Digital credentials in general, and micro-credentials more narrowly, are increasingly vital, trusted tools for higher education institutions as they adapt to the demands of life-long learners and the evolving labour market. Their implementation is proving to be advantageous in learning recognition, student mobility, employability, and institutional efficiency. The HRK’s (German Rectors Conference) MODUS Project, the BMBF (Federal Ministry of Education and Research) “Strategie der Wissenschaftsministerinnen und Wissenschaftsminister von Bund und Ländern (2024–2034), Internationalisierung der Hochschulen in Deutschland” and the recent HFD Delegation trip to Ireland are some examples that highlight the growing focus on micro-credential implementation. However, some learning providers still struggle with the issuing process. To understand the terminology and state of play at a European level, and how European Digital Credentials for Learning (EDC) can provide a framework for enhancing educational offerings for German Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), we contacted Ildiko Mazar and Kia Likitalo from the European Learning Model (ELM) Support team.

‘European Digital Micro-credentials’ while not an official initiative in itself, can be seen as a combination of European Digital Credentials for Learning (EDC) and a European Approach to Micro-credentials. These two initiatives are actions that stem from the European Skills Agenda for sustainable competitiveness, social fairness and resilience, a five-year plan, launched in 2021, aiming to help individuals and businesses to develop more and better skills and to put them to use.

The Skills Agenda is offering more than just strategic direction and insight. Its 12 actions also address the development of the tools necessary to empower people of all ages, whether employed, unemployed or inactive, to build skills throughout their lives and build a culture of life-long learning. A European Approach to micro-credentials aims to bring value to learning outcomes, empowering workers to up- and re-skill throughout their lives. In parallel, the action for a new Europass platform, including the EDC initiative, aims to provide tools for individuals to showcase their skills and communicate them to employers.

A ‘European Digital micro-credential’ emerges as a marriage of these two initiatives, combining both the aspect of valuing the learning outcomes acquired through shorter learning experiences with the possibility of using these credentials to showcase newly acquired skills to employers, making skills and qualifications more visible, portable, and aligned with the demands of the modern labour market.

Historically, the Europass platform was seen as a CV-building tool. However, the new Europass platform, launched in July 2020, is a lifelong learning and career management platform that goes well beyond the CV builder. It allows individuals to create an online portfolio of their learning and career, providing tools to showcase and reflect upon their skills.

It is in the context of this new Europass platform that the European Commission launched European Digital Credentials for Learning in October 2021. As part of Europass, EDCs can be stored within a user’s account, and directly integrated within the other Europass tools (profiles, job applications). They can also be used in a broader context.

Since 2021, as the EDC building and issuing tools have developed and matured, we have seen a growing uptake of the standard and services. Simultaneously, the level of implementers’ awareness and knowledge around digital and micro-credentials is also increasing, which is reflected in the type of support requests we receive, both in terms of information and of technical knowhow. While in 2021 our typical support query may have called for a simple demonstration of the EDC building and issuing flow, nowadays we focus more on moving small pilot projects into larger scale practices and addressing complex technical questions. The types of implementation are also changing, e.g. from single institution pilots to larger scale collaborations at the level of University Alliances or even initiatives on a national level. This evolution was clearly demonstrated last October by the 4 testimonials delivered at our 3 years of EDC webinar.

Key to this development and growth is the uptake of micro-credentials in recent years. Currently, the largest use-case for EDCs is micro-credentials, as learning providers around Europe tackle how to issue ‘European digital micro-credentials’.

There is a global consensus that micro-credentials can provide an effective mechanism to support lifelong learners. If implemented properly, micro-credentials can not only assist learning and career path management, but also serve as a tool to make our skills transparent and portable. In more simple terms, we can use micro-credentials to identify specific skills we need to thrive professionally, find and take courses to gain these specific skills, and then use the course completion certificates to prove the possession of these skills when we apply for jobs or further studies.

While a universal exhaustive definition of micro-credentials still doesn’t exist, the certification of small volumes of learning is not new. For example, a driving license and a language proficiency certificate are both records of learning outcomes, that prove our specific knowledge, skills and competences. Where the existing definitions may vary, are

• the specification of the size, i.e. minimum and/or maximum volume of the learning the micro-credential certifies;
• what they consider to be a micro-credential’s minimum content, e.g. the specification of the provider, actual volume of learning, related skills, etc.;
• the interpretation of who the owner of the micro-credential is, i.e. the issuer or credential recipient;
• whether a micro-credential is linked to assessment (against transparent and clearly defined criteria);
• if, and how, micro-credentials can be stacked into larger credentials;
• embedding micro-credentials in flexible learning pathways.

In some contexts we may also distinguish between digital and analogue micro-credentials. In the former case there are additional aspects to consider, namely the technical format, data structure and verifiability of the micro-credential.

