Open Source Student Wallet Final Report

Open Source Student Wallet Final Report
U.S. Department of Education Contract Number: 91990020C0105

Executive Summary
Academic credentials are becoming transformed by digital technology with institutions, government
agencies, industries, and others working together to develop digitally enhanced mechanisms to express
academic learning outcomes and achievements enabling equitable academic and career prospects for all.
These digital credentials can be described in terms of a document (the description of the credential) andan envelope (a container that protects its contents and their authenticity, and specifies an “issuer” and“recipient”) into which the document is placed. A learner can store their digital credentials in a wallet thatallows them to manage and share them with others. Many organizations in the U.S. and worldwide areexperimenting with digital credentials; and emerging standards and specifications are being developed todescribe them, define how they may work together and how they might be used by individuals andorganizations.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and other U.S. and international members of the Digital
Credentials Consortium1 (DCC)—including Harvard University (USA), McMaster University (Canada), Tec
de Monterrey (México) and the Technical University of Munich (Germany)—are working together todevelop new digital systems for academic credentials. The DCC approach focuses on open standards, aswell as developing tools, systems and approaches to ensure learner control of their digital credentials.
In 2020, MIT entered into an agreement with the U.S. Department of Education to design and implement
a wallet to store digital credentials, a critical but under-developed element in the digital credentials
technology ecosystem. In fulfillment of this work, the project team at MIT:● Developed a Learner Credential Wallet specification. This specification is informed by theteam’s leadership and participation in the international digital credentials open standards working
groups through the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), with plans to introduce it through theopen standards community.
● Developed an open source Learner Credential Wallet mobile application to store open
standards-compliant digital credentials (Verifiable Credentials) with learner control (through Self
Sovereign Identifiers). The wallet is open source software; it is built upon existing open source
libraries developed through international working groups to enable other institutions, governments
and vendors to adopt or build upon the wallet. The wallet is published in the Apple App Store foriOS devices and the Google Play Store for Android devices.
● Deployed the wallet with three institutions of higher education, College Unbound, Georgia
Institute of Technology and San Jose City College, representing a diversity of institution types.
● Provided technical assistance to each institution to issue digital credentials.
● Disseminated the work via digital credentials ecosystems and communities.
● Reflected on the Open Source Student Wallet project: (1) developing the Learner Credential
Wallet specification and wallet were straightforward and (2) there is a lack of production-readytools for issuing Verifiable Credential-compliant credentials and technical assistance will likely beneeded to facilitate adoption with Institutions of Higher Education.

1

For more information on the Digital Credentials Consortium see https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/.

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The project team’s work is guided by a consideration for the potential impact of digital credentials inefforts towards more equitable academic and career landscapes in a variety of contexts. The project team
expects that the use of this technology will increase the ease with which institutions securely confer
credentials. The team also hopes institutions find that a learner-centered approach will offer solutions tosome of the issues faced by learners from vulnerable communities in the United States. These could
include the financial cost of requesting credentials, an inability to demonstrate competencies obtained
from a partially completed or non-traditional degree program or lack of access to credentials frominstitutions that have closed.

Project Management and Administration
The period of performance began with a kick-off meeting with the project team and the Department on
September 30, 2020. Following introductions and acknowledgement of personnel and roles, the project
team submitted a work plan and timeline describing the anticipated steps towards achieving milestones
and deliverables. As per the agreement, the project team submitted progress reports on a monthly basis,making the Department aware of tasks completed, in progress, and in need of additional time, advice or
support. The project team and the Department met virtually on a monthly basis to discuss projectprogress in more detail.

