News – Smart Degrees

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Verifiable Credentials explained

Verifiable Credentials (VC) is an open standard developped by the European Commission to offer a new pattern for exchanging information that is distributed and decentralized, where blockchain acts as a single point of truth.

The objective is to help public administrations accelerate the creation of trustworthy cross border digital services.

Verifiable Credentials associate three concepts:

Decentralized identifier (DID).
Verifiable credentials lifecycle, which enables standardization and scalable implementation.
Digital wallets, allowing user interactions exchanging digital credentials, where VC are supported on them.

The video explains the Verifiable Credentials, its infrastructure (European Blockchain Services Infrastructure, EBSI), and the vast opportunities that it currently provides, through a user’s journey (“Eva’s trip”).

SmartDegrees has adhered to this European initiative, incorporating the Verifiable Credentials standard in its clients since July 2020, and is participating in the Early Adopters Programme to ensure that SmartDegrees wallet takes full advantage of the value of this ecosystem in favor of the universities and the final users.

(Source: CEF Digital)

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EU joins forces towards European digital credentials

The European Commission fosters the digital credentials, using open standards (Verifiable Credentials), to help public administrations accelerate the creation of trustworthy cross border digital services.

Its document Joining forces towards European digital credentials describes the opportunities and advantages of the initiative and the following information:

Its infrastructure, European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), first EU-wide blockchain infrastructure, which began being operational in Q1 2020.
Verifiable Credentials (VC) standard.
Digital wallets, self-sovereign identities (SSI) and the European Self Sovereign Identity Framework (ESSIF) standard.
User seamless experience, explaining in detail the process followed by a cross border university student, involving three countries, its public administrations and two universities (Eva Journey).
An incubator, Early Adopters Programme, to facilitate the adherance of administrations, universities, providers and other stakeholders. The programme has set up the specifications EBSI compliance, in particular the required ones in the digital wallets and its APIs, to ensure interoperability.

Currently, as of 30 November 2021, the situation is:

29 countries are participating in the European Blockchain Partnership, that supports the initiative,
38 blockchain nodes in 21 countries,
18 universities participating in a multi-university pilot, in 15 countries.

SmartDegrees has adhered to this European initiative, incorporating the Verifiable Credentials standard in its clients since July 2020, and is participating in the Early Adopters Programme to ensure that SmartDegrees wallet takes full advantage of the value of this ecosystem in favor of the universities and the final users.

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Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future

Digital Credentials Consortium, was founded in 2018 by 12 universities in Germany, Canada, the United States, the Netherlands, Italy and Mexico, under the leadership of MIT, to modernize the concept of credentials, bringing benefits to learners and to relying parties (such as employers) by improving how skills and competencies are conveyed and recognized. Its mission is to create a trusted, distributed, and shared infrastructure that will become the standard for issuing, storing, displaying, and verifying academic credentials, digitally.

It has just completed his white paper “Building the digital credential infrastructure for the future“, where it establishes the design specifications of the associated system architecture and offers a more powerful and convenient way to share, manage and verify credentials:

It has a holistic approach and not biased to specific solutions or platforms, facilitating the convergence of other initiatives.
His effort is focused on the “envelope” and the system that provides safe delivery and storage. The “envelope” contains information about who issued the credential and to whom it was issued. Both the identities and the integrity of their content can be verified to detect fraud or tampering.
Recommends the Verifiable Credentials (VC) standard and its data model, performed by the European Commission, within the framework of its European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) initiative, because it meets the requirements established by the consortium and offers the following properties:
- Digital, tamper proof and machine-readable.
- Learner is at the center of exchanges of their data; their consent is required to exchange.
- Learner may cryptographically prove the credential is about them.
- Verification does not require consulting the issuer.
- Content of the credential can conform to a variety of schemas and vocabularies chosen by the issuer.
- Robust consideration of privacy, security, accessibility, and internationalization recommendations, making it suitable for high-stakes credentials such as transcripts.

Digital Credentials Consortium does not develop commercial products and services, but works with technology companies and platforms to create an ecosystem of options to choose from, as well as with employers to integrate verification services into their contracting workflow.

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Verifiable credentials in European Blockchain Services Infrastructure

Eva’s trip illustrates the possibilities of the blockchain solution developed by the European Commission and the members of the European Blockchain Partnership, the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI), and the verifiable credentials, whose standard it defines.

The trip shows a Belgian girl who graduates in her country, studies a master’s degree in Spain and later undertakes in Italy. In her country of origin she obtains two documents, one from the national government that will certify his identity, while another from the regional administration validates his university degree. This information allows her to access postgraduate education in Spain, which in turn issues a new digital certificate that she can store in her EBSI wallet. With all that information, as standard verifiable credentials, Eva can undertake in Italy, accessing grants from Feder funds, thanks to the credentials she has collected.

The European Blockchain Services Infrastructure aims to offer cross-border digital public services throughout the European Union using blockchain technology. It is formed by a network of blockchain nodes distributed throughout Europe, taking advantage of an increasing number of applications focused on specific use cases, whose proof of concept will begin to be available from January 2020.

(Source: CEF Digital)