 Okay. So, hello everyone. Welcome to this afternoon session of Project Micro-HE. As you can see in my shared screen, this session is titled Technology Powering the Future of Micro-Credentials. We are going to focus on the micro-credentials and the technology demonstrator that was developed within the project Micro-HE, which we are going to do in the second part of this session. We are going to start with Mitya Ermol in his role of UNESCO Chair in Open Educational Resources and Open Education to give us a little bit of an overview, I believe, in technologies and how these kind of technologies and micro-credentials in the end also relate to open education so that we can place these technologies in the whole scope of the educational system. As the last part, the last half an hour of this session, we will invite you to explore the technology, the technology demonstrator, excuse me, and you will be invited to give feedback. So, there will be no breakout rooms. We are going to invite you to communicate with us directly via chat. And for the last part, we are also going to ask you to activate your microphones and let's have a conversation and then make some notes of it. Okay, so Mitya, if you're ready, I'll hand over the screen to you. Okay, am I live now? Yes. Can you see this? Right, so, okay, so thank you very much for having me here. So, as Michela said already, so I am one of the seven, eight now, eight UNESCO chairs on open educational resources. So, what we do and what we promote is essentially content, educational content that follows the open source idea that you can take a rebranded shelf, make something else out of it and then put it back to the community. Now, but what I also do here at the Institute is of course research and development in the artificial intelligence and in this particularly fits pretty much pretty well into the education area. So, what I wanted to tell you today a little bit is some of the things that we do and in particularly what is there as a landscape in open location and why something like credential and micro credential are actually needed. So, somehow setting up the scene for the next talks. So, I will start with this, right, because in any way and we've seen that in particularly now in this pandemic crisis that whatever we developed in 17th century as an occasional system doesn't really fit any more to what we're doing today and if you're frank to yourself and think about how we are actually teaching kids is that we are teaching kids with the mechanism that we develop so teach for the 20th century we developed mechanisms in 17th century which actually doesn't really follow any more the requirements, the needs, the motivation and all necessary things in order to education to be enjoyable. So, instead of having this mechanistic system what we have as an option because we are now being overly connected through several different sorts of networks not just technology connections with all the other networks is that we certainly have an option to create something completely different thing. So, imagine that you have everything what we have today open and that all that is closed today would be open and accessible to anybody, to any individual in the globe and since we are certainly able to understand and to see the individual and his needs and his preferences and everything that he does in terms of expectations, personal goals, development goals would actually be supported by something which is a completely open and adaptive social environment in learning that would be a completely different sorts of education. So, if you for example check imagine that you will have all this what is here open so there are more than 1.2 million schools in the world. You don't know them, we don't know them. Usually you know just about the school which is close to your door close to your neighborhood which is in your town but in most other schools you don't know. There are more than 20,000 higher educational entities in the globe. There are more than 80 million teachers. So, just imagine what would 80 million teachers if you would be able to get any type of question or any type of information answered how much of this information you can get from 80 million teachers globally. There are more than 1700 distance learning environments available. There is 1,500 virtual laboratories in the globe. So, I know you know I've experienced four of them. I don't know for all the others but certainly this is something which is a resource in most cases close and nobody is using that because there is no need on one side and on the other side there is no ability. There is no entry point to all this labs so that people will eventually know that this is possible. There are more than 400,000 libraries in the world. There is till now, in all humanity, till now published over 130 million books. Out of those 130 million books there are 1.5 million textbooks published. Do we know about those? They are there, they are stored, some of those they are accessible, some of those they are not accessible. For the OER content, so we know that for these open location resources there is more than 2 billion bits and pieces scattered across the globe and we don't know where they are and how they can get access to. There are more than 5.7 million of Wikipedia articles. For DBpedia you have 4.5 million of reading is growing up constantly. You have structured databases, structured knowledge bases. For example, Psyche is one of the largest which has 450,000 concepts in a huge network of semantic network of relations so concept with the relations connected to each other that actually allows computers also to