European Digital Credentials for Learning

A European Digital Credential for Learning (EDC) is a verifiable, digital version of a credential issued by an organisation to a learner to document their learning. These include diplomas, training certificates, micro-credentials, certificates of participation, and more. They can be issued in all EU and Europass languages and are signed with an electronic seal (a form of digital signature belonging to a trusted institution or organisation).

As they are natively digital, you can quickly and easily share a credential with prospective employers, use them to apply for further training without needing to scan or copy your paper diploma, or present them in the context of recognition procedures. EDCs include a series of verification checks, allowing anyone viewing the credential to trust its origin and verify its validity and authenticity.

If an institution issues you an EDC, you will receive it either directly deposited to your Europass wallet (available in your Europass Library) or via email, allowing you to upload the credential to your Europass wallet (or other compliant wallets).

Your Europass wallet is a space within your Europass account where you can securely store your EDCs and from where you can easily share your credentials directly, and include them in your applications together with your CV, cover letter, and other pertinent documents.

How do I use my European Digital Credential for Learning?

Through Europass you can: store, view, navigate, and share your EDC.

Storing my EDC

When an institution issues you an EDC, you will receive a notification to the email address that you have indicated to the institution. In that email, you will either receive a direct link to your wallet where you can find and view your EDC, or you will find your credential in attachment with accompanying instructions about how to visualise its content.

If your credential has been directly deposited to your Europass wallet, you do not need to take additional action.

If you have received the credential in attachment and you would like to store it safely in a digital wallet (and you do not have a Europass account yet), you will first need to create a Europass account.

Then follow the steps below:

Go to your Europass Library
Scroll down to “Certificates and diplomas” section. This is also your Europass wallet.
Click on the ‘add’ button at the top right corner of the section.
Select and upload the credential file you have received in your email.

Your credential is now stored in your Europass wallet. You can also choose to store your EDCs offline.

Please be aware that your EDC is signed with an electronic seal, which has a specific validity period. If you store your credential in your Europass wallet, the validity of your credential will be automatically extended. However, if you choose to store it offline, you should occasionally upload it to the EDC Viewer to ensure that your credential’s signature validity is extended before it expires. This is why we recommend storing your EDCs in a Europass wallet. When uploading the credential to the Viewer close to its expiry date, you will see a pop-up informing you that your credential will soon expire. To proceed viewing your credential, you will then have to extend the validity of your credential by clicking ‘yes’. A new version of your credential will then automatically be created with an extended validity date. You will however need to download and save this new version of the credential to ensure that you will be able to access your credential in the future.

Viewing my EDC

You can either choose to open your EDC from your Europass wallet by clicking on its thumbnail image, in which case you will be redirected to the EDC Viewer, or you can choose to upload the original credential file (received via email or stored offline) directly in the EDC Viewer. In the EDC Viewer, you just have to click on the yellow ‘upload credential’ button and select the credential file that you downloaded from your original notification email.

Please note that this credential is only machine readable and has the file extension .jsonld. You will not be able to open it in any other application than the Europass wallet and Viewer or a compatible alternative specified by your institution.

Navigating my EDC

European Digital Credentials for Learning are composed of three different layers:

The summary image: this is the typical visualisation of your credential which will commonly include the minimum information about your credential: your name, the credential title and any other information the credential issuer chose to include.
The authentication and verification checks: these checks provide you with information about the validity and reliability of your credential’s technical format and its authenticity. They will also inform you about:
1. Who has sealed the credential (i.e. the legal entity that issued the credential to you)
2. If it has a valid accreditation linked to it (accreditation is an extra form of quality control that can be referenced by institutions in formal learning if they so wish. However, credentials remain valid without accreditation).
3. If anyone tampered with the credential, i.e. edited the file content. In this case, the seal would break and these verification checks would fail, so anyone viewing your credential would realise that the credential’s content can no longer be trusted.
The content: the credential structured content is displayed in sections representing the credential holder and issuer information, and data about the achievement(s), learning activity(ies), assessment(s) or entitlement(s) for which you have been awarded a credential.

On the left-hand side of the EDC Viewer, you will find clickable tabs to access and navigate between these clusters of information. There you can view the whole content of the credential, as in addition to your personal data (at minimum your name), it may include descriptions of the course you completed, your grades, your achieved learning outcomes, or any other information that the issuing organisation documented in your credential. This additional information allows you to showcase the details of your learning to prospective employers or other external parties, who can, in turn, verify your knowledge and skills.

Sharing my EDC

EDCs are designed to facilitate sharing with prospective employers, education and training providers when applying for a learning opportunity, or with other parties, e.g. for recognition purposes. You should never share the original credential file itself (that is the file that you received via email or that you downloaded from your wallet, in JSON-LD format). This is the original version of your credential and should only be accessible to you. To share your credential, you can either:

Create a custom share-link of the credential from a Europass wallet or the EDC Viewer. The share-link leads to the same view of the credential that you are accessing from the viewer, however it removes the possibility to share it further.
Generate a PDF export of the credential from the EDC Viewer. The PDF export is a two-page document consisting of the preview image of the credential, an overview of the verification checks, as well as a link and QR code leading to the full credential view in the EDC viewer.

EDC page with share and export buttons highlighted

Note that you will only be able to generate the share-link or PDF by accessing the credential from your Europass wallet.

When generating the share-links or PDF export, you will always need to specify an expiry date. This is to ensure that you always remain in control of your own data. By setting an expiry date, you ensure that third parties will be able to access and verify the validity of your credentials but will not be able to keep your data for longer than you allow them to. You can extend or reduce the validity period of the direct share-link or the one included in your PDF export through your Europass account.

How can I get a European Digital Credential for Learning?

EDCs, similarly to traditional credentials, are issued by, or on behalf of, the institution with which you have undertaken a learning experience. This institution could be a training provider, university, or any other organisation. To see whether you can receive your diploma or other certificate as an EDC, we invite you to contact the relevant institution directly.

Questions about my EDC

The content of a credential cannot be modified. If you found any errors or inaccuracies in your credential, the credential would have to be reissued. If you have questions about the content of your European Digital Credential for Learning, please contact the institution that issued the credential.

Please note that neither the Europass nor the EDC support teams can provide additional details on the content of the credentials and that they cannot change any information contained in a credential. If you are uncertain about the organisation who issued you the credential, you can find that information under the ‘Issuer’ tab when viewing the credential.

If you are experiencing difficulties using your Europass wallet or visualising the credentials, please contact the Europass Helpdesk with a detailed description of the exact problem you face.