Advancing Cross-Border Credential Recognition: Insights from the EBSI-CAN Stakeholder Event

On 26th  March 2024, stakeholders from Canada and the EU discussed the complexities of cross-border credential recognition within the EBSI-CAN project. The discussion focused on the challenges and innovative solutions integral to aligning European and Canadian systems potentially involved in cross-border verification of education credentials, using the European Blockhain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) as the pilot system. The discussion highlighted a number of key factors that need to be addressed by the project:

Navigating Legal Frameworks and Governance Models

The EBSI-CAN project addresses issues such as of legal frameworks, regional contexts, governance models, and semantic technologies. While acknowledging existing regulations like EU’s new eIDAS and Canada’s Pan-Canadian Trust Framework, participants underscored the need to understand their implications for the practical deployment of technologies such as EBSI. The project has to clearly map similarities and differences between these frameworks. Regional contexts need to be deconstructed and understood to enable cross-border credential recognition. There is a need for a pragmatic approach if EBSI is to be deployed in some Canadian contexts. The challenge is to foster convergence without eliminating national/regional variations. These are key legal/policy challenges. It may be easier to address these by exploring the possibility of some high-profile pilots / sandboxes.

Interoperability: A Nexus of Trust and Technicalities

Interoperability is a critical success factor for the applicability of EBSI in education contexts, both in the EU and Canada. There are a spectrum of factors beyond technical interoperability if EBSI is to secure buy-in from target stakeholders in the Canadian education sector. By understanding and synergy among legal frameworks, governance structures, and technological advancements, EBSI-CAN needs to identify if seamless cross-border operations can be facilitated by existing initiatives, such as MyCreds in Canada. One of the pivotal discussions centered on the challenge of ensuring interoperability between European and Canadian credential systems. Beyond mere formatting of credentials and QA regimes, it lies in harmonizing underlying trust models. Participants identified the need for a mechanism facilitating mutual recognition, suggesting a delegation-based solution. This involves enabling the European system to verify Canadian credentials by querying their legitimacy and validity, thus bridging the trust gap effectively. Crucially, enriching credentials with universally understood information, such as diploma supplements, emerged as a pragmatic approach to streamline verification processes and ensure compliance with specific standards like the Lisbon Convention.

Bridging Regulatory Variations

Navigating the regulatory landscapes of Europe and Canada  presents a formidable challenge. While recognising disparities, stakeholders emphasised the importance of leveraging existing frameworks and partnerships to foster alignment rather than imposing uniformity. A comparative analysis with the US framework was proposed, offering insights into potential avenues for convergence while respecting regional nuances. EBSI has been developed with the objective of mirroring, as opposed to changing, established regulatory and QA regimes in Europe. For EBSI to be deployed in Canada, there needs to be a more nuanced understanding of existing frameworks in Canada and pragmatic collaboration among stakeholders who see value to their own business models to consider participation.

Semantic Interoperability: Beyond Technical Transfer

Acknowledging the pivotal role of university associations and partnerships, participants underscored the need for flexible data models capable of accommodating the evolving landscape of higher education curricula. Embracing Linked Open Data principles emerged as a potential strategy to imbue credentials with contextual information, ensuring their meaningful interpretation across borders. The focus has to shift from mere data transfer to fostering mutual understanding underlining the holistic approach championed by the EBSI-CAN project.

Conclusions

The EBSI-CAN project has the potential to provide added value to citizens in the EU and Canada travelling from one region to another, and where they need to secure prompt, seamless, cost-effective verification of credentials. The following issues need to be considered by the project team:

• Variations in governance models – Beyond just the laws/regulations themselves, there are likely differences in the governance models and processes around digital credentials between the EU and Canadian systems that need to be bridged.
• Respecting regional nuances – While seeking alignment, there has to be a focus on workable solutions rather than imposing rigid uniformity in technical solutions.
• Learning from other frameworks – Determine what can be learned from frameworks like the one in the US for possible insights into potential areas of convergence while still respecting the unique contexts of the EU and Canada.
• Pragmatic collaborations needed – Look at existing initiatives such as MyCreds-ARUCC to determine if a pragmatic collaboration with EBSI can add value to stakeholders in specific Canadian education contexts (regional, geographic etc.)

 

Watch the discussion here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_niXYzsAdc