Understanding the Digital Signature Lawfulness for Higher Education in European Union

How to eSign a document: digital signature lawfulness for Higher Education in European Union

good morning everyone my name is violentz i am the commission spokesperson for financial economic and social affairs many thanks for tuning in to today's launch event on the european digital credentials for learning and a very warm welcome to all the speakers and the many commission colleagues for making this event possible we are very happy to see such great interest with over 1 000 people joining us from all over europe and the rest of the world people with different backgrounds in education and training or labor market organization and also technical experts in digital credentialing and blockchain we have a great agenda of speakers lined up for you who each will offer you a different perspective on the instrument commissioner for jobs and social rights nikola schmidt will set the scene and deliver a welcome address on european digital credentials and the eu skills agenda the university of split is one of the universities piloting the use of the european digital credentials for learning i will be interviewing professor mili j lalia who will share the university's first-hand experience with the tool and the future of education and training in member states after a short health break allison crabb head of the skills agenda unit at dg employment will moderate testimonials and comments from a wide variety of users and stakeholders kun nomden team leader within alison's unit will present today's closing remarks before we get started some housekeeping rules all mics and cameras will be switched off except for the speakers you are invited to write your questions in the chat my colleagues will try and answer them in real time as much as possible a summary of today's event will be posted on the dg employment website and on the europass platform i now have the pleasure of giving the floor to commissioner schmidt he will be joining us via zoom in a few seconds and as i said before he will be talking about the eu digital credentials learning and the eu skills agenda commissioner schmidt you have the floor good morning good morning ladies and gentlemen well let me start by welcoming everyone to the launch event on the european digital credentials for learning and it is great to see that so many of you i heard that more than 1 000 people have joined us today which shows the interest you all have in this european digital credentials as you are all aware skills are high priority for the commission and you have mentioned our skills agenda the skills packed the different initiatives we took also on promoting strengthening developing uh vocational training climate change demographic shifts and the digital transition have a profound impact on the skills needed to be successful in today's and tomorrow's world and the covet 19 pandemic has even further accelerated the digital transition we are now recovering from the socioeconomic impact the pandemic has had and as a fundamental element of the recovery we are heavily investing in the skills of people because skills underpin not only competitiveness but also inclusiveness at the porto summit european leaders endorsed the ambitious target for 2030 set by the european pillar of social rights action plan that every year 60 percent of adults should participate in learning almost twice twice the current level the member states national recovery plans put a strong emphasis on investing in skilling their citizens this is one of the most fundamental ways we will achieve a sustainable recovery an inclusive recovery we are not going back to the pre-pandemic labor market we have to move forward because we do not just accept technological uh change we want to shape also what technology allows us to do to get there we need a skills revolution and the commission is working hard to support the paradigm shift on skills policies across europe our european skills agenda is our strategy for putting the priority into action to help people and business ident and businesses identify the skills needed in a fast-changing labor market labor market sorry as part of the skills agenda the commission will present two more initiatives before the end of the year to further develop an enabling environment for individuals to upskill and reskin the individual learning accounts to empower and facilitate adults to participate in training and the european approach to micro credentials these can play a crucial role in making lifelong learning a reality thanks to their targeted focus flexibility and short duration our priority is to make sure that more adults can engage in up and riskily precisely to achieve the 60 targets i also want to say that we we have a very clear target for women we have to encourage more women especially in the digital economy where we have a digital divide not only by age but also by gender it is equally crucial that we can now demonstrate that skills have gained a simple and secure way and this is what we are working on now with the digital credentials this will help employers and education and training providers quickly confirm people's fitness for jobs and further studies today we are officially launching the rollout of the european digital credentials for learning a european-wide standard format for digital diplomas and certificates signed the issuing institutions electronic c with it individuals can individuals can easily share their learning achievements in a secure and digital way when applying for a job or for further studies or training in simple terms diplomas and other learning achievements are making their way into the digital world with our europas platform we also have the ideal european tool to receive and safely store digital credentials where do we stand today we have successfully piloted it in 18 european countries and more than 60 organizations have joined the early adopters program today we will hear some examples of how european digital credentials credentials for learning work in practice and i hope this will motivate all other member states to join finally we are intensifying cooperation with the european blockchain service infrastructure we can truly say that digital credentialing is a paradigm shift in the way that learning achievements are provided we are moving them to the digital world which is where they belong i hope that today's launch event will inspire you to explore how the european digital credentials for learning can help in your own sphere as by the way we have established a very ambitious target 80 of all europeans should have solid digital skills by 2030. now i invite you to spread the word and to work for the promotion of this european digital credentials for learning thank you many thanks commissioner schmidt for this welcome address we will now be showing a video from the university of split which is one of the universities piloting the use of the european digital credentials for learning then i will have the pleasure to interview professor miley gelalia on the tool and the future of education and training in member states mille is an expert in the education sector including digitalization in higher education he is in charge of the testing and implementation of the european digital credentials for learning at the university of split and he also leads the automatic recognition of qualifications for the european university of the seas let's now watch the video skills [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] yes is now over to you yes good morning good morning to everybody i'm very happy to be here with you great thank you so much so much for being here so let me start with my first question can you tell us more about the background of the use of the european digital credentials for learning at the university of split what do you see as the main benefits of the european digital credentials for learning yeah and thank you for this question well firstly the idea of involving the university of splits in piloting firstly and implementation of the