do reasoning. You have more than 2.5 million scientific papers published per year. How many each of us is actually reading, how many of these information you can get, it's completely impossible. It's completely impossible to have access to all of these things because there are just too many and they are just scattered across and it's just too many things that you can essentially grasp as an individual and all the other stuff. So I didn't know that there are more than 27,000 TV channels available and out of those 27,000 TV channels there are just few of them devoted to learning. So this is just a snapshot about learning applications and there are thousands and thousands of learning applications. So people today are actually using and thinking about the open indication as something which could be accessible. And those are open universities, open reputation, open context, MOOCs. You've heard about the open software, open access, open curricula, open source, open license. So everything actually is labeled as open but essentially doesn't really mean that this is open. The problem with the current state of openness is that it's still perceived as, this is a kind of a hippie movement of these strange people that are trying to change the world. This is how it's actually everything what you say open is perceived to because it's not linked directly to something which is a concrete financial added value. It's linked to something which is in a different type of added value. The problem that is also is that actually people are not looking at this open education as something which will be an addition to that. And in particularly what are these open environments? What is the open organization? Imagine that you would have for example today an option as a student in the school to just change your classroom. You get into mathematics and you said, oh, it's very boring for me right now. I want to go to listen to a little bit of history because this is something I want to, I'm interested in. So things which actually are just being pushed down from the basics saying that those are the things that people have to learn. And if you check kids how they learn today, they learn completely different. They go, they do that in parallel, so they do things in parallel. They check videos that don't read text anymore. They go for videos. When there is a question, they go for YouTube. They are not searching anymore to text. They are searching the YouTube video, how to do that, how to do it, how to develop it. So very rapid and very fast exception of different sorts of knowledge. And those are the things that are actually changing completely our, let's say the old generation style of learning. So the things that are actually really changing is that the kids or the new generations are looking for something which is the open. Openness, open access, open borders. So going from one school to another without anybody questioning you or why you are getting into this. Or studying in a different country. So why this is a problem? I mean this is something which actually is not really a case anymore for the country, it's a case for the humanity. So those are the things that are certainly there. And so this imaginative future open education that actually tackles everything what is there available and provide everything what is there available in an open manner to every particular individual is a very complex thing. So certainly you as a professor, and this is what we've seen for example in your parents of MOOCs. The first, the first massive online open courses had like 150,000 students and more. So how can you actually, you know, how can you serve or how can you actually teach 150,000 students as a professor in a one one to one manner. It's completely impossible. So the question then is of course, do we have solutions there that may actually happen help that this would happen. So on one side to understand what we have there as a content. So grasp all this content, structure the content, understand the information which is there being completely, completely agnostic to languages, to culture. So something that actually would provide you with a very easy, very easy in time, in the right manner, access to learning content to learning resources that might be relevant for you today. And then on the other side, how can you understand 150,000 students. What is a particular student doing right now where are these where where is the problem where how can you help as a professor how can you help as a system to a particular student which is right now doing teaching and learning and whatever collaborative collaborative work. So those are the things that certainly can be done already and you know if you go to any, any online online shop in any online shop you will be immediately modeled and classified immediately. So why don't we just use all these technologies for learning, for example. And then on the other side you have you have teacher, of course, that is somehow trying to manage this process. So between the learning and the content and of course he cannot do it without really understanding what is going on. And of course, if you put that into the context of all these open resources, which is not as I said just content or just software but also let's say open schools, open borders, whatever open. How can something that will be a system that will support this personalization of learning, how can this look like. So this is what we actually do in the development and research in the area of AI. So this is what actually the three main things that we are doing in AI when we're thinking about the education. On one side I said content understanding, user modeling and then real time real time personalization. Now imagine that this would be possible. So imagine that we would be able to on one side do automatic ingestion of all these resources from so I said from videos to texts from video from content to resources to teachers to programs to whatever. Right, whatever. On the other side being able to understand any particular individual. So understand not just about what is his current status, what is his background knowledge, but also understand what are his in her intentions, what are his her goals, what are his her aspirations, what actually is the next step that this particular person would want to go. For example, imagine that you are today a kid in a primary school and you want to be a chef. And then you will say, okay, my goal is to be a chef in a very specific very good chef that will be doing perfect meals for a perfect persons globally. And then, since we understand that this is the goal that this is aspiration since we understand that there is a lot of resources that can help this kid to become a chef. We can certainly create his career path, adjust the proposal to his career path. And then if you are able to to understand. So the, the, how this particular person is actually following this career path. And usually as it is with the kids, the next year the kid will say, well, I don't really want to be a chef anymore. I want to be an astronaut. So what would that mean for a career path? How can you actually structure the complete ecosystem around this particular kid that will actually serve this particular need to be an astronaut? So those are the things that actually lead to something which will this adaptive learning education and environment, which is a completely different thing. Now, we did and we are doing quite a lot of things already. So one of the projects and we can have a special talk on that sometime is about a complete learning resources open pipeline. So automatically really automatically gathering all this information. So gathering all this information about. So from the ingestion phase to to understand to get over cross single cross model with both semantic process since that we do quality processing as well. So being aware of if a particular either competence or the or the software or application or content is really high quality. Or it's really relevant of relevant quality for a particular user. And then of course, if you understand this, how what is the deducted design and pedagogical value. So this is something which actually is a work in progress, but we are pretty much far away already. So something that would provide anybody access to all these resources. One thing. The other thing, as it is today, you have various different websites. As I said, so you can end up with with a website on on MIT and then you start with the website on your own online learning in in in Ljubljana and then the next one would be in UCL and so on. So those are the things that are happening today. But the most the problem is that those are the isolated sites. So what we want to do on what we are doing also in one of these project is how could you actually connect all these websites in a one environment. This could not only be websites. It could be also schools in a kind of the same way. So how can you make out of all these resources a common understandable adaptive environment. And this is what we do. So we are actually developing. We have developed a very simple snippet which gives any website across the globe ability to add a cross recommendation cross recommendation engine. So your website is becoming a part of the global online education by just adding this simple snippet into the website, which will actually then showing on your website. What are the relevant content on all the other websites across the globe for your particular user. And this will happen all across the other websites, which would mean that essentially you will have you have the in any type in any website you log in. You have the same type of recommendation which actually fits then either in your personal development or in a similarity or curricula so different sorts of different sorts of criteria to which this recommendation will be done. But this is how actually then you show on every website, all the other content on all the other websites. This is another thing that we do. And it's of course quite a lot of machine learning behind then user modeling, user modeling. We did that already as a set for commercial for commercial shops already online shops already years ago. So this is not something that is actually new. This is something that is just adapting the tools that we have to do personalization. So modeling of the user understanding learning teaching behavior incentives background knowledge, all those things that are necessary for the system to connect the current status of a person to all this resources which are available that I've shown in the previous slides. Competency calculation, you can do that that automatically. So it's not that you that's not that there are no tools that they can actually calculate competence based on resources that you can find out about about each particular person. It's not something that is very difficult anymore is something that is actually existing and those competencies are then can be then connected together with the network of learning paths and those learning paths are then used to understand where the particular person is right now and what are the next steps that we have to learn. So how can you then actually based on this create learning pathways and this is what we also do. So those are