Develop Open Source Standard & Code Base for Student Credential Wallet
Develop Open Source Standard for Student Credential Wallet
In May 2021, the team published a Learner Credential Wallet Specification,
https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/docs/Learner-Credential-Wallet-Specification-May-2021.pdf. The
specification describes the necessary wallet features and technical requirements enabling individuals tocurate and present their learning and employment records to others—for example, as applicants to
educational programs or employers—in an interoperable manner. The specification is written for atechnical audience seeking information about interoperable credential wallets. Credentials related toeducational, training and professional development are the primary focus.
The specification builds on ongoing standards work in the World Wide Web Consortium, IEEE, and theDecentralized Identity Foundation focused on interoperable verifiable credentials, decentralized
ecosystems enabling their secure exchange, and digital wallet standards enabling interoperability for
credential holders. These design choices promote broad interoperability and relevance (even beyond
learning and employment credentials).
Specification Name

Description

W3C Verifiable Credentials(VCs) Data Model

A lightweight, interoperable standard for expressing a wide variety oftamper-evident claims whose authenticity can be verified. The VC data
model is associated with a range of emerging standards around therequest and transfer of credentials, as well as identifier verification.
The VC data model functions as an interoperable, secure wrapper
around a variety of content (diplomas, transcripts, badges,
competencies, etc.).
See: https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model/

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LER Wrapper and Wallet
Specification

Informs wallet functional requirements and provides methods forwrapping payload data models in the envelope, compatible with the VC
data model.
See: https://cdn.filestackcontent.com/preview/FeqEJI3S5KelmLv8XJss

Universal Wallet 2020

Provides an interoperable digital wallet standard and implementation.
This specification is based on the universal wallet interoperability
specification and describes how the wallet relates to it.
See: https://w3c-ccg.github.io/universal-wallet-interop-spec/

The Learner Credential Wallet specification includes:
1. Wallet functional requirements
2. Conceptual wallet flows supporting flexible use of relevant standards and data models
3. Foundational, extensible wallet design based on, and in support of, (2)4. Design and implementation choices for wallet standards and credential data models for an initial
wallet application
5. Interoperability requirements in sufficient detail to be implemented in software code
6. Overview of extensibility mechanisms

Develop Open Source Student Credential Wallet Code BaseIn October 2021, the team released open source code for the Learner Credential Wallet. The source codeis:
● Available from the project’s Github repository,
https://github.com/digitalcredentials/learner-credential-wallet.
● Released under the MIT License,
https://github.com/digitalcredentials/learner-credential-wallet/blob/main/LICENSE.
● Documented in the Github repository readme.md(https://github.com/digitalcredentials/learner-credential-wallet/blob/main/readme.md) and in thesource files themselves.
In March 2022, the team released versions of the wallet to the Apple App Store and Google Play Store.
The mobile apps are available from the wallet website at: https://lcw.app. The project team published an
Accessibility Conformance Report after completing a Voluntary Product Accessibility Test at:https://github.com/digitalcredentials/learner-credential-wallet/blob/main/docs/Learner%20Credential%20W
allet%20VPAT2.4Rev508-December%202021.pdf.
Initial Learner Credential Wallet Features
The initial release of the open source Learner Credential Wallet implements the required features of the
Learner Credential Wallet Specification.
The key features of the Learner Credential Wallet include:●
Login to secure the wallet●
Add a credential (VC) via deep link (URI or QR Code) or via a fully encapsulated QR code●
Display credential(s) locally—Issuer, issuer logo, credential name, credential description,issuance date●
Select and share credential(s) via mobile operating system sharing mechanisms (e.g., save as a

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file, send a file, etc.)
Delete credential(s)Backup and restore the wallet from a file
Screenshots of Setting up Learner Credential Wallet in iOS and Settings

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Screenshots of Credentials in Learner Credential Wallet:
Add Credential, Credential Preview and Verification Status

Screenshots of Credentials in Learner Credential Wallet:
Actions (Share, Details, Delete), Home and Share Selected Credentials