european digital credentials for learning infrastructure occurred at the time of very clear interest of our rector as you be able to see from the video and also the entire government of the university of split to strengthen the internationalization also relevance and the quality of our higher education programs and also scientific research so about three years ago in 2018 when everything started at the european level and after attending a very motivating i want to say presentation of the full plan of the new europa's framework with the focus on the digital sign credentials we have really here at the university of split decided to take this opportunity to participate in the piloting of this idea and a year later in 2019 in cooperation with our partners partner universities from spain france germany poland and malta we incorporated this idea into our erasmus plus project the european university of the seas and now we are alliance and within that project we have linked also this idea european digital credentials for learning with other relevant european initiatives in high education for example sure quality assurance but also automatic recognition of our qualifications also micro credentials joint study programs also lifelong learning and also europe european students student cards and you have asked also about the benefits of using this european digital credentials for learning well i would say that as we were able to hear it is it comes from the fast and reliable insurance of diplomas but also any other credentials their view storage also and easy very easy sharing with employers and any other partner stakeholders but also i mean very important benefit for us at the university of split but also i would say any other universities the benefit is related to the potential of the european digital credentials for learning in the future to be i mean very soon to be linked clearly to the quality assurance mechanisms in the european higher education area here i mean basically to the database of external quality assurance results so called decor so we are very convinced that with a good preparation and care for combination with other european instruments related of course to education here i mean european quality assurance register for higher education but also european qualifications framework for lifelong learning also european skills competencies occupation qualifications occupations taxonomy this platform european digital credentials for learning can really significantly increase the transparency of our qualifications but also any other kind of learning activities of our students individuals and institutions also we think it brings better understanding significantly of course reducing administration for all stakeholders but also easily detecting frauds enhance digitalization of the society of the entire society and lifelong learning etc and finally for high-education institutions such as university especially for us european universities for example european uh university of the series the european digital credentials for learning bring an advantage of facilitating of course student mobility which is important for european universities building very flexible mode center learning enhancing lifelong learning making as i said stronger links to enterpreneurs and also links better links to research innovation and education and what have you been doing so far with european digital credentials for learning at your university yeah thank you so far uh well we have built uh several hundreds clearly 2 000 individual certificates uh in the the european digital credential for learning uh that was used up to now within our informal and non-formal activities such as workshops and trainings but also right now i mean within this month we have just started issuing really first bachelor and master diplomas at our university uh using this system and particularly for this case as a first qualifications the issuing bachelors and masters in health sector nursing radiologic technology and physiotherapy and further we aim of course to gradually to increase uh to issue diplomas in other fields any disciplines at the uni you know at the university of split for any cycle bologna process cycle and also in addition we have interests to use esco taxonomy fully to describe our learning outcomes so it means knowledge skills and competencies right now it is not so the case but for non-formal informal years but not for our diplomas how have you used the european digital credentials for learning in the context of the european university of the seas yes as about the alliance our alliance european university of the seas is very important so we are right now alliance of six universities and this european digital credentials for learning is a part of the project i mean the first project but also part of our initiatives for the future and we are widening this implementation to our partners partner universities within the alliance and important element in the implementation of the european digital credentials for learning is the establishment of a link with the database of external quality assurance results within the anco and equip why this is very important to use this link for the real mutual automatic recognition of qualifications within the european universities but also later wider to other universities and our stakeholders the labor market and others mili as a last question what is your main recommendation to other potential users of the european digital credentials for learning thank you for the question well after you see after three years of preparation so it means after basic preparation and the support real support by experts at the european level the use of this framework is quite simple and stable so now we are quite happy uh at the stage where we are and the framework for the european digital credentials for any has a relevant security as you will be able to see and portability of credentials between users it's so easy and there are also huge potentials which is very important for us i would also share to other colleagues for further design and use of digital credentials credentials and very wide use including other segments of high education it doesn't mean only education but also research activities and even third mission of the universities and our expectations at the university have been met at a very very high level thus we would really and may personally recommend to other potential users our colleagues at the universities but any other education institutions to use european digital credentials for learning they could start for example if they are very at the beginning for example by testing of issuing very simple credentials such as certification certificates on participation at various non-formal informal events voluntary activities and similar and additional benefit can be obtained also by using esco european skills competencies qualifications occupations taxonomy for very transparent presentation of any kind of achievements so i'm really very happy to share our expertise to to other colleagues thank you very much for this interview mili thank you thank you thank you and have a nice day so now it is time for a five minute health break we will welcome you back in the studio as from 11 30. ladies and gentlemen welcome back after this short break we are going to hear now from a number of users of european digital credentials for learning who are going to showcase the experiences of their own institutions as in the previous session we will be using the zoom chat so if you have comments or questions please feel free to write in that chat we will endeavor to reply directly and we'll also be making a summary of questions and answers for later publication so let's pass directly now to the showcases first of all i would like to welcome henry perkalinen henry you are associate professor of information and knowledge management at the university of tampere welcome to you you represent the european consortium of innovative universities where you're responsible for micro-credential activities and we know that you're also implementing