the things that actually exist. So all these bits and pieces of this longer pipeline for doing for do this global learning personalization are actually available. It's not something that is being should be done or is or we think that it might be done. Now, the next level I wanted to show you is actually a AI that goes into this level. If you if you remember the slide that I have when I showed the triangle between the teacher learning content where you would say, okay, so what actually if this is all these contents there available what and good AI can do. So we have team years ago with with psych so psych was a project in early 80s where experts wanted to codify the complete human knowledge and create the real the real AI. So codifying would mean that experts set down and actually constructed this huge ontology of all the concepts and all the relations that are actually part of the human common sense knowledge. And this thing grew up grew up to to a large a large semantic network knowledge network right now with more than 450,000 concepts. So for example, the encyclopedia with Britannica, the last encyclopedia Britannica had 350,000. Now you can of course imagine that all these concepts are connected with billions of different types of relations between each other. And this thing can actually certainly what is doing is certainly doing reasoning and talking to you through the national language processing machine in a natural language. So what we are thinking about and those are the things for example what it can produce so out from this network while author is huge knowledge network you can get sentences like this. So those are the sentences automatically produced out of the semantic network so everything is there already available. It's just that what we are thinking about and what could be an addition to what we've said before is not just about providing the personalization of learning but it's more like thinking about the machine thinking about the AI as a as a body as a equal on equal footing. So what and how it will look like if we would teach the AI and AI would teach us back. So not just taking all the existing content all the existing knowledge all the existing resources available in the globe, but also actually finding out all the hidden knowledge which is there in the heads of individuals. So the the the prototype that we developed already years ago was able to automatically learn concepts, the concepts you've seen before. So automatically learning concepts from available resources and then checking these concepts according to what is there written in the web. So not everything that you've you can grasp from from from available resources would be necessary through. So you have to check whether this is true or not. So you can do checking directly by asking queries and putting queries to to the to the resource to the web. But on the other side, you can actually ask people. So how it looks like is, for example, the question that I will get is the question in natural language from this main global global system. So you can imagine this is only one. So there is one it one it this is actually asking question to any individual in the globe about the things it doesn't know. But this is not being done in a scattered way. So it will be done in a way that since we said already that we understand what is the status what is the background knowledge of a particular individual. So I will not I will not ask somebody about the black holes since I don't since I'm pretty sure that he doesn't know about black holes but I will ask a person who is an expert about the black holes about what black holes are. And now the question that actually the system is asking to individuals are not only based on his individual expertise or competencies, but also about the larger context in which this individual is appearing. So for example, the question right now would be to me since I'm sitting here at the Institute. And since the this global thing knows that the Institute is a entity and this is a research entity and this is since it is a research entity, it has to have a director. It has to have a researcher gang I have to have a department, it has to be in a building, it has to be a central entity. So the things that actually under so they as a as a high level concept, the AI knows, but particularly particularity informations, he doesn't know. So the question, for example, for me right now would be, okay, maybe since you're sitting right now at the August F on the Institute. And since I know that the Institute has to have a director, can you tell me since I don't know who is the director of the Institute. So the contextualized information and I will say, okay, so this is the director of the Institute is this person this person. And of course, this thing will actually gather this information but then still will go to check whether I was right so and checking would be done through let's say available resources or asking somebody who is actually in the same context as me, whether media was lying or not, not actually saying that media was lying but asking a question is it true that this person is being a director or not. And this is something that actually then can be done directly to different different sources available on the web available in this open learning, but also all the information that people can provide to a global whole. And of course, if there is not that this would be a closed system. There again, this will be an open source open knowledge AI that will actually then use everything that is gathering from different sources to individual again in a personalized way. So those are the just