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Open Source Student Wallet Final ReportComparing the Learner Credential Wallet with the Specification
Below, items marked with a ✓ indicate where the initial release of the Learner Credential Wallet meetsthe Learner Credential Wallet specification.
1. Request Credentiala. ✓ The wallet must be able to (on behalf of the holder) request a credential from anissuer.
i.
✓ The credential request must allow the request to enable holder and subject
binding.
ii.
✓ The wallet must be able to request a credential in response to a holder action.
b. The wallet may be able to request a credential using a subscribe model in which VCs
representing earned credentials from one or more issuers are requested / received /persisted so that the wallet stays up-to-date with available credentials from those issuers.
c. The wallet may be able to request other records that serve as a proxy for credential-like
employment experience.
2. Receive Credentiala. ✓ The wallet must be able to receive credentials.
b. ✓ The wallet must be able to decline credentials.
c. ✓ The wallet must be able to persist credentials and store the appropriate metadata (seePersist Credential).
d. ✓ The wallet may be able to unpack the credential payload, but it is not required to doso.
e. The wallet may be able to request, listen for, or subscribe to credential updates, if offered,and if the holder chooses to enable.
i.
The holder must be able to decline a credential received via subscription.
f. The wallet may be able to persist other records that serve as a proxy for credential-like
employment experience.
3. Persist Credentiala. ✓ Wallet must be able to persist credentials with native format encoding from multiple
standards.
b. ✓ Stored credentials must be persisted with sufficient metadata to allow the wallet to
execute the minimal functions described in these requirements.
c. ✓ Credentials may be stored in both the native format and/or a processed format
preferred by the wallet so long as the wallet can fully produce the original record intact(see Send Credentials).
d. ✓ Wallet must be able to respond to a holder's request to remove a credential and stop
persisting that credential.
4. Select Credentials by querying the wallet data storea. ✓ The wallet must be able to discover Learner and Employment Records (LER) [i.e.,
Verifiable Credentials] at least by the name property and description property in the LER.
b. The wallet may discover content by other parameters.
c. The wallet may expose an external API.
5. Send Presentationa. ✓ The wallet must have a mechanism to create and submit a Verifiable Presentation to arelying party in response toi.
✓ A wallet owner actionii.
A request for a Verifiable Presentation obtained from an Relying Party through apush or pull action, if approved by the wallet holder

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Open Source Student Wallet Final Reportb. The wallet may have a mechanism for receiving and processing presentation requests.
c. ✓ The wallet must allow the presentation to include holder and subject binding.
d. The wallet may support pre-packaged presentation bundling options for convenience tothe user, depending on parameters such as the type of relying party, credentials
requested, etc.
6. Log Activity
a. The wallet may be able to log activity (e.g., credentials and presentations sent andreceived for privacy auditing).
7. Holder and Subject Bindinga. ✓ The wallet may be able to generate identifiers enabling proof of identifier control.
i.
Examples include pairwise decentralized identifiers, other decentralized
identifiers, and other methods resulting in a URI identifier that can serve as
subject in a Verifiable Credential or a holder in a Verifiable Presentationb. ✓ The wallet may be able to generate proofs of identifier control.
8. Management functions
a. The wallet may be able to manage identity and identifier data. This includes the ability to:i.
perform Create, Read, Update, Delete operations on decentralized identifier
methods (not just create, from previous). I.e., update key material, read, delete.
ii.
group identifiers, attributes, and credentials into “persona” or profiles for use indifferent contexts.
b. The wallet may be able to manage connections (e.g. to issuers, Relying Parties, andother parties).
c. The wallet may be able to manage privacy and sharing settings.
Below, items marked with a ✓ indicate where the initial release of the Learner Credential Wallet meetsthe additional design decisions and goals described in the Learner Credential Wallet Specification.
●
●
●
●
●

●

✓ Minimize technical and infrastructure requirements for learners and issuers
Ensure requirements are applicable/adaptable to ✓ mobile and web wallets✓ Enable integration into existing systems (including authentication solutions)
Ensure design is applicable/extensible to emerging protocols (such as authentications built withawareness of decentralized identifiers)✓ Use JSON-LD data formats where possible due to advantages of Linked Data in the
educational data standards ecosystem, but support integration of other data formats, including
JSON-formatted VCs, non-VCs (including unstructured data)
Support range of proof mechanisms (✓ JSON-LD, JWT, data minimization proofs), with ✓ initialprioritization of JSON-LD proof mechanisms (based on initial use cases)

Deploy Reference Implementation of Open Standards
In March 2022, the project deployed reference implementations of the Open Standards at three
Institutions of Higher Education—College Unbound, Georgia Institute of Technology, and San José City
College.
The project team developed and used the criteria listed below to assess the suitability of deployment sites
in an effort to examine the implications of digital credentialing in a diverse set of educational contexts.
●

Institutions should identify a type of credential and a cohort of learners to participate in the

