Credential Engine Registry Policies
Minimum Data Policy
This Credential Minimum Data Policy defines the requirements for publishing to the Credential Registry. Use the Benchmark Models to improve transparency of information beyond this policy. The Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL) is the common language by which credentials and credentialing organizations are described. We don’t expect organizations to include information about each term in the language; however, some terms will be required, while others are recommended.
- See the full list of terms here: http://credreg.net/ctdl/terms. Any term not listed on this page is considered optional.
- Registry mapping guide page: http://credreg.net/ctdl/mapping/registry
The CTDL is a living language; as such, new terms and new profiles will continually be developed following the Credential Engine Namespace Policy and Significant Managed CTDL Specification Updates Process. These additions to the CTDL will be reviewed and categorized into "required, required if available, recommended, and optional" classifications. Accordingly, policies will be updated as necessary to reflect any changes in our Minimum Required Data policies.
Entities seeking to publish credential, competency framework, or quality assurance information as data to the Registry will be reviewed for the purpose of authentication.
Credential, competency framework and quality assurance information as data will be reviewed prior to being included in the Registry to ensure, to the extent possible, it is provided with the "required" and "required if available" data elements per Credential Engine’s terms of use and policies.
All entities should review Credential Engine’s "Terms of Use".
Policy Changes
3/25/2024
Updated policy terms for Course.
2/4/2024
Updated policy terms for Credential and its subclasses, primarily the new subclasses of Certificate.
10/23/2023
Updated policy terms for Occupation and Job
7/10/2023
Updated policy terms for Data Set Time Frame
6/2/2023
Updated policy terms for:
5/19/2023
Updated policy terms for new Credential Classes and added pending policy updates for the Support Service class.
6/24/2022
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Added Pending changes for Constraint
3/29/2022
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Added Pending changes for Collection Member
- Added Pending changes for Scheduled Offering
11/9/2021
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Added required and recommended properties for Organization to correspond to Credential Organization and QA Credential Organization
- Added pending required and recommended properties for Learning Program and Course to correspond to Learning Opportunity Profile
- Added pending required and recommended properties for Collection
- Added pending required and recommended properties for CredentialingAction and its subclasses
- Added pending required and recommended properties for TransferIntermediary
- Added (as a pending change) lifeCycleStatusType as a required property for:
2/24/2020
The policy has been updated to no longer require Date Created for Competencies.
12/3/2020
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- The Subject Webpage and Owned By properties are now Required instead of Recommended Benchmark for the Transfer Value Profile class.
- The Is Part Of property is now required for the Selection Component class.
- The Credit Value property is now universally Recommended Benchmark for the Learning Opportunity Profile class.
- The Assesses property is now Recommended Benchmark for the Assessment Profile class.
- For the following classes, the Maintenance Process and Revocation Process properties are now Recommended Benchmark:
- For the following classes, the Image property is now Recommended Benchmark:
- For the following classes, the Financial Assistance property is now Recommended Benchmark:
- Certification
- License
- Certificate
- Degree
- Associate Degree
- Bachelor Degree
- Master Degree
- Doctoral Degree
- Research Doctorate
- Professional Doctorate
- Apprenticeship Certificate
- Journeyman Certificate
- Master Certificate
- For the following classes, the Holders, Employment Outcome, and Earnings properties are now Recommended Benchmark:
- Certification
- License
- Badge
- Digital Badge
- Open Badge
- Certificate
- Degree
- Associate Degree
- Bachelor Degree
- Master Degree
- Doctoral Degree
- Research Doctorate
- Professional Doctorate
- Apprenticeship Certificate
- Journeyman Certificate
- Master Certificate
- The following properties are now Recommended Benchmark for the Assessment Profile and Learning Opportunity Profile classes:
- Date Effective
- Keyword
- Occupation Type
- Industry Type
- Audience Level Type
- Estimated Cost
- Estimated Duration
- Jurisdiction
- Financial Assistance
- Requires
- Recommends
- Advanced Standing From
- Preparation From
- Is Required For
- Is Recommended For
- Is Advanced Standing For
- Is Preparation For
- Accredited By
- Approved By
- Recognized By
- Regulated By
11/9/2020
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Made Description, Subject Webpage, and Source Data recommended instead of required for the subclasses of Pathway Component.
11/4/2020
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Added required and recommended properties for Occupation
- Added required and recommended properties for Job
- Added required and recommended properties for Work Role
- Added required and recommended properties for Task
9/24/2020
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- No longer require Date Created or Source for Concept Schemes, as this data may not always be available.