a pilot project on digital credentialing in the european blockchain services infrastructure project microblog so the floor is yours henry to tell us about your experiences thank you thank you very much and help everyone on my behalf as well so i hope you can see the slides that i've been sharing uh i'm not sure if they're visible to you at you hopefully they are uh yeah while you're setting up the slides so uh yeah as installed i work in tampere university but i also represent the eca university and here in this short testing testimonial i'm mainly gonna focus on our eca university journey towards digital credentials so next slide please so the european consortium of innovative universities is stands for eciu and uh we particularly bring together teachers learners researchers from all around europe to cooperate with cities and businesses to solve real life challenges and here is the standing point to the presentation so next slide please we particularly have two kinds of learning offerings in easter university they relate to firstly to challenge-based learning so these are often extracurricular learning activities where learners form teams around europe to actually work together with researchers and also businesses cities to solve some of these grand challenges in the societies today and these actually these learning offerings might not come from our study programs they might not carry ects credits whereas on on the other hand we also have a range of micro models or standard modules that actually exist in the study programs of partner institutions and these are of course quite different because they have particular learning outcomes that are being assessed they vary from different sizes from one to three ects or standard modules up to eight ects and they are run in different types of modes and in next slide i'll give the overall high level concept of digital credentials which means that we in eca university are piloting with new ways to issue store and manage digital credentials that are proofs of the learning coming from these different types of non-formal and formal learning activities and on top of that we also are creating different types of services personalized recommendations for learners on top of these digital credentials and on the next slide uh some of the lessons learned so far is that we have done quite a wide evaluation of different types of digital credential tool and platform reviews in eci university and also piloted a range of solutions and this is where we have found easy cl to be an extremely ambitious but also helpful tool because it enables us also to pilot co-create with partners find out what actually works in practice so in the lessons learned we really emphasize that we need to have different types of proofs of learning coming from the partner institutions if you can go still one one slide back uh we also need to reflect on um the interoperability of the digital credentialing tools and here the common data models for example that edcl offers is really really handy to allow portability of different types of micro credentials in general to allow stackability but also interoperability between open source platforms but also some business and proprietary platforms that are out there and we also have recognized that students expect value from digital credentials as we as we all know and here one interesting perspective is whether we contain some of the proofs of the that the learner has achieved over the past years or do we look at the digital credentials as means to provides proof of learning for a lifespan also for lifelong learning and this is something that we are really interested about and we have also identified that higher education institutions need really further insights on technical administrative requirements for issuing storing and verifying digital credentials and this is where easter university partners on onboarded to the edcl early adopter program are looking forward together in co-creating practices around digital credentials but really to learn about adoption and use of uh digital credentials in in europe and finally in the next slide uh we try to always in easier university to reflect on the best practices and our insights so far so we have annual white papers and we're currently working on the next iterations for early early next year where you hopefully can also read some of the our pathways towards digital credentials uh thanks for your interest and have a wonderful opening event thank you thank you henry for getting the ball rolling in this panel of showcases for sharing your experience we're now going to hear a video message from john phelan john is the chief product officer at highland credentials highland is an american company that provides the technology to issue official records using blockchain and in his message john will explain what highland has been doing with european digital credentials for learning hi i'm john phelan the chief product officer for highland and proud supporter of the europass digital credentials interoperability initiative i'm excited to be able to share with each of you some incredible and critical technology that is available today that helps all of us on our journey to a pure digital future i'd like to take a moment to introduce you to highland highland is a leading content services provider recognized by gartner as a leader for the last 11 years and counting we are 4 200 employees strong with over 16 000 active customers utilizing our technology every day organizationally our focus is clear helping organizations manage their content and the processes that surround them we have a long history of working with organizations to help them on their digital transformation journey we do this every day around the globe and specifically here in europe where we have over 400 people and 13 offices dedicated to serving our customer needs our work with the digital credentials and europass digital credentials specifically fits squarely into the type of work that we do every day in fact we partnered with malta's ministry of education and have been issuing digital credentials since 2018. we will talk more about malta in a few minutes the challenges faced as we transition to a digital future are well known to start we all know that physical verification of credentials is both time-consuming and error-prone for both the issuers and recipients in the digital world we have to determine how we trust those documents fortunately we're at a point in time where we can solve for all of these business problems issuing digital credentials is just not enough we need a complete ecosystem that makes it easy for issuers and recipients to trust and frankly speak the same language when doing so organizations like europass and their europass digital credentials interoperability standard are critical to success by bringing together issuers and recipients who utilize a common interoperability framework we can improve not only the efficiency of the process but also the security at the same time we certainly appreciate the leadership that edci brings to this space i'd like to get back to our partners in malta we have partnered with malta on the issuance of digital credentials since 2018. malta has been a thought leader on the use of digital credentials today over 50 entities issued digital credentials across malta 85 of those solutions have been focused in higher education institutes issuing transcripts and diplomas across the country malta has already extended beyond higher education into other critical areas where trust is so important last year malta became the first country to issue digital warrants for all of its notaries going back to 1957. on average each of these digital warrants was viewed and verified 42 times imagine the time savings alone for both the issuer and recipient just from this single use case on top of the verification advantages the issuers of these digital warrants have the ability to invalidate the credential at a moment's notice unlike the paper world where you can present a revoked credential to someone a digital verification will