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●
●
●
●
●

●

project.
Institutions should have the appropriate administrative support to participate in the project and beable to provide project coordination and technical support.
Ideally, institutions should have initiated basic credential mapping activities, including potentiallydescribing summative credentials in terms of outcomes and/or linkages to industry competencies.
Ideally, institutions should be able to provide the necessary technical support to participate in the
deployment.
Institutions should be prepared to collaborate with the project team on developing and providing
learner-focused documentation, communication and support.
If an institution is engaged with a vendor who provides credential issuing services, the vendor
must be willing and able to collaborate on necessary modifications to vendor services to support
the Learner Credential Wallet specification.
Preference will be given to institutions that serve student populations who are underrepresented
in higher education or have otherwise faced barriers to obtaining a degree through traditional
means.

After considering a number of institutions, and in consultation with the Department, the project teamselected three institutions. Two of these sites, San José City College (SJCC) and College Unbound (CU),primarily serve adult learners—many of whom are first generation, underrepresented in higher education,or have faced significant barriers towards fulfilling their academic goals. The third is the Georgia Instituteof Technology (Georgia Tech), a major public research university. Together the sites represent a diverse
set of technical capabilities to reflect the wide range of potential adopters of digital credentials. Theirtechnical capabilities run the full gamut, with CU outsourcing most of their administrative and academic
computing with limited access for customization and limited in-house technical capabilities to the Georgia
Institute of Technology having a project team with deep technical expertise in digital credentials andcapable of significant in-kind support.
The site selection also has an eye to the future for the types of digital credentials offered by institutions.
The project work focuses on a comprehensive credential at each institution—a final certificate from a
program or a whole undergraduate degree. In addition, two of the three sites have already identified
granular learning outcomes and competencies for the credential participating in the pilot which provides
an interesting avenue for further exploration.
Described below in further detail are the institutions, the credentials selected for the deployment, and the
major steps in the deployment. The Technical Assistance section describes the details of the technicalassistance required and provided in order to conduct the deployments.

Georgia Institute of Technology
The Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) is a public research university located in Atlanta,
Georgia. The undergraduate and postgraduate student body is made up of more than 36,000 students
with satellite campuses in Europe and Asia. Georgia Tech awards undergraduate and graduate degrees
and offers numerous certificate programs through Professional Education and other departments.
The project team worked with Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities (C21U), a living
laboratory focused on the future of higher education, which works to identify, develop, and test innovativeeducational platforms and methodologies. Both founding members of the Digital Credentials Consortium,
MIT has collaborated with Georgia Tech for several years to promote academic digital credentials thatempower learner control.

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Georgia Tech is exploring the issuance of digital badges, certificates, and microdegrees. These include
digital badges for learners that complete non-credential certificate programs (e.g., via Professional
Education) and mechanisms for digital credential issuance through their Instructure Canvas-basedlearning management system for enrolled students. Georgia Tech has prior experience in both issuing
digital credentials and developing the technology to support them. The project provided them an
opportunity to explore Verifiable Credential-based digital credentials, as their prior efforts have used analternate form of digital credentials (Blockcerts).
C21U worked with the Georgia Tech Office of International Education (OIE) to select the Inspiring
Cross-cultural Experiences By Engaging Ramblers at Georgia Tech (I.C.E.B.E.R.G.) Intercultural
Learning Series program for the deployment. “This program addresses various topics, including improving
communication abilities, developing intercultural skills, and navigating cultural differences. Students build
community by engaging with other students at Georgia Tech, developing skills to recognize culturaldifferences and the tools to advance their own understanding, gaining self-awareness, empathy, andadaptability, so they may navigate new challenges at Georgia Tech, abroad, and in their future careers.”2

College UnboundCollege Unbound3 (CU) is an emerging educational institution in Providence, Rhode Island that aims toprovide alternative pathways for adults who have faced significant barriers to completing a traditional
Bachelor’s degree program. Founded in 2015, CU is a fully accredited institution with a mission of serving“returning adult learners,” those who began a degree program but had their educational trajectories
disrupted due to socio-economic reasons or unexpected life events. CU creates a particularly compelling
opportunity for the project team to observe the value and impact of the credential wallet for learners withpartially completed degrees.
CU selected their Bachelor of Arts degree for use in the deployment. As a young institution, CU confers asingle Bachelor of Arts degree and has a small, yet growing student body of 165 learners which is
expected to reach 500 enrolled students by 2025.
At the time of this report CU had not issued digital credentials to graduates of their degree program.

San José City College
San José City College (SJCC)4, founded in 1921 and a member of the San José-Evergreen Community
College District, is a fully accredited community college located in San José, California. The SJCC
student body of over 9,000 is 86% minority enrollment, with the majority being Hispanic learners. SJCC
has 68 degree and certificate programs, awarding 1,320 degrees in 2019-2020. In addition, they maintaina high transfer rate to public and private four year colleges. SJCC’s mission is to serve students and thecommunity by offering high quality, relevant, and innovative instruction for basic skills, career pathways,
university transfer, and life-long learning. They award certificates and associate degrees to eligible
students taught in a multicultural environment where student achievement, successful learning, and social
justice are highly valued, supported, and continually assessed.
SJCC selected their Technest credential, a program built in 2016 through a collaboration with businesses
2

I.C.E.B.E.R.G., https://iceberg.oie.gatech.edu
College Unbound, https://www.collegeunbound.org/.
4
San José City College, https://sjcc.edu/.
3

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Open Source Student Wallet Final Reportand collaborating institutions including MIT, for use in the deployment. The Technest program iscomprised of a four course sequence including CIS 106: Introduction to Computer Coding Using Python5,
CIS 107: Data Science6, CIS 108: Internet of Things7, and BUS 068: Entrepreneurship. This award
winning blended learning program is designed to bridge Silicon Valley's wage and skills gap and offers
career counseling and hands-on training as students progress through the courses.
Currently SJCC does not issue digital credentials (i.e., Open Badge-based or Verifiable Credentials-based
digital credentials) to graduates of their degree programs nor to participants in non-credential certificate
programs. They do make electronic transcripts available for their students.

Technical AssistanceOnce selected, the project team worked with the institutions selected as deployment sites to provide
technical assistance. The technical assistance provided each site included:● Coordination with deployment site on any policy / process issues (e.g., student data accessconcerns)● Implementation of the Issuing Approach● Provision of Access to the Institution’s Authentication System● Identification of Key Personnel● Setting up the Issuer and Testing with the Learner Credential Wallet● Preparation of the Pilot Credential● Running the Pilot

Issuing Approach
The project team identified two issuance approaches to be used by the deployment sites. These
approaches balanced the technical capabilities of the deployment sites, the support capacity of the
deployment sites during the deployment, and the overall timeline. The approaches included:● Deployment Site Issues Credentials: The deployment site hosts a web application that the wallet
can access thereby allowing the institution to “issue” the digital credentials to the wallet. (Thismay be accomplished by deploying the MIT- / DCC-developed sign-and-verify service or
integrating issuance libraries into another application.) This approach includes creating a signing
key and adding it to the (DCC) issuer registry and providing issuer authentication metadata forwallet configuration. This approach requires the deployment site technical staff to provide theapplication (which may require development and implementation effort).
● MIT “Issues” Credentials on Behalf of the Deployment Site: If the deployment site chooses, they
could authorize MIT to “issue” digital credentials as part of this deployment on their behalf. The
deployment site may choose to do this for technical capability or capacity reasons. This approachrequires limited technical involvement on the part of the deployment site and instead requires MIT
to provide the issuing technical infrastructure.

Access to the Institution’s Authentication System
In order to assure the issuing institution that the provided credential is issued to the intended individual,
the Learner Credential Wallet authenticates with the institution's Identity Provider (IdP) / Single Sign On
5

An 18-week coding course built upon the MITx Introduction to Computer Science and Programming
Using Python course.
6
An 18-week course built on the BerkeleyX Data 8 Foundations of Data Science course.
7
Built on a Renesas and Microfacturing Institutes course.

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Open Source Student Wallet Final Report(SSO) mechanism. The Learner Credential Wallet requires an authentication step between requestingand issuing the credential to ensure the individual requesting the credential from the mobile device isindeed the individual for whom the credential is issued.
The project team was fortunate that all three deployment sites supported OpenID Connect (OIDC), thedefault supported protocol in the MIT-/DCC-developed libraries, in their Identity Providers / Single Sign
On. The project team was prepared to, but did not need to, extend the underlying libraries to support
additional authentication schemes such as Security Assurance Markup Language 2.0 (SAML 2.0).

