(͡o‿O͡)

Solving Credential Language Barriers

In the rapidly evolving world of digital credentials, interoperability remains a significant challenge. Multiple formats such as; Open Badges, ELM, and mDL compete for space, each with its own complexities. While the ideal future is one where everyone “speaks” the same credential language, that vision is still distant, if not unattainable. Enter the Credential Converter, a practical solution for bridging the gap between different credential formats and their ecosystems, paving the way for seamless digital credential exchange.

Why It Matters

The digital credential ecosystem has long been fragmented. The lack of interoperability means credentials often cannot be exchanged, verified, or recognized across different platforms or countries. This fragmentation hinders adoption and limits the potential of digital credentials.

Investing more resources into this problem isn’t sustainable, especially given the sensitive nature of credential data and the risks of incorrect conversions. What’s needed is a reliable, standardized approach.

Organizations behind various digital credential standards have yet to prioritize interoperability beyond their own ecosystems, making universally compatible standards seem improbable. The alternative? Translation and conversion, enabling any party to understand and use different credentialing formats. This is precisely what the Credential Converter delivers.

Key Use Cases

Here are some scenarios that demonstrate the utility of the Credential Converter: 

• Universal Communication: A U.S. citizen driving in the Netherlands on vacation can show their mobile driving license (mDL) when asked for, even though Dutch systems only work with Verified Credentials.

• Version Updates: Currently there are a lot of OpenBadges 2.0 (OB) credentials already issued, yet we’re already at open badges 3.0. What to do? Keep expanding systems with increasing legacy problems? Simply add all your issued credentials in the Credential Converter and re-issue them again.

• Future-Readiness: Who knows what new standards, versions and formats the future will bring? Built agnostically and working with anything with a Json schema, this tool will remain perfectly suitable to tackle future standards and formats.

• Data interpretation: All the above is heavily focused on internationally known credential standards, but we can look beyond. Many in-house needs are actually to extract data from credentials in a reliable manner, meaning to convert data from a credential, or any input in json for that matter, to the data you need. This can be done with custom code yourself, but imagine dropping that burden and vulnerability of having to write custom code for each new standard and version and specifying a mapping to your needed data only once.

Core Features

The Credential Converter offers robust capabilities, including:

• Input agnostic: Any input file in json format will work

• Output agnostic: any data format is supported that has a JSON Schema description

• DESM support: works with any mapping file from DESM in .csv format

• Full manual control: build from scratch or customize any mapping through the Command Line Interface 

• Build your own mappings: by saving all manual customization to your own mapping file from scratch or on top of an existing mapping file, usable in the next execution.

• Headless/automated execution: by calling the program only with command line arguments

• Automated batch conversion: taking directories as input and as output destination

• Credential building: the tool provides basic credential building functionalities to enter data into the output file which didn’t previously exist in the input file.

• Open-Source Collaboration: Apache 2.0 licensed as this tool benefits from a broad community of innovators, ensuring transparency and collective growth.

A Glimpse of How It Works

The above features boil down to the following user experience:

1. Guided Experience: A simple interface walks you through importing the needed files, the manual mapping progress and checking output validity 

2. Effortless Automation: For those looking to streamline workflows, the Credential Converter can run behind the scenes and convert credentials automatically with only one simple command line call to make, no manual intervention required.

3. Adaptable Output: Whether you need to create valid credentials in another format or simply extract specific information, the tool offers both standard and tailor-made solutions.

Beyond Credential Conversions

Digital credentials are engineered to remain trustworthy and tamper-proof. When transforming credentials between formats, organizations often face the challenge of retaining their validity. The Credential Converter is ready to incorporate a “re-signing” feature, ensuring that translated credentials are fully recognized and verifiable.

Moreover, by enhancing its capabilities as a credential “interpreter”, organizations can use it to extract only the data they need, similar to how an image viewer displays a picture regardless of file format. This opens doors to efficient data management, analytics, and new service offerings.

Expanding possibilities

The Credential Converter has been a collaborative effort from Impierce Technologies, SURF, DESM and DC4EU (Digital Credentials for Europe). The Credential Converter simplifies conversion of different digital credentials formats and this is just the beginning.

Envisioned areas for open-source collaboration include:

• Expanding Mappings: Build a robust library of approved and recognized mappings to address the fragmented credential universe.

• Improving Mapping Functionalities: Enhance the tool by adding more mapping types and credential-building options to minimize data loss as much as possible.

• User-Centric Enhancements: Collaborate on improving user experiences and interfaces, making the tool accessible and user-friendly for everyone in your organization.

• Credential Re-Signing: Since digital credentials are designed to be tamper-proof, any conversion currently yields valid data but not a valid credential. We plan to develop a “re-signing” feature to ensure authenticity.

• Data Interpretation: Further develop the tool’s data interpretation capabilities. This includes streamlining workflows and removing the need for a JSON schema for outputs, allowing users to quickly create mapping files according to their data needs. Mapping files for one specific credential standard can then be enhanced for compatibility with any other standard supported by the tool.

Conclusion

The Credential Converter represents a significant step forward in addressing the interoperability challenges of digital credentials. By simplifying conversion, enabling seamless communication between formats, and preparing for future standards, this tool ensures organizations can focus on innovation rather than technical obstacles. For a more technical understanding of the Credential Converter please visit our GitHub repository.