few of the of the elements that we are working on some of the things that actually have been already prototypes and tested already in the practice. But essentially this what if what if slides looks like as it is today right now in our in our in our environment. Now, if this everything would be done. The one question which reminds is how can you what can you do with all this open learning so how actually can you provide a clear and relevant and structured information about the the competencies that each particular individual has gathered since we will have all this information about what courses each particular individual has attended. Actually has been checked what what was what what what has been done is history. Certainly what is needing is something which is a standardized approach to provide and to create something like a global competency global knowledge passport. And for those things like micro credentials and micro qualifications are needed. And this is why we started also this project years ago. And with this project years ago we actually developed the prototype as well running already that could support this others the other part of this online learning. And as I said so everything what what we are showing what we are demonstrating is here it's available. We've developed it we've tested it is just about having an agreement so having an agreement whether we really want to go into that direction or not. This could be done of course easily in informal learning but if you go and whatever you go to the formal learning and in particularly in the tackling with the national policies. National education assistance then things becomes completely different. So my message is that we are doing that we are involved in that it's not just us it's not just the Institute. It's a lot of people across the globe are working on that we are as I said so we are very closely related to UNESCO. There is quite a lot of things going on on the UNESCO side there is quite a lot of things going on the UN general side. There is quite a lot of things in that direction going on the in the EU level African Union as well. So people are certainly thinking about the same issues about the same issues is just about how we can actually make push things forward and make it happen. In terms of either a let's say a larger pilot or even a global global implementation. Here are some of the websites some of the links that you can check all the stuff I've showed. You can see who we are what we do. And in particular this is actually an invitation to you to gain to display and then actually to move things forward on. So this would be this is what I wanted to tell you. Thank you Mitya. Everyone listening please send your questions for anything related to Mitya's talk on the chat. I have made a note of two questions for you Mitya. The first one is from Tina Anderson. And it was posted at the time when you were explaining the how the integration of the snippet connects OER sites. And the question is what about the competition between providers. So I understand is what about the competition in between open education resources providers. So open education resources are meant to be in essence to be open and accessible to anybody. So all are more or less everybody we know from this OER is looking at making their resources available to anybody. So there is a genuine interest to share to join to make something which will be available to everybody. So we are this idea of this snippet. So this cross recommendation is about actually solving or supporting the plan and the ideas and the plans of these sites to get together. Not that we would have problems with them thinking about that this is my proprietary content. Okay so I guess this is solving the commitment to the open education community to enhance access. Not related to the actual provider. Okay I hope this answers the first question of Tina Anderson. And the second question by the same participant is how does personalization relate to privacy and individual choice and expression. Quite a lot of course this is an issue certainly. What is also true is that what we learned from all the projects we did in the past is that you have at the end of the day you have limited number of different types of learning individuals. So if you group them this would not be really each particular person but that will be groups of individuals. So if you go in that direction and say okay so I'm using this personal personal information to create those groups without actually then tackling directly to a particular person. Then you are solving part of this problem but not completely. So we are aware of this issue we are dealing with this issue as well. It's just that we say right now the probably the most effective way to do it would be to stay on a level of a groups of individuals for which we don't know who these groups are. But certainly then that could provide already enough personalization to those particular individuals so that you can actually then divide also things. Saying that on one side you provide these groups and on the other side which is in a private mode we have all these specifics that are then fit to a particular individual. So no data personalized data actually goes is being misused or used for modeling and on the other side no personal data is then being used outside of your personal environment which would be either your phone or either your computer laptop or whatever. But we are dealing with this so this is an issue certainly. I guess this also relates to the second part of the question about individual choice. I understand this question as a kind of a balance of