Addressing Sub-Competency Recognition and Data Orchestration in XCredit
The XCredit initiative aimed to digitally recognise both broad competencies and granular sub-competencies within a multi-platform ecosystem. However, a significant hurdle emerged: how to acknowledge sub-competency mastery without overwhelming learners with excessive digital badges. While the existing setup linked D2L Brightspace, Credly, and Smart Resume, it lacked a scalable method for digitally validating these foundational skills in an Open Badges-compliant manner.
This technical use case dives into the complexities of integrating disparate platforms and how Credentialate provided the crucial orchestration layer to achieve a fully integrated and efficient end-to-end credentialing system.
The Problem: Incomplete Digital Recognition of Sub-Competencies
The XCredit initiative aimed for comprehensive digital credentialing within a multi-platform ecosystem (D2L Brightspace, Credly, Smart Resume). However, a key technical challenge emerged: the lack of a robust and scalable method to digitally recognise sub-competencies without resorting to badge overload. The existing solution within D2L Brightspace, while integrating with Credly for competency badges and Smart Resume for learner profile visibility, had critical gaps:
- Lack of digital recognition for sub-competencies: Competency achievements were recognised via Credly badges. Digitally recognising sub-competencies using the same method would lead to badge inflation, diminishing the impact of the capstone Competency badge. EDL sought to digitally recognise sub-competency achievements in a secure, Open Badges-compliant format via the Digital Credential Consortium (DCC) without excessive badging.
- Platform limitations prevented custom awarding rules: D2L Brightspace lacked the capability to:
- Process competencies (badged via Credly) and sub-competencies (digitally signed via DCC) through different digital awarding pathways.
- Produce a digital document for sub-competencies that DCC could sign.
- Smart Resume, while integrated, needed an intermediary to manage the feed of badges (from Credly) and digitally signed evidence records (from DCC).
Why It Was Complex
This was not just a technical integration challenge but also about aligning data flow, governance, and credentialing standards across platforms with differing capabilities:
- D2L Brightspace – learning management and assessment, but lacked digital artefact generation for sub-competencies.
- Credly – badge issuance for competencies, but no digital signing for non-badged sub-competencies.
- DCC – digital signing capability, but no direct API integration with D2L or Smart Resume.
- Smart Resume – needed a unified, API-driven feed of both badges and signed evidence records.
A system solution was needed to bridge these gaps, ensuring that:
- Competencies were badged through Credly.
- Sub-competencies were digitally signed through DCC.
- Learners received notifications and had a centralised record of achievements in Smart Resume.
A further complexity was the sub-competency stacking model and data within the LMS. Integrating with D2L’s gradebook APIs for traditional assessment mapping was insufficient due to XCredit’s flexible model, where sub-competencies could be completed in any order, at any time, across multiple competencies. To overcome this, a more direct and efficient API integration was established with D2L’s Awards book. This allowed Credentialate to precisely track earned sub-competencies and determine competency completion without complex and potentially error-prone gradebook mappings.
The Solution: Credentialate - Orchestrating Data Flow and Ensuring Credential Integrity
Credentialate was introduced as the critical missing piece, sitting between D2L and the digital credentialing/signing and email platforms to:
Intelligent credential mapping and routing:
- Credentialate harvested learner performance data from D2L’s Awards book API.
- It intelligently determined when competencies and sub-competencies were met and routed them accordingly:
- Competencies – sent to Credly’s API for digital badge issuance.
- Sub-competencies – documented on an evidence record and sent to DCC’s API for transformation into a digitally signed artefact.
Automated evidence record generation for digital signing:
- Since D2L lacked native digital artefact generation for sub-competencies, Credentialate dynamically generated structured evidence records.
- This JSON-based document contained the necessary learner and sub-competency data for secure digital signing by DCC’s API.
Event-driven learner notification system:
- Credentialate’s API triggered automated email notifications upon key events:
- Smart Resume account creation for the learner.
- Issuance of a new credential (badge or signed record).
- A follow-up reminder sent 72 hours later to encourage learner engagement with Smart Resume.
- Credentialate’s API triggered automated email notifications upon key events:
Unified credential delivery to smart resume:
- Both competency badges (retrieved via Credly’s API) and signed sub-competency records (obtained via DCC’s API) were automatically delivered and integrated into learners’ Smart Resume profiles through Smart Resume’s API.
- This ensured a consolidated, verifiable record of achievements without unnecessary badge clutter.
Outcome: A Fully Integrated, Scalable End-to-End Credentialing System
Edalex provided the technical, strategic, and governance expertise to align all stakeholders and platforms into a cohesive, API-driven credentialing workflow. Key differentiators include:
- Credentialate acted as the crucial orchestration layer, enabling seamless and secure recognition across D2L Brightspace, Credly, DCC, and Smart Resume APIs.
- The solution eliminated redundant badges, ensuring sub-competencies were verifiable and Open Badges compliant without overwhelming learners.
- The first-of-its-kind DCC API integration enabled secure digital signing of evidence records for sub-competencies – a capability that didn’t exist before.
- Credentialate ensured consistent data processing and structuring, removing manual intervention and automating learner engagement through API-driven notifications.
- Credentialate provides a robust and extensible framework for future credentialing enhancements and integrations.
With Credentialate acting as the backbone, XCredit now operates as a fully automated, multi-platform credentialing system, delivering verifiable skills recognition at scale.
Watch the ‘From Validation to Visibility: Building a Connected Skills Ecosystem with XCredit’ webinar recording to explore how XCredit empowers learners and the technology behind it: