First draft of the Learning Passport
No common European format exists for describing qualifications and their learning outcomes: this hinders their comparability. We aim to create a standard format for documenting micro-credentials in terms of tokens such as ECTS using existing recognition tools and create a full-system for issuing, verifying and sharing micro-credentials, including methods and technology.
The first draft of the Learning Passport is based on a specific and limited-scale use-case for micro-credentials and it uses a specific set of meta-data extended from the ESCO ontology concept.
ESCO, a Europe-wide initiative, is the multilingual classification of skills, competencies, qualifications and occupations. It identifies and categorizes all of those which are relevant for the EU labour market and education and training, in 25 European languages. The system provides occupational profiles showing the relationships between occupations, skills, competences and qualifications – an ontology, taxonomy or a classification.
By introducing a standard terminology for occupations, skills, competences and qualifications, ESCO helps education and training systems and the labour market to better identify and manage the availability of required skills, competences and qualifications (Orlic, Crnko, Camillieri 2018).
In line with the ESCO mentality, the OEPass Learning Passport consists of information identifying the
- awarding body (name, public key, etc.),
- educational credential (e.g. title, definition, ECTS, ways to acquire),
- credential type (title, definition, credit system issuer, etc.),
- holder of the educational credential and their accomplishment (name, grade, credits awarded, student identification number, etc.), and
- evidence (release date, modification date, etc.).
The final Learning Passport version will be uploaded here, after internal tests and a round of external pilots.