enable you to know instantly whether the credential is valid or not we have been working with malta to ensure that their solutions are ready for edci and will be issuing edci compliant credentials in the near future i'd like to close today with a thanks to europass digital credentials team for their partnership in driving this interoperability standard forward and of course technology needs to solve a problem so i have to thank our partners at malta's ministry of education for their partnership over the years finally thanks to everyone who participates in this ecosystem as we execute together with solid interoperability standards we can truly transform the future thanks everyone [Music] thank you john and now let's hear from our next speaker who's jessica gramp jessica is manager of the moodle platform the moodle platform is a free and open source learning management system used for blended learning distance education and other e-learning projects in schools universities the workplace and beyond in this video she explains how moodle is using the standards of the european digital credentials for learning hello i'm jessica grant the manager of moodle academy and i'm going to speak to you about how we would like to implement the european digital credentials for learning within the moodle academy and more broadly within the moodle learning management system or lms so most of you probably already know of moodle it's an open source learning management system that's used worldwide in universities colleges schools and workplaces and the moodle mission is to empower educators to improve our world and that's where moodle academy comes in so what is moodle academy it's one of the services available to support the use of moodle lms so we sit alongside and work closely with the moodle partners known as certified service providers and moodlecloud where you can host a moodle site we offer free self-paced courses for educators administrators and developers and we recently launched in mid-august 2021 we offer regular webinars which are connected to the courses badges upon completion certificates for programs and longer courses and content is open and can be reused by others it helps people prepare for mec we have three learning pathways our educator pathway is for teachers university lecturers trainers and workplaces and anyone who teaches or is an instructional designer using moodle our administrator pathway is for those who manage a moodle lms installation or moodle cloud site and are responsible for site administration and our developer pathway is for php developers to get familiar with the entire moodle development environment the educator pathway leads to the moodle educator certification mec is a certification program for experienced moodle educators and is currently translated in 10 languages and so far over 200 certificates have been awarded worldwide since may 2020 mec has been built on the basis of the european framework for the digital competence of educators or digicomp edu and digi comp edu is organized in six areas with 22 competences which have been reflected in the six courses for the mec the mec certificate displays all 22 competences and six badges one for each course within the program our future plans for moodle academy include a full program of self-paced courses within each learning pathway with translations into many languages and two more gold standard certificates one for administrators and one for developers we also plan to integrate with the european digital credentials for learning which is why we're here today so we joined the early adopters program just recently and a few weeks ago we met for the first time with representatives from three universities within the european consortium of innovative universities who are also in the early adopters program we discussed developing a specification for implementing european digital credentials for learning within moodle and created a public tracker ticket on the moodle tracker so you can sign up for a free account at tracker.moodle.org follow this discussions about this project and tell us if you have similar plans or what your requirements are and let us know if you'd like to get involved there are two ways we are discussing integrating the european digital credentials for learning into moodle and that's by firstly issuing credentials so moodle certificates and badges appear in the viewer and secondly allowing moodle users to view all their credentials within moodle so please do sign up to the moodle tracker and follow this ticket if you're interested in collaborating on a solution we expect the following benefits from this integration to include moodle academy community members especially those in the eu being able to export their certificates and badges to the viewer and also view all their other certificates and badges within moodle eu institutions will be able to use moodle to issue certified credentials using their qualified electronic seal and it will enable qualifications to be described in detail and mapped to competencies within moodle potential employers and educational institutions will be able to easily verify these credentials so we hope this gives you an idea of what we want to achieve it would be great if you can help us spread the word about moodle academy where people can come to learn more about being a moodle educator administrator or developer an owner badge share their own expertise with the community and when ready obtain their moodle educator certification thank you for listening i look forward to seeing you at an upcoming moodle academy event and working with you to see how we can integrate european digital credentials for learning into moodle thank you thank you jessica manager of the moodle academy and i'm now happy to pass the floor to serge lincels serge you are deputy director of vocational education and training at the luxembourg ministry of education children and youth we know that luxembourg is using european digital credentials for learning to issue vocational education and training qualifications can you tell us more about the luxembourg experience with pleasure i will do so thank you first of all for having us here it is a big honor to be part as early adopter big greetings to all of you here from luxembourg and i wanted to start with some numbers of our country we have overall um like 40 secondary schools and a little bit less than 50 000 students in secondary school in luxembourg so yes we are actually a very small country but this has as well the advantage of being very um quick in taking decision we can take all the headmasters from secondary schools in one room and take decisions nationwide for like instance um deploying euro pass in luxembourg i'm not sure if you see my slides but um i have this slides that i where i recently received a mail from the embassy of bosnia herzegovina please move on to the next slides um if you want please move on to the next slides this were the numbers i i just mentioned all right so we're talking about the 8 000 vet students we have in luxembourg that took part in this pilot project so please go to the next slide and this is the mail i mentioned i received a couple of days ago a mail from the embassy embassy of bosnia-herzegovina asking whether a certain diploma they received from a luxembourgish student is true authentic or not and you can see on the left-hand side this diploma that looks like being a scan of a copy of a copy of a scan so from the embassy it's quite a burden to find out whether this is a or genuine diploma for us it's an easy task because we checked just in our database and found out indeed this student graduated here in luxembourg our motivation is how could we simplify this task for instance in this case for the embassy to verify in a very easy way whether the credentials are correct or not and how could we empower students to more easily share credentials with potentially an employer or a university please go on to the next slide so what we adopted as a couple of years ago is the europass credentials and i would like to show you a little bit