Identifying Key Personnel
The issuance of credentials at institutions of higher education typically involves cooperation andcoordination with and between a number of units at each institution. The issuance of digital credentials
adds additional technical requirements and support from technical staff to the typical credential issuanceprocess (which is usually the purview of the registrar and academic departments). In addition, for a
successful pilot or long term service for the issuance of digital credentials, institutions will be served wellby developing internal processes and developing strong communications and collaborations between
units. This project anticipated these needs and worked with the deployment sites to help them form a
local project team to support the deployment. In general, the team should include the following roles:● Project Sponsor: The project sponsor should be an administrator at the institution who canmarshall local resources to support the deployment.
● Project Coordinator: The day-to-day contact for the deployment, typically a staff member.
● Program Representative: A representative of the program issuing the digital credentials for the
deployment, this might be a registrar, program coordinator or faculty member.
● Technical Representative: A staff member charged with coordinating the technical aspects of the
deployment or one or more directly responsible individuals.
Individuals might fill multiple roles depending on the institution. In addition, the project sponsor and project
coordinator may need to draw upon the expertise of legal counsel, institutional research, andstudent-facing support resources.

Setup Issuer and Test with Learner Credential Wallet
The project team worked with deployment sites to set up and configure their issuer, to configure access tothe institution’s authentication system, and to ensure credentials could be added to the Learner Credential
Wallet.

Preparing the Pilot Credential
The pilot institution determined what information to include in their credential for this pilot. The minimum
set of credential data are the following fields from the W3C Verifiable Credentials Data Model:● name: Name of the credential

●
●
●
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description: Textual description of the program / course / credential
issuer.name: The institution’s name or program’s name issuing the credential
issuer.url: The institution’s website
issuer.image: URL to logo of the institution’s choosing
issuanceDate: Date on which the credential was issued, or the current date (for example a
program might issue certificates on a specific date such as December 31, 2021)
credentialSubject.name: Name of the individual receiving the credential

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The project team provided CU and SJCC a draft csv file to use with the Issuer. Georgia Tech’s application
used the course information to provide the credentialSubject.name and was configured to provide
the other data whereas this information was included in the csv by CU and SJCC.

Implementing the Deployments
The project team worked with the deployment sites to implement a multi-step process to run the pilot attheir institution.
Step 0: Institution emails participants about the Learner Credential Wallet pilot.
● The email includes a description of the pilot.
● The email may include a consent form to participate in the pilot (if desired by the institution).
● The email may include a consent form to participate in a survey and/or focus group (if desired by
the institution).
Step 1: Institution emails participants to start the Learner Credential Wallet pilot.
● The email contains instructions on how to access their credential. Depending on how theissuance is setup:○ They might receive a (deep) link directly to their verifiable credential (after
authentication). [College Unbound and San José City College]○ They might receive instructions to login to a student portal or learning management
system and then how to access their verifiable credential (both steps requiring
authentication). [Georgia Tech]● The email contains instructions on how to install Learner Credential Wallet and includes a link tohttps://lcw.app.
Step 2: Participants install and setup the Learner Credential Wallet for iOS or Android.
Step 3: Participants add their credential to the Learner Credential Wallet on their mobile phone.
● Students follow instructions from the email from their institution to add their digital credential.
● Students login (authenticate) with their institution before receiving their digital credential.
Step 4: Participants view and share their credentials on their mobile phone.
Step 5 (optional): Participants share their verifiable credential with a school administrator.
● To close the loop on the pilot, the project team discussed whether the institution wanted to add a“confirmation” step to let them know if the participants received their verifiable credential.
● Note: Step 5 was discussed with each deployment site but not implemented.
Step 6: Participants provide feedback on the Learner Credential Wallet experience via survey.
● The institution sends a survey to participants in the pilot cohort. Participants complete the survey.
● Note: At Georgia Tech only, selected participants are also invited to take part in a brief qualitativeinterview.