The European micro-credential ecosystem engages a wide variety of European implementers, including vocational education and training providers, higher education institutions, university alliances, non-formal learning providers, recognition agencies, etc. To support these organisations’ diverse use cases, the Council Recommendation on a European approach to micro-credentials offers a distinctive, meanwhile flexible, definition of a micro-credential, namely:

Developed by the European Commission, the European Learning Model (ELM) is the first multilingual data model for learning, that offers strong and efficient interoperability and credential exchange. By providing a standardised approach to referring to, and describing, all aspects of learning, the ELM facilitates a shared understanding of concepts across educational domains, countries and organisations. In other words, thanks to ELM, when a German educator documents in a credential the precise subject area, and/or proficiency level of its learner’s achievement, a French employer will understand precisely how to interpret that in their local context, helping assess quickly and efficiently their job applicants’ suitability for the vacancy.

By design, the ELM integrates elements from a wide range of renowned European standards, such as the EQF Recommendation (European Qualifications Framework), the Europass Decision, the Diploma Supplement, etc. Furthermore, by also providing a technical infrastructure (available both as free web services and open-source) with tools to build, issue, store, verify and share ELM-based digital credentials, the European Commission offers a way to make use of all these existing standards for the provision of information on skills and learning. Simultaneously, the use of eIDAS (electronic IDentification, Authentication and trust Services) compliant electronic seals also makes these credentials more trustworthy. By applying its electronic seal (a digital equivalent of a rubber stamp) the issuing organisation can not only certify the authenticity and origin of the awarded credentials, but also ensure that any alteration to the sealed credential is immediately detected and flagged. Thus, EDCs help to build trust, comparability, and transparency of digital credentials.

As its complexity suggests, the ELM can be used in many ways by education and training providers. However, one of the most popular categories of implementation, especially in recent years, as mentioned above, has been micro-credentials. This, of course, is not surprising as micro-credentials, as the name suggests, are far easier to build than fully-fledged digital degrees or data-rich transcripts of records.

2024 was also the European Year of Skills, drawing a lot of attention to addressing skills gaps in the European Union and boost the EU skills strategy, which promises to help reskill people, particularly in areas of digital and green technology skills, often by engaging in small volumes of sharply focussed learning.

In fact, micro-credentials was such a prominent topic last year, that the European Commission organised a dedicated webinar on 24 May 2024, to help implementers adopt the standards of both ELM and the Council Recommendation. For this webinar, we have made available a range of support materials, including a detailed mapping document of all compulsory and recommended micro-credential elements from the Council Recommendation’s Annex 1 to data fields in the ELM and EDCs, and a walkthrough video on how to create standard compliant micro-credentials using the EDC Online Credential Builder.

Interest in digital (micro-) credentials is growing, demonstrated by the rising level of attendance at the public webinars organised by the European Commission. However, the actors are dispersed around Europe, and are often working in isolation, focusing on their own specific implementation of digital or micro-credentials. To help interested actors connect with one another, the European Commission has launched the European Learning Model Futurium group.

We encourage any interested stakeholder to join to connect with other implementers, discuss options for implementation, find additional resources, or provide feedback for future developments of ELM and EDC.

To keep the community up to date on the latest developments, the Commission is also maintaining a mailing list that people can subscribe to by contacting us at EMPL-ELM-SUPPORT@ec.europa.eu.

At the inbox end of this email address, our Support Team is always ready and willing to help and hear from implementers – do not hesitate to get in touch us whether for further information or to share your experience.

Ildiko Mazar works for the European Digital Credentials for Learning Implementation Support at NTT DATA.
She has over 25 years of professional experience in the field of open education and e-learning, and she is particularly passionate about informed and transparent knowledge, skill and competence recognition. In the past 5 years Ildiko Mazar has been focusing mostly on supporting the development and uptake of innovative solutions in the fields of competence development and digital (micro-)credentialing, more specifically the European Learning Model and European Digital Credentials for Learning. She is member of the CTDL Advisory Board, and one of the 3 Co-Chairs of the W3C Credentials Community Group’s VC-EDU task force (Verifiable Credentials for Education Task Force).

Kia Likitalo has built her career as a consultant for a variety of EU projects. Specialised in the Digital Labour Market, she focuses on the role of (micro)credentialling to support education and labour mobility and recognition. She is currently responsible for authoring technical documentation and communication materials and delivering these to a diverse group of stakeholders via online publications, presentations and webinars. She is providing support for the European Digital Credentials for Learning and Europass projects. With a strong background in user support and communications, she is a key contributor to the outreach of the European Learning Model and the lead facilitator of European Digital Credentials for Learning adoption. She works for the European Digital Credentials for Learning Implementation Support at NTT DATA.