recommending with learning pathways and having the individual to choose the author of the question can correct me. Exactly like this. So whatever what we do is not it's not a system that will actually direct you to do something. It's about providing you relevant choices. So let's say instead of reading 1.3 million scientific papers every year you can read the most five most relevant that are suitable just for what you do and what your intentions. So those are the things that we do. So providing you a ranked list of options and then it's usually is always like people actually then decide whether to use these recommendations or not. It's not of course not necessary. This is something just as a help the tech that follows the larger context that actually took into consideration also the history of the individual not just the current status. Okay. Okay. Can I speak. Hello. Hello. It's me who asked that question. I'm maybe I'm too old but I'm the type of learner or the type of consumer that gets incredibly annoyed by a webshop suggesting me to buy something on the basis of what I just bought other people like you bought this also. So I was really I was I could feel annoyance bubbling up during your talk because well it's it's it's kind of nice to have things suggested to you but it's also annoying that you know that there are other things which are not suggested and which you might find interesting and my hypothesis would be that there would be other people out there having these sensations about choice. If you understand. Of course. Of course. So the question would be maybe maybe I can ask a question. So if you have the ability to switch off this recommendation would you be happy. I would be happier. Exactly. This is what I'm saying. Yes. Okay. So this is just a help. You can use it or not. It's up to you then at the end of the day. Yeah. It's a help. Yes. But the way you presented it it's it it sounded all very top down and sort of society decides for you what you're going to learn in the shape of this big AI black hole. No no no it's not it's not like this certainly not as I said so everything that we do in AI in general it's about decision support. It's about supporting or let's say having a more informed decisions providing you better understanding of where you are what you do what you might be going to do but then it's at the end of the day it's up to you. And of course you can use this help or you you just don't use it. I mean it's always up to you. Thank you. Welcome. We have one more question in the chat. From Corinne. And I think we are going to address it a bit later on when we are going to explore the technology specifically the micro credentials but maybe you can give your input. So the question is how adaptive is the current micro credential framework you mentioned. Adaptive so the adaptation would be could have several several layers. So one is the adaptation of the software. The other one is adaptation of the model. The first one would be the adaptation of of the content of this model. So those are the things I mean usually whatever that you do whatever when you when whatever you are developing any type of software you want to be as adaptive as possible. So structuring things using the technologies that are actually able enabling you to to adapt things in a less harmful way with with less energy put in. So those are this is you know this is something which is inherent in in whatever what we do except for you know when you go to the complete automatic system. Let's say automatic manufacturing lines and all this stuff for where you don't need really this adaptation flexibility but here certainly everything that is there is it's open to the way that could be adapted. Not very easily but as easily as possible. Okay. Thank you. I think an example is of this is coming right after this. Q&A. Is there any more questions maybe at this point. Thank you. Okay so I suggest if there's no more questions I suggest we go to the second part of our talk. Thank you. Thank you. So now we would like to move the this workshop to a practical part of it which is the presentation of the technology demonstrator which is going to be presented by Davor Orlitsch from Knowledge World Foundation one of the partners of the Micro-AT project with which we developed the solutions together. Davor are you ready. Hi everyone. Yes I am. Okay Davor so I'm going to stop my screen share and you take over I'm just warning everyone that Davor does not have his camera working but please don't let that stop you to post questions in the chat. I'm too good looking to have a camera. I'm sorry for that. Hi everyone. Thank you for taking the time to be with us. I just want to say hi to the people that I know of who are on the call. So hi Johan. Then I know Sandra. Vesna hi. Indiko. Probably Raimund. Hi Raimund. Well Mitya of course. You guys can always pitch in if you want. This should be a conversation rather than me just hammering out what we've done. So feel free to ask questions in real time and have your mics on shouldn't be a problem. Let me first start by sharing my screen and start essentially from the last question. Last question was a micro-conductions framework. So if I go and I start and I open a new window, right? If I go for the micro-conductions website what we've done or at least the part of the project that we were heavily involved in is this one, right? So you've seen presentations throughout the day on this on these topics and there's one more session behind us. But we've done this. So we created a metadata standard that would be the backbone of an online cleaning house. That would be essentially