Dissemination
The project team successfully developed an open source, proof of concept for a student wallet. The
project team engaged with a number of stakeholders over the course of the project for whom the findings

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Open Source Student Wallet Final Reportof this report will be valuable and is committed to the open and timely sharing of insights.
The outcomes from this project will be useful for and disseminated to a number of constituencies
including:● The U.S. Department of Education● Technical and Standards Community: Including the W3C Verifiable Credentials for Education
Task Group, IMS Global and especially the Open Badges v3 and Comprehensive Learner Record
v2 working groups, IEEE P1484.2 Integrated Learner Records (ILR) Working Group and others● Broader Ecosystem in the U.S.: Organizations and universities working in the digital learner
credentials ecosystem including Jobs for the Future, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s T3
Innovation Network, Walmart and others.
● University members of the Digital Credentials Consortium
For the technical and standards communities, the active participation of the project team, as well as theopen source contributions from the project, are key contributions of this work. This work also represents
the dissemination efforts of the project team with these communities. Active participation, codesubmissions, maintenance of core libraries, contributions to specification and standards development are
the lingua franca of these communities. A core value of the project team has been to do thiscommunication and participation from the start, and the team will continue to do so after the close of the
project. By hosting the Learner Credential Wallet source code and documentation openly on its Github
repository, the project team invites those with a similar interest in promoting equitable learner pathways tobuild upon this work. The project team presented the Learner Credential Wallet to the W3C VC-EDU Task
Group on March 28, 2022.
For the broader ecosystem, the project has participated in initial dissemination efforts and plans tocontinue beyond the project end. To date, the project activities and outcomes have been disseminatedwith or have been scheduled to be disseminated with:● Groningen Declaration Network8 Annual Meeting: Muramatsu, B. & W.F. van Valkenburg. (2021,
November 10). Digital Credentials Enabling Mobility and Verification of Educational
Achievements. 2021 Groningen Declaration Network Annual Meeting. Ottawa, Canada.
● NERCOMP Annual Conference: Walsh, G. (2022, March 16). Digital Credentials Consortium: The
Learner Credential Wallet. NERCOMP Annual Conference. Providence, Rhode Island, UnitedStates.
● ASU+GSV Summit: Schmidt, P. (2022, April 4). The Future of Higher Education A.D. (Stage X
panel). ASU+GSV Summit, 13.0 Ed on the Edge.
● Jobs for the Future’s forthcoming “Verifiable Credentials Wallets for Learning and Employment
Records Market Scan”.
The project team has been invited to participate in a number of digital credentials ecosystem activities inwhich the team is contributing to the overall discussion of digital credentials, identifying interoperability
requirements and testing deployment of the project work in additional contexts. The project team is:● an invited participant in Jobs for the Future’s “VC EDU” Wallets Interoperability Working Group● participating in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s T3 Innovation Network Pilot Projects
8

The Groningen Declaration Network is an international, nonprofit and voluntary network that supports
academic and professional digital credential mobility so that citizens worldwide are able to consult andshare their authentic educational data autonomously, with the expectation of fair recognition. It does thisby bringing together stakeholders from across the global Digital Student Data Ecosystem. See
https://www.groningendeclaration.org/.

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Over the next year, the project team will explore dissemination opportunities with the annual IMS Global
Global Digital Credentials Summit, with annual and regional events of EDUCAUSE, and others where theuse and adoption of digital credentials are discussed. The project team welcomes the recommendationsof the Department.
The project team will also share this report with the Digital Credentials Consortium members, several ofwhom are in various stages of development with digital credentialing pilots at their respective institutions.
The DCC hosts quarterly community calls, highlighting work being done by DCC members and beyond. A
project update will be shared with this broader network of institutions during a call in Spring 2022.
Further updates on the work described here, as well as future activities, will be available from the Digital
Credentials Consortium Website, https://digitalcredentials.mit.edu/.

