European Digital Credentials for Learning Infrastructure : Information for Developers

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European Digital Credentials for Learning

The European Digital Credentials for Learning (EDC) infrastructure is a set of freely available services and software to support the issuance of authentic, tamper-evident digital credentials (whether diplomas, micro-credentials, certificates of participation or other) across Europe. The EDC infrastructure is part of the ongoing work to implement the new Europass Framework which supports the transparency of skills and qualifications information and the authentication of digital documents presenting information on skills and qualifications in Europe.

The EDC infrastructure allows organisations to issue verifiable credentials in JSON-LD format, aligned with W3C Verifiable Credential v.1.1 standards. EDC is one of the application profiles of the European Learning Model (ELM), designed to provide a European format to describe degrees, diplomas, certificates, Diploma Supplements, professional certifications, employer recommendations, examination results, certificates of attendance, and any other kinds of claims that are related to learning.

The components of the infrastructure (the Issuer, Viewer and Wallet) are all available as open-source in the EDC open-source code repository to allow for integration into an organisation’s own infrastructure. The use of the open-source version allows you to automate the credential creation and issuing process, depending on your specific use-case. We invite you to familiarise yourselves with the resources listed below, as well as with the European Learning Model, which is at the core of the EDC Infrastructure.

Should you have any questions on the published materials, you can contact us at EMPL-ELM-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu

The European Learning Model

The European Learning Model (ELM) is a Data Model for Interoperability of Learning Opportunities, Qualifications, Accreditation and Credentials in Europe, developed by the European Commission. With over 480 properties, the ELM allows for the capture of all learning related data, whether obtained in formal, non-formal or informal learning contexts. It caters for the needs of general education, vocational education and training (VET), higher education, adult learning, labour market trainings, but also micro-credentials. This allows for the creation and portability of rich data, not limited to a single sector. The data model addresses actors in employment, skills, education and training fields alike.

This data model is in use by the European Digital Credentials for Learning (EDC) infrastructure and the Qualifications Dataset Register (QDR). The QDR is a register for publishing qualifications and learning opportunities in order to make them searchable on the Europass platform. This back-end software is only available to approved national authorities. The QDR further includes accreditation information.

For further information about the application profiles of the ELM, consult our ELM data model browser. While code.europa houses the code repository of the European Digital Credentials for Learning infrastructure, the model itself is published in the Publications Office of the European Union.

Overview of Resources

European Learning Model

Technical

Publications Office: the ELM is published by the Publications Office of the European Union where you can download its latest version
ELM Datamodel Browser: browse the ELM and its technical documentation
Controlled vocabularies: list of the controlled vocabularies used in ELM

Additional interest

Introduction to the ELM: read about the background and use of the ELM
Launch of ELM v3 webinar
ELM Browser introduction video