how it uh we deployed it here in luxembourg so you can log in as a student uh to you europass where you find the classical tools you may already know you can access your wallet go to my library and there you find for instance your cv the cv can be created easily using the europass tool and it is displayed in this way for all students and now the cool part is you can simply share the cv by clicking just here on the share button and you create a link that will expire but you can share the link for instance by mail or any other chat or instant messaging program to anybody you want now the new part and the real important part is you have your certificates that the student can upload but the blue one that is exactly our credential that we pushed in the wallet of the student if the student clicks on it you will access the viewer and you will see the credential in a graphical way and this shows for instance a diploma a technical diploma a student has received in luxembourg so this of course simplifies enormously the way now not just to have certificates in your wallet but also to share them and we can guarantee the viewer that this diploma is authentic that it is not a if you please move on to the next slide we have so here our luxembourgish school system and in a nutshell we have the three different that tracks the dt diploma the dap and the ccp and every student from the vet system here in luxembourg this year received the diploma the credential also in a digital way please go on to the next and formal for my second last slide and please click again to show the text so all the student that means 1600 students in luxembourg received additional to their paypal diploma also a digital credential in their europass wallet that is guaranteed to be authentic yes please click again now we have achieved our first phase with issuing the digital credentials the diplomas and in phase two we are working on right now is also to include in the ecdl um other credentials like micro credentials or in a more advanced phase three um allow students uh to integrate their complete portfolio in your class please kick again and this will be my very last slide so again we are very much honored to be part of this ecdl pilot project we are deploying now the ecdl nationwide in luxembourg for all the vet students and i would like to conclude with the people who are really thank you serge we lost you in the final seconds there but warm thanks to you for for sharing the tremendous and as you see nationwide experience in luxembourg of using the credentials so we're going to move now to hear from our final speaker in this session and that is rinka trusic zinka your project manager for the erasmus student network we're going to see two short video testimonials followed by your presentation as a long-term volunteer and a firm believer that the work we do actually has an impact i strongly believe that the introduction of digital credit interest is going to be beneficial not only for our volunteers but for the network overall to the question why not only that we can add them to our digital signatures and prove that the bridge between volunteering and the job market is not that hard with the oh with the background that we have but it's going to be really important to have it in a little digital backpack and show what we've done and the achievements that we had over the years i think it is essential for youth organizations such as esn to be able to externally recognize their informal and non-formal learning experiences i myself participated in a non-formal education program in esn and received a europass micro credential for it i think it's been extremely useful for me to complete my cv as well as opening new doors when it comes to job opportunities and also to be able to participate in new training events welcome to you the floor is yours thank you very much on behalf of erasmus network thank you very much for having us if you could share the slides please so basically what we have been doing in the erasmus network for the past two years next slide please is monitoring the learning process of our volunteers uh we have 15 000 volunteers across across 42 countries and what we uh noticed is that there are both unstructured instructional learning processes happening whether it's learning by doing so experiential learning but also picking up different tasks on daily monthly weekly basis as well as signed up and taking more responsibilities and positions in the in the organization however we do offer some structured learning processes that include international national and local training events but also some learning processes that are longer ones that are structured and guided by facilitators and trainers next slide please so uh the aftermath or actually the outcome of this whole process and the research was my esn career service which actually helps both us and the volunteers identify document and keep track of their competence development and competence assessment uh pinpoint and find the trainings that could help them develop further and enhance the competences that they want to uh develop more as well as uh gain feedback on their work and their development and progress and also have a moment for self-reflection the whole process is documented and the learning outcomes as well as the learning outcomes are all in a certificate that our volunteers get however we wanted to also go a step further and also provide the activities that will help our volunteers practice expressing and verbalizing their learning outcomes their competence development but also how the volunteering experience as well as non-formal education activities can help young professionals make their first step towards the labor market or take the next step next slide please so when it comes to digital digital credentials for learning some of the benefits that both we as an organization have as well as our volunteers as individuals are that it helps us pinpoint uh and map other learning opportunities as well as training opportunities not only in our organization but across europe as well uh it also helps our volunteers to raise their level of employability and make makes themselves stand out on the labor market as a young professionals and overall it helps with the professionalization of our organization as as well as our volunteers thank you very much thank you srinka and many thanks to all the speakers in this session uh for sharing inspiring stories of how your organizations are actually using european digital credentials for learning you have given us an appetite to know more all the materials from this session will be shared online later today on the commission website and on the europass platform so we're going to move now to the next panel in our launch event we're interested in hearing thoughts key messages from stakeholders active in different but related fields of the education and training landscape the labor market working around issues of recognition and of course from learners themselves so we're joined by seven experts in this session welcome to all of you and i will ask each of you to go straight to the heart of the matter and share with us your one or two key messages and perspectives on digital credentialing and in particular on european digital credentials for learning and we'll get the ball rolling by taking a look at issues around recognition of qualifications the enik naric network is represented here today by yennica lookoff president of the network that's a network which brings together national academic recognition information centres who are implementing the lisbon convention on the recognition of qualifications in the field of higher education in the european region yenika welcome to you what's the key message that you would like to share thank you and dear all good morning everyone from a grey and gloomy the hague where in spirits the sun is shining today because it is the launch of the european digital credentials platform for learning thank you for the organizers to invite the perspective from recognition because over the last 10 years the enec nerix