum around credential transparency, the connection between education and employment, and how an integrated and interoperable data strategy can be the foundation for both immediate economic recovery and long-term learner success.
Roles and Responsibilities
Credential Transparency requires a collaborative effort; this guide provides context for who should be involved in the work within states and what their roles might be.
State Project Summaries
Credential Engine currently partners with 19 states and the Los Angeles region. Prior to the annual convening of state partners in 2019, each state team that was able to attend wrote brief summaries of their projects–including goals, publishing methods, and priority use cases. This resource contains all of those summaries in one document.
State Services Details Fact Sheet
Credential Engine has targeted expertise for helping states and regions benefit from credential and competency transparency. In addition to our open, freely available resources, we offer fee-based services for strategy, project management, and implementation support for using CTDL data effectively to achieve statewide and regional goals.
Use Case Template for States
Once priority use cases have been determined, it is important to communicate the value and vision of this work. States can use this template or develop their own communications resources to share their goals widely.
Creating an Impact with Credential Quality and Transparency
This is a state policy toolkit that illustrates how states can use the quality non-degree credential framework (outlined by National Skills Coalition) and the linked open data network, common description language, and publishing platform created by Credential Engine to improve credential quality and transparency.
Making Information About Credentials More Actionable Through Increased Transparency and Quality Assurance
Decision makers at all levels require quality data around job opportunities, skill and knowledge demands, and which credentials and pathways to pursue. Providing decision makers at all levels with frameworks to describe the attributes of a quality credential is one that requires partnership across state policymakers and with other stakeholders such as employers, education and training providers, advocates, and accreditors. The value of credential transparency rises exponentially when it includes assurances of quality.
Midwest Credential Transparency Alliance (MCTA) Pathways Action Team: A Brief
The Midwest Credential Transparency Alliance Pathways Action Team has been working to identify existing career pathways in the Midwest, and how to improve them. This brief articulates a pathway model for the Midwest region.
State Use Cases: Examples
Credential Engine's technologies can support numerous statewide priorities. This resource provides examples of how states have approached using a common language and open source, comparable data for use cases such as defining pathways, updating approving functions, identifying high value credentials, and others.
API Publishing Guidance
Use the Registry Assistant API Handbook to plan, test, and publish using an Application Programming Interface (API).
Best Practices for Publishing
Credential Engine has recommendations publishing complex information such as costs.
Bulk Upload Publishing Resources
The publishing resources below provide instructions on how to publish credential data via the Bulk Upload publishing method.
Competency Framework Publishing Guidance
Use this step-by-step guide to publish competencies and competency frameworks, and then link them to credentials and other data.
Completing Updates to the Currency Policy and Reports
Credential Engine created a new automated process for quality and currency controls that now generates detailed reports for Duplicate Resources, Broken Webpage Links, Resource Currency, and Incomplete Publishing, from the new Credential Registry Services page.
Credential Engine Services
Credential Engine offers a wide range of freely available resources as well as fee-based services that meet the needs of organizations managing credential and competency data.
General Approaches to State Publishing
Credential Engine offers multiple options for publishing to the Registry. This guide outlines the publishing methods available and approaches states might take to utilize these methods for different processes and stakeholders.
General Workflow for Beginning Partnerships with Credential Engine
A general workflow that state teams follow as they begin the work towards credential transparency and their partnership with Credential Engine.
Instructions for Publishing Your Organization to the Credential Registry
View step-by-step instructions to create your organization's account and publish to the Credential Registry via manual entry, bulk upload, or the Credential Registry Assistant Publishing API.
Making Certification Data Transparent to Advance State Goals
In order to ensure that all certifications are found and connected, credential information needs to be made transparent through Credential Engine’s open source Registry. Credential Engine, its Certification & Licensure Advisory Group (CLAG), and its state partners ask that key information about certifications be made open and available through the Credential Registry.
Minimum & Benchmark Data Policies
Credential Engine requires a minimum set of data to ensure consistency and usefulness of data published to the Registry, as well as recommendations for benchmark levels of data that can be published to support many use cases. Additionally, state and regional partners often choose to set their own policies to ensure consistency in the state.
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.
Videos: Publishing Guidance
These video demonstrations and webinars offer useful tips, tricks, and guidance for how to publish credential data into the Credential Registry.
Additional Fact Sheets
Learn more about some of the technologies behind Credential Engine's work: the Credential Transparency Description Language and linked open data.
Consuming Data from the Credential Registry – Guidance for States
Use these resources to develop tools and applications that pull data from the Registry.
Tools and Applications Examples
View examples of tools and applications that have been built using Credential Registry data.
Core State Policy Language Regarding Credential and Competency Transparency
States can use and adapt this language in drafting legislation, executive orders, regulations, and other policies supporting credential and competency transparency.
Credential Transparency: An Essential Part of Attaining State Goals
This Policy Brief outlines the actions state policymakers can take to make credential transparency part of their state’s education, workforce, and economic development strategies.
Examples of Work Plans from State Partners
Explore examples of how state and regional partners approach implementing credential transparency from kick-off to publishing and consuming.
Guidance Signaling Expectations for Credential Transparency (For States) – Sample Language
Institutions and agencies can use this sample language signaling an expectation to link to the Credential Registry and support publishing and consuming data in CTDL in requests for proposals (RFPs) and other procurement practices related to educational technology. Click below to view this in our main resource database.
Sample Executive Order to Support Credential Transparency
State leaders can use and adapt this example executive order in drafting their own executive policies.
The Role of States in Credential Transparency
This brief offers guidance on how state leaders can work towards credential transparency.
Credential Transparency & P-20W Data Systems: Aligning Education and Employment Information to Meet State Talent Goals
It’s possible for states to have full transparency about both the skills needed for success in the job market and the credentials that signal competence and readiness for those jobs. But it only will happen if states employ better workforce and education data through P-20W data systems and adopt new technology that enables the data to be analyzed and made actionable.
Need Help Using This Toolkit?
This toolkit is designed to be used alongside our State Roadmap and Action Guide.