A Credential Registry provides the foundation for trust.
In a Talent Marketplace, Credential Registries are a foundation essential to Learning and Employment Records (LERs), skills-based job description generators, and AI tools. Together, these systems translate what people have learned, the credentials they hold, their skill achievements, and what employers need into a shared, comparable language of skills. The Credential Registry serves as the data anchor that these other systems connect to.
Why is this important? Federal initiatives, such as the U.S. Department of Education’s Connecting Talent to Opportunity Challenge, are accelerating state efforts to build Talent Marketplaces and adopt skills-based hiring approaches.
Supporting Talent Marketplaces
A Credential Registry is a digital repository that provides a representation of the skills, competencies, and learning outcomes associated with credentials in a structured, open, linked, interoperable and durable (SOLID) data format, like the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL). It employs standardized language to describe skills consistently and is made publicly available in both human-readable and machine-readable formats. In short, it is a public, open catalog that tells everyone — clearly and in a common language — what a given credential actually means in terms of demonstrated skills.
One of a Credential Registry’s most important functions is enabling transparency. Employers often lack confidence in credentials because it’s unclear what skills they actually represent. A Credential Registry solves this by publishing not just which credentials exist, but what skills they certify, who issued them, and what outcomes are associated with them.
Credential Engine works directly with states, their partners, and technology vendors to support the development of Talent Marketplaces built on a trusted, interoperable data infrastructure.
→ Stewards CTDL: maintaining the open standard for describing credentials, skills, and related workforce information.
→ Operates the Credential Registry: publishing and consuming tools that make credential and skills data available as SOLID data (structured, open, linked, interoperable, and durable).
→ Partners with states and technology vendors: integrating CTDL and Credential Registry data into Learning and Employment Records (LERs), skills-based job tools, and other Talent Marketplace systems.
→ Provides implementation and technical expertise: helping states ensure interoperability, sustainability, and long-term success.
Credential Registries function as open, public infrastructure, ensuring that skills and credentials carry consistent, credible meaning wherever they are presented.
Connecting skills and credentials to jobs requires clear, interoperable data that can be shared across education and workforce systems. Linked open data in CTDL enables skill information to be connected and reused across systems, supporting alignment between education and employment.
Credential Registries must be designed for interoperability — meaning the data can move across systems and jurisdictions. A credential earned in one context can be recognized in another because its skills are documented in standardized, machine-readable terms — supporting both career mobility and geographic mobility for workers.
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