are looking at digitization of student data and its potential for fair fraudless and faster recognition of diplomas ultimately for the benefits of students higher education of course the credential evaluators doing the evaluation and over all those years we have seen that simply digitizing data is not a guarantee for success at all and that it actually requires collaboration agreement on standards reliable ability of systems and of data a reliable ecosystem actually everything that the european digital credentials platform is offering so over the last years the enignaric networks and the initiators of the european digital credential platform have been talking about the relationship between student data and recognition and over all these years it became increasingly clear that this platform was a promise a promise of a solution and today it's no longer a promise but today it is there so from the networks i was it's my pleasure to send my congratulations it is a milestone to celebrate and an excellent example of transnational collaboration and today marks not the end of a collaboration but i think it will mark a new stage of the collaboration in the networks we're running a small pilot now on how to how recognition decisions could also be part of of the ecosystem because it's many times emphasized in the networks your input is our or your output is our input and our input is your or our output is your input okay goes on um so yeah in short again um big many congratulations to everyone and we look forward to uh taking the collaboration further thank you thank you very much jennica and i think that's a good motto for this morning's launch event that the promise has become a reality thank you for sharing that that experience and let's move now to hear some key messages from education and training providers and we'll look firstly in the field of higher education ellen peter bower who's policy analyst with the european universities association good morning to you elene hello what's the key message that you would like to share thank you alison i would like to take this opportunity to highlight the need to take into consideration that although in the past years and especially in the past 20 months many countries and universities have made considerable strides towards a more digitalized higher education a lot of support measures will still be needed to help universities realize the european digital credentials for learning some countries have national legislation that covers the format in which credentials are issued just as there are countries in which for example student assessment in a digital format is hindered by national law well for some universities to move online in the past year and a half was thus a relatively easy feat some others had to perform a real trudeau force by trying to keep their activities running in a digital pandemic friendly way while adhering to national legislation with regards to european digital credentials for learning europe will likely have to prepare for a similar to or multi-paced process some universities will have staff that is already well acquainted with digital credentials whereas others will not only have to ramp up the digital infrastructure but also provide extensive staff training it will be crucial to not leave those universities to fend for themselves but to actively support european integration and coherence for the provision of information and training and on top of potential training needs another need to consider is interoperability should a university already have an infrastructure for issuing digital credentials which happens to be not compatible with the system behind european digital credentials for learning support measures needs to be in place to help this institution align or replace its system if it wishes to do so and this brings me to my final point the successful realization of this project requires not a brave vanguard of a few advanced countries or universities showing the way to onlookers but a joint vision and direction and in order to create such a common vision and direction the autonomy of universities needs to be respected and preserved to get everybody pulling on the same string with conviction and enthusiasm thank you thank you elaine also for opening up the question of what comes next and what can we do together at european level to make sure that all can move down this path of digital transformation of learning together let's have a look now at the vocational education and training landscape and it's arya flinkman who joins us this morning arya hello you are vice president for policy with the european forum of technical and vocational education and training which message would you like to share thank you alison dear commissioner smith dear audience it is a privilege to represent european vocational education and training in this high level an important launch event for european digital credentials for vocational education and training all over europe it is essential to be part of this extremely valuable digitalization development for transparent and necessary and upskilling of both current and future students and employees by supporting the efficiency and security in how credentials such as qualifications and other learning achievements can be recognized this europa's digital credentials infrastructure should make it easier on one hand to integrate learning achievements to formalized qualifications but on the other hand for companies and organizations to get employees with skills they actually need the main message however from us is that the number of possible credentials in a certain field should be kept organizable to avoid the situation with too many credentials from which no one can get a clear picture of the skills the learner has achieved how to do this effectively that's a good question at the moment in the regional level with more questions than answers effete is ready to do its part to help in organizing this we have tried to shape the phenomenon of micro credentials in general and i do think it helps also in digitalization aspect the action plan considers the topic validation in relation to the micro credentials an initiative foreseen by the revised skills agenda 2020 but since effort members understand that individual learning accounts only cover job related learning it will be important to go beyond this initiative in the action plan and take into account validation and recognition across all types of learning also we believe that it is important to define the level and scope of learning to allow better understanding of where the micro credential is positioned in the european qualification framework thank you everyone thank you arya also for opening up uh the question of micro credentials uh an upcoming initiative which we expect to be adopted by the commission before the end of this year and of course closely linked also with these issues around digital credentialing let's hear now from some social partner representatives a key of course in the landscape around credentialing as both users and on many occasions issuers of digital credentials let's start with business europe robert plummer is senior advisor for employment education and migration robert good morning which messages would you like to share this morning good morning alison thank you very much indeed um and congratulations for the launch today i mean i think we've seen some very good good examples and experiences in the piloting phase and indeed i think we can see that there's there's good potential and and promise um in this approach and i think as uh as was touched upon already it can certainly help to facilitate the the transparency the recognition um mobility hopefully as well and in turn hopefully addressing skills mismatches um and potentially in future this approach might also have some added value in terms of how we can better understand the the qualifications experience of um of skilled third country nationals coming to the eu as well maybe another step to come but uh if things go well that could also be a natural extension of what we can achieve