Reflections on the Open Source Student Wallet Project
1. Developing the Learner Credential Wallet specification and wallet were straightforward.
2. There is a lack of production-ready tools for issuing Verifiable Credential-compliant credentials
and technical assistance will likely be needed to facilitate adoption with Institutions of Higher
Education.
1. Developing the Learner Credential Wallet specification and wallet were straightforward.
Developing the specification for an open source student wallet and the wallet mobile application werestraightforward. The project team’s participation and leadership in the digital credentials standards
communities greatly facilitated the speed and ease in developing the specification. The project team waswell aware of prior work and the necessary elements for a student wallet from its national andinternational standards work. In addition, the project team shared drafts of the specification with thestandards community and incorporated their review and comments to improve the final specification.
Implementing the specification as iOS and Android applications was also straightforward. The open
source community, as well as Apple (iOS) and Google (Android), have provided tools and libraries toenable the development of mobile applications in general. In addition, the project team shepherds and isa significant contributor to the development of underlying libraries that support the features required forthe use of W3C Verifiable Credentials in education. These libraries support the open source student
wallet directly, as well as enable institutions to issue digital credentials. The specification defined therequirements that any student wallet must support at a minimum thereby defining the features for theminimum viable product. The project team implemented these must-have features, as well as a number of
additions to improve the user experience, in the initial release of the Learner Credential Wallet to theApple App and Google Play Stores.
The open source Learner Credential Wallet for iOS and Android provides a viable open-source alternative
to closed wallets to allow individuals to carry their verifiable credentials from any issuer whether that bean institution of higher education or a vendor providing a service to an issuing organization.
2. There is a lack of production-ready tools for issuing Verifiable Credential-compliant credentials
and technical assistance will likely be needed to facilitate adoption with Institutions of Higher
Education.

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Open Source Student Wallet Final Report

The development of the wallet was the primary focus of this project. However, to demonstrate the wallet’scapabilities, the project team worked with institutions of higher education to issue digital credentials that
could be added to the wallet.
The work with institutions of higher education can be described as: identifying potential deployment sites,
identifying and building trust with a team at the deployment site, and working with the deployment siteteam to issue credentials. Each of the elements of this approach are straightforward, but nonetheless tooktime to accomplish. As described elsewhere, the deployment site teams were enthusiastic and supportiveof the efforts and pleased to have been selected as a deployment site which greatly facilitated the work.
Nevertheless, it took about a month of elapsed time with each deployment site to work with theinstitution’s technical representatives to prepare for and initiate the deployment.
Similar to the wallet, the project team took a minimum viable product approach to issuing the digitalcredentials. The approach consisted of issuing digital credentials from a comma separated value file, oressentially a static list of learners and credentials. This list would then be used by a project provided,
self-contained application to issue the credentials. This application was provided as a Docker containerthat could be hosted anywhere after the modification of a single configuration file with a handful ofparameters. This application would use an authentication method (to match individuals and credentials)
already supported by each institution. For each site those authentication services needed to be
configured in coordination with the local technical representative. In the end, this approach proved
challenging with institutions that did not have prior need to integrate outside services with theirauthentication services. Providing general documentation alone was not sufficient—each institution had abespoke infrastructure and required a technical expert from the project team to work directly with theinstitution’s technical representative to install, configure and ultimately issue digital credentials.
In addition, there are a number of considerations beyond “issuing” that institutions will need to consider toprovide digital credentials to their students and graduates. These include:● A real time or batch integration of the “issuing” of digital credentials with their student information
system. (The project deployments used a one time data transfer to issue credentials.)● Development of processes and policies to regularly issue credentials.
● Managing the lifecycle of the digital credentials they issue. Institutions will need to addressquestions such as: In which situations does the institution revoke or update credentials? Do
credentials expire?
● Determining if blockchain-based credentials are appropriate. (Or if registry-based issuing issufficient.)
The project team’s experience with these initial deployments made it clear that some form of technicalassistance would likely be required with many institutions of higher education to issue digital credentials,
and that many would also need or want fully developed “products” to manage and issue digitalcredentials.
Putting together a team composed of the key personnel described above is a good starting point for
institutions interested in offering digital credentials to their students and graduates. Future work is needed
to better understand what is needed for integration with student information systems. Case studies andthe public sharing of process and policy documents will make it easier for the higher education community
to begin issuing digital credentials. Also, national or state policy could facilitate the rate at which
institutions offer a wide range of digital credentials beyond microcredentials to include high stakes
certifications and degrees.

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