the technical backbone of something that would enable institutions to share an exchange. So create, share and present digital credentials or at least micro-conductions, right? Along the way. Let's just kick it off from here. Let's just kick it off from this side. If I go and I get a new window, what we've done with the micro-conductions thingy on the backbone is the metadata standard. So what you're looking at is one of the biggest portals in terms of software exchange and software collaboration, which is probably not very common to teachers and faculty or even students, maybe students of computer science. And we have described our micro-conductions metadata standard, right? So this was a public job. Let me drop this in the comments in the chat so you guys can see this live. Oh, sorry. Everyone, this. So the idea is that we have gone through the metadata of what should describe digital credentials, right? So this is not something that we came up with. This is something, I mean, obviously this is, but this is an enhanced version of what already existed. If you went through the description of the workshop, then we also mentioned the ESCO ontology. So what we have done is we've also, if I go for the first link, we've also introduced the micro-credentials extension into the ESCO ontology. So the ESCO ontology, something powered by the European Commission. And it's basically a classification of jobs, competencies, so skills, I've got it, skills, competencies, qualifications and occupations. So this is the backbone across Europe for companies, educational institutions, ministries, national governments. When they discuss interoperability across Europe in terms of skills, occupation and qualifications. And we've inserted the micro-credentials concept, should I say, into this ontology. So this is our starting point, right? So this, sorry, the website, Jesus. So this is our starting point. And if I go back, this is basically the backbone on which we are building a very nice application. So are there any questions at this point? No questions. Not so far, David. Okay, let's then go for the slides. So we're going to have a couple of slides, then I'll share those slides with you. And then we can move onwards, right? So I'm with the Knowledge for All Foundation, which promotes the open access to academic resources, combining artificial intelligence tools to give users access to these resources and to match them to their needs. Something similar that Mitya mentioned before. So we also have overcome the barriers of limited discoverability and accessibility, hence our work in Sub-Saharan Africa in terms of AI and education and other machine learning topics. But education is always at the crossroad for that and capacity building. So with MicroACHE, we got a very simple idea, right? How do you create a standard format documenting micro credentials or digital credentials in terms of ECTSs using existing recognition tools? So what would happen in the U.S. is that the Codem americans, they would just come up with something new and then that would be, you know, the disruption. It doesn't really work in Europe. In Europe, you've got the ESCO tool, you've got the EQF, NQF, all of that stuff which is combined, which combined makes sense across countries. So we had to build on that so that it would make sense. So our task was to create a prototype for digital credentials clearinghouse. I am on top of our metadata standard with the purpose to cater a scalability application for, you know, thousands of institutions. So we extended that with other available standards and open source solutions and we simply call it Identify.eu. Could have been anything else. We just chose Identify.eu. So this is where you should go and check things out. So this is the website, Identify.eu, basically you type it in your browsers and we should kick it off from there. It's a very basic website so don't worry, nothing complicated. So Identify allows the exchange of any type of digital credentials between you and your university if you're a student, right? So let's say you're a student, including, you know, formal, non-formal and informal settings. So that means, you know, open educational scenarios or open schooling scenarios all the way up to, you know, higher education as the project wants it. Obviously it allows safe transfer of credentials as smaller units. This is the juice of it, so stackable units, fast dynamic, safe, reliable, transparent and accountable. This is what we claim we've done, which is probably true to a certain extent. And obviously we have used blockchain, but don't really pay attention to the blockchain. This is really, we've done ABCD, comma, blockchain. So it's really a ubiquitous technology at this point, nothing to worry about, because I know that in an educational context it has potentially a negative connotation, but we are trying to demystify that. So you keep your credentials in your digital wallet, and I'll show you how, and you own the original copy in a digital format. So that's a new thing that feels a bit different. Obviously the digital format could be in your wallet on your phone, so that's also a breakthrough in terms of, you know, transparency towards students. From initial assumptions, micro credentials are a form of credentials which represent competencies, skills and learning outcomes, derived from assessment-based non-degree activities, and specify allocation for evidence of the content of the earned achievement. And the clearinghouse is an entity form to facilitate the exchange of transactions and stands between two clearing entities or participants, right? It's a shaking hands type