with this um i think in terms of for employers in particular of course yes uh the the digital credentials could really help to facilitate the recruitment process um the ability to to see at the click of a button um the the form or the non-formal informal uh skills qualifications that people have uh equally i think at the same time we need to look a bit more perhaps at how to to raise awareness among among employers as well as individuals around the europass structure and the suite of of tools and and possibilities that come with that but also i said employers would also be the ones potentially issuing um these uh these digital credentials so um we would need to look i think at how to to provide support for employers both in terms of reading and understanding the information that's available but also in terms of how um they would issue uh and verify these uh these credentials but um as a principle as an initiative uh very promising and uh we look forward to seeing how this how this develops further thank you very much thanks robert and indeed looking forward to the next chapter of work together on this which is very much about raising awareness and rolling out the infrastructure that's now ready for for use let's here also the sme perspective so from sme united today we have with us valentina guerra a social affairs and training policy advisor good morning valentina which messages would you like to share thank you very much alison and good morning to all of you i'm happy to be here today at the launch of this important initiative which we hope will be of great benefits for crafts and smes as other speakers already mentioned these credentials have a great potential to facilitate mobility job-to-job transitions and in general to improve the understanding of skills behind quantifications and also to improve the skills matching between employers and workers and in our views the success of the european digital credentials for learning relies on the three main points the first one the design of the tool should happen with and not only for crafts and smes and this can be done in cooperation with smes social partners who are most acquainted with the issues that small companies are facing and also they can provide guidance for the use of these credentials the second point is trust and for us trust is built on three pillars validation recognition and quality assurance only if there is a clear process of attribution of credentials and national level the credentials can be trusted in a european context and creating a clear and transparent digital process of attribution should start from the national quality framework and the third point is that credentials should as much as possible respond to the skills needs of crafts and smes and be relevant for them credentials and certificates can only make a difference if the education pathways informal and informal educations are well designed in cooperation with companies and education providers and this is even more important in current times when crafts and smes are adapting to the to implement the green and digital transitions and both entrepreneurs and workers need new or updated skills strong skills intelligent tools and cooperation with sme social partners again will definitely contribute to make credentials more relevant for for small companies thank you very much for giving the opportunity to participate here today and happy to cooperate in the future to shape better the tool thank you thank you valentina and indeed uh thanks for highlighting some of the very clear design features around credentialing and digital credentialing that need to be there to make a success uh of of this approach let's hear now from the etuc european uh trade union confederation representative it's carlo friesing uh from luxembourg good morning carlo your vice chair of the chamber of employees in luxembourg which messages would you like to share good morning alison good morning everybody so workers unions consider that the european digital credentials for learning may have a valuable benefit for the learner if handled and managed properly while ensuring right to all workers to access quality and inclusive training qualification and validation of their skills is still is however still a challenge in europe the european digital credentials for learning can therefore be a good tool for the workers to store their degrees and certificates which they gain within the green and digital transition of the labor market however a digital credential is only trustworthy if the issue of the credential is trusted so we must insist that under no circumstances digital credentials should be used to correlate additional data and trace it back to its owner the data must be held by its owner the learner and only shared with his permissions so in this context we see that the european digital credentials will raise a number of important challenges in the coming months in the coming years including privacy consumer protection learner protection also cross-border and international delivery of education and training new forms of credentialing and probably many other things which we will discover in in the next time we also have to consider the geographical digital divide within europe concerning digital skills and also accessed i.t tools this can contribute to inequalities between countries on the use of the european digital credentials countries in which the digital economy is less developed risk also to fall behind and the same may occur for learners digital credentials will probably not cause a problem to high and middle qualified people but we believe that for low-skilled people appropriate measures have to be taken that they also can profit the potential the full potential of digital credentialing so necessary conditions have to be fixed and fulfilled that visual technology technologies will guarantee fair and transparent recognition of skills and qualifications and it has already been said before including the recognition of non-formal and informal learning we if we assume today that digital credentials may lead to more transparent recognition of skills and qualification we should however be aware that stacking the collection of badges and certificates may in most cases may not lead to a coherent qualification for qualifications this is one of the challenges of the digital credentials ecosystems as digital credentials may disrupt somehow existing credential mechanism and institution and somebody compared digital credentials to a pokemon game in which people are collecting and stacking badges this should of course not be the goal of this new instrument and finally effective government support is essential that digital credentials for learning will develop properly within the member states quality assurance and transfer transparency mechanism have to be fixed and respected as well as standards and guidelines recognition and within the respect of the challenges mentioned beforehand be sure that it uc will contribute the make to make the european digital credentials for learning a successful project thank you thank you carlo also for your engagement so far and you touched on some of the clear messages there around trust and quality the need to design a system for equality also between countries between organizations and between learners that is clearly a feature of digital credentialing as we go forward and your comments actually are a nice bridge to our last speaker in this panel uh and that is representing the voice of the learners from the european students union jakob grodichi good morning jacob thank you for joining us and joining this panel which messages would you like to share good morning allison dear host and guest of uh today's meeting my name is jacob and i have an honor to represent the european students union the organization that is representing over 20 million students across the european higher education area i would like to congratulate to european commission and all of the people engaged on launching this breaking initiative we believe that learning outcomes and qualifications can be classified as formal non-formal and informal and all of them should hold a value within the education community and students personal portfolios we are very excited to be at the start of a long journey ahead in the field of digital tools which will support the education not only in europe but as well globally it is a fundamental task for european high education area and the eu to achieve the high level of trust between all of the actors in the education systems from learners to the institutions from other education providers to the potential employers regardless of completed course program volunteering services that learners are participating in is their basic right to have their learning achievements transferable recognized and of high quality and the seamless recognition and the ecosystem of high quality and verified skills providers should allow future european citizens to be supported in their personal development and careers so thinking wider let's just imagine the opportunities with future developments of such tools would ease in learning mobilities or the role it might play for the recognition of students prior learning who cannot get their learning verified it can all be stored digitally and that's the point i strongly believe that european digital credentials for learning initiative will support the future needs of european learners congratulations once again and good luck for the future thank you jacob and thank you for reminding of the potential really to make a a game-changing evolution for the learners themselves uh obviously that's a a very key part of efforts around digital credentialing initiative so we're coming to the end of this session and i think clearly what we have heard in in those seven interventions is experience so far but also very much expectations for the future and thanks to all seven of the stakeholders representatives present here today for opening up that dimension of looking to the the future on that note i would like to give the floor now to kuhn nomndom cohn is responsible in the european commission for the team dealing with both policy and tools for transparency and recognition of skills and qualifications kuhn look into the future can you share with us your takeaways from this morning's session and tell us a little bit about what's coming next yeah thank you alison yeah a few takes away takeaways i i think about our first of all that the presentations and also the panel discussion of stakeholders has shown actually the large potential of digital credentials and also that they are really an element of digital transformation of certification of learning but of course we should not forget the imbalances which there are the differences between countries which exist in in the context of where they stand in digital digital terms a second takeaway is that and i think especially the the presentations and videos have shown this digital credentials really bring concrete benefits for different actors and also in different contexts and they are reinforcing trust they are reducing risk and also they simplify actually user experiences and the third yeah takeaway is and this is more at the policy level they support a more efficient labor market they also make transitions between learning and work potentially easier and when we look at the learning side lifelong learning we see that they can be a building block yeah in opening up live long learning and also again they're making it easy to trust communicate and also to share skills and qualifications that's it yeah so we've heard a lot this morning about trust increasing trust and as as yennica said indeed that has moved from becoming a promise to a reality and i think that's already uh a super conclusion of the pilot fees that we're now drawn to to a close uh and we've heard then from from the stakeholders and the showcasers this morning really concrete and specific examples of benefits and as you say one of the issues now certainly is to make sure that those benefits by working together at european level can be felt equally across member states across organizations and across different learner communities so as this chapter of work draws to a close and we we open the next chapter of of rolling out the credentials can you give us a flavor of what is going to happen next how will we do that yeah thank you allison of course i mean today this is really a first chapter of designing and piloting the european digital credentials for learning and a lot has happened already and we we have the 60 organizations that are working with it the 18 countries that have been piloting but not only there and we have already seen that the digital credentials are already concretely used but this is of course not all there is still a lot of work to do and we will engage of course as european commission in in that work first of all with a focus on the further roll out you mentioned it already and this will include also a series of workshops and training that we will set up and you will find of course information about these on the europass platform and we will also of course provide continued support to member states but also to other organizations that wish to adopt the european digital credentials for learning now another point that i would like to mention is we are also working on yeah enhancing the european digital credentials for learning and and to work on further applications of them and currently we are working on the digital transformation of the diploma supplement in higher education this is ongoing already and we will also start working on yeah the digitalization of the europass mobility document which is an important document for registering learning outcomes that have been acquired through learning mobility for example under the erasmus program and the last point that i would like to mention here is a closer cooperation with the european blockchain service infrastructure so the picture is clear work doesn't stop now we already have the next steps of development mapped out ahead of us uh and embarking on work around the diploma supplement europass mobility which will be i know of interest to many for joining online uh as users of of those uh certificates this morning um i think that brings us slowly but surely to the end of our our launch event thanks to all who joined online uh over a thousand registered participants is a super sign of the interest the commitment and the engagement uh around this this initiative um i would like to thank of course the the organizing team for for making it possible to meet in this way it's not always straightforward online but i think technology was on our side thanks to excellent preparation for the event this morning thank you to all the speakers who joined us uh also for being very respectful of the tight time slots that was very helpful thank you for going straight to the heart of the matter in your interventions thank you to commissioner schmidt of course for uh joining us to launch at this event this initiative thank you to milay jalalia also for sharing the the special experience from the university of split and indeed wider in croatia thank you mila for for doing that to start our session and thanks to all of you i'm sure there has been lively engagement in the the chat this morning uh i hope you found the session inspiring interesting in your own context wherever you may be in europe or indeed beyond that you have been able to take some learning points and some follow-up actions from this morning's session uh commissioner schmitz said it in introduction that was one of our goals also in running an event like this this morning to help each of you wherever you may be located in the the world of credentialing to find inspiration and take that inspiration with you into the future in your own organization and indeed to spread the word a lot of interest and excitement already around digital credentialing but certainly the potential to do more and to go further together so we look forward to further and future collaboration with you and thank you again for joining us online this morning thank you you