- No longer require Date Created for Competency Frameworks, as this data may not always be available.
8/3/2020
The policy has been updated to accommodate the addition of the Selection Component class, which requires only Name, Has Condition, and CTID. It also recommends Description, Subject webpage, and/or Source Data.
6/1/2020
The policy has been updated with the following changes:
- Added required and recommended properties for Financial Assistance Profile
- Added required and recommended properties for Pathway Set
- Added required and recommended properties for Pathway
- Added required and recommended properties for the Pathway Component subclasses
- Added required properties for Component Condition
5/15/2020
The policy has been updated with several pending additions:
- Course Component now recommends Credit Value
- Financial Assistance Profile now requires Name and at least one of: Description, Subject Webpage, and/or Financial Assistance Type
- Financial Assistance Profile now recommends Financial Assistance Value
- Credential, Assessment Profile, and Learning Opportunity Profile now recommend Financial Assistance
In addition, Completion Certificate has been added with the same requirements and recommendations as the other credential types.
4/21/2020
The policy has been updated with several pending additions related to the Pathway class and its related classes. Use the filters at the bottom of the page to show pending policy changes to see them. These changes will, when made official, indicate which properties are required and recommended for classes related to pathways.
3/30/2020
In order to follow changes to the CTDL-ASN, the policy was adjusted to reflect the removal of ceasn:inLanguage from ceasn:Competency. This property was not needed because all language-dependent strings that are a part of this class utilize rdf:langString
.
8/19/2019
In order to follow changes to the CTDL, the policy was adjusted to reflect the change from now-deprecated properties for indicating credit value information to the new combination of ceterms:creditValue and schema:QuantitativeValue. These changes affect ceterms:AssessmentProfile and ceterms:LearningOpportunityProfile.
4/30/2019
In concert with the April 2019 CTDL/CTDL-ASN Release, the Credential Engine Registry policy has been updated with additional required and recommended benchmark terms for the Competency Framework, Competency, Concept Scheme, and Concept classes.
4/2/2019
The Credential Engine Registry policy has been updated to reflect the use of "Recommended Benchmark", which combines and replaces the former "Required if Available" and "Recommended" policies.
10/15/2018
In order to properly convey the language of the material described by data in the Registry, the ceterms:inLanguage property was made required for the Credential (and subclasses), Assessment Profile, and Learning Opportunity Profile classes.
3/9/2018
Due to exigent circumstances (detection of an error), we have changed "ceterms:targetNodeName" from Required to Required if Available in the Credential Alignment Object class.
11/16/2017
In order for a user or downstream application looking at an assessment or learning opportunity to be able to find the organization that owns or offers it, we moved the "ceterms:ownedBy" and "ceterms:offeredBy" properties from Recommended to Required for Assessments and Learning Opportunities. Publishers must now provide at least one of these pieces of data. These circumstances were deemed exigent and the changes made immediately.
Definitions
The following terms are used to classify properties for each of the classes below:
- Required
- These terms must be included to publish to the Registry.
- Recommended Benchmark
- These terms are best practices to publish information to the Registry. In part, they are based on the type of credential. Recommended Benchmarks are valuable to employers, students, application developers, state agencies, and others.
- Optional
- These terms are optional for publishing to the Registry, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
Each section below lists the type of property, the CTDL property or properties represented by that type, and a brief description of the purpose served by that property or set of properties.
Organization Classes
Organization
An entity such as an association, company, corporation, club, co-operative, labor union etc.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.
Optional
These terms are also available, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
Credential Organization
Organization that plays one or more key roles in the lifecycle of a credential.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.
Optional
These terms are also available, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
Quality Assurance Organization
Quality assurance organization that plays one or more key roles in the lifecycle of a credential, learning program, or assessment.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.
Optional
These terms are also available, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
Credential Classes
Credential
Qualification, achievement, personal or organizational quality, or aspect of an identity typically used to indicate suitability.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.
This property is recommended benchmark for 3 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 13 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is recommended benchmark for 2 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
Optional
These terms are also available, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
This property is optional for 28 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 18 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
This property is optional for 29 of the 31 subclasses of Credential:
Common Credential Requirements
Assessment Profile
Entity that describes the key characteristics of an assessment for a credential.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.
Optional
These terms are also available, but may only be useful in some circumstances.
Learning Opportunity Profile
Entity describing an educational or training opportunity.
Required
These terms must be included to publish to the registry. If you do not include information for these descriptors, you will get an error.
Recommended Benchmark
These terms are not required, but is a best practice to include them in order to improve transparency and connections.