of thing. We've got a user interface which needed to be clear, have a form, have a function. It makes sense for a lot of people, right? And within the clearinghouse we've got different permission levels, and currently we've got three Codem avatars. You've got the main admin, the university admin and the student. These are three profiles that we identified that we've got in the clearinghouse as ownership of stuff. We're going to have two scenarios, right? So one will be creating an achievement, a compound achievement, right? And the other one will be requesting a credential. And I'll speak later about what's the difference between an achievement and a credential. Moving onwards, we can create within the clearinghouse a structure, a dependency or a codependency or a must dependency. So you've got at the bottom here you would have competencies. So these could be micro credentials in our case, right? The competence of developing a teamwork perspective on things and then you could build this on into a course or into a second course and you can build that onwards into a master's program. So the clearinghouse would allow you to issue micro credentials that would fit a master program but all the way down granularly and in a stackable way. So if you don't have competence 2 done and competence 17 done, you cannot have the master's program finished and issued as a digital credential, right? So we are out of beta in testing mode. We are live, technically connected to the blockchain. We are using an API. So that's in tech speak. That means we can connect hundreds if not thousands of universities across Europe. And it allows us to issue credentials in the real world. So soon we are also supporting Europas. So what does this mean, right? If you request something in the clearinghouse now, you'll also get it done, get it delivered. We use secure wallet for both admins and students. You cannot have a person without a secure wallet in the clearinghouse. We store the credentials in that wallet. The wallet is a standard application for your browser. It's called MetaMask. And everyone has a profile, right? And the credential can be shared on our social network, which is missing there as a comment. I've got a lot of other stuff. But what I'm doing is I'm not showing you this because it doesn't make sense. What I'll do is I'll go out, share with you a link to the set of slides that we are showing now. So you can work that out on your own right there. So these slides will allow you to have the first chunk, which is the presentation, should be fine. Then you can go through the registration and the profile and the onboarding into the clearinghouse on your own. And obviously you've got our emails so you can call us up. And then we've got additional slides if they're helpful for you with mainly the blockchain-y thing described. So this is the first part of what I would like to show you. Are there any questions at this point? So I have no questions so far. That's almost impossible. Somebody has to have a question. I think we're getting to that part. Someone is doubting out there, I know. I'm joking. So let's kick it off. Before that, let me also show you that the European Commission because the Europas actually issued a, based on our work, a set of specs should be somewhere. Throw this one. Yes. So let me drop this into the chat as well. I've got a question. I see who can use from the arcade? Who can use the clinic house as badges issuer? I'm interested to learn more. Anyone, essentially anyone at this point, any institution. We can talk more or you can ask more questions through the microphone should be fine. So just for you to know that the Europas digital credentials infrastructure as I'm showing it here is basically as well has elements of the micro-HE work. So this is worth reading. And the majority of this stuff has been also developed in technical terms. So I'm not going to go through this, but it is something that you should be looking at. So this should be the future. I'm not saying that what the European Commission is saying should be done, but it will probably be pushed through in a couple of XYZ years or months. Yeah. I think we should go off and do the demo, right? Mihera, are you happy with that? Absolutely, Davor. Maybe before you start a new chapter of your presentation, there's a question from Kurin. Related to your answer of that everyone can use the technology, any institution. She's asking if that also goes for the outside of Europe. Oh, I see now, yeah. Okay. Yeah, so Ildiko pitched in. So yes, yeah. Okay. And there's another question if you're looking at it from Brian Mulligan. It says, I noticed that the student effort was one of the parameters. Sorry. Is this optional or does it conflict with the idea of competency being disconnected from seed time? Okay. Probably a multi-layer question. Yeah. It's connected to seed time, I think. So there's a couple of things. So once we started developing the cleaning house, or should I say this? Once we started developing this, we were basically clueless about how the cleaning house should look like. By look like, I mean, what would be the best way to present this, what would be the best interface to present to students, admins, faculty, and so on. So the student effort in the seeding time became the mobility of the thing, became very apparent to us. So that's why we kind of decided once, since we are doing this, we might as well just do it properly. So we came out of the prototype mode into something that is now almost a finished product, tested by a couple of universities outside of the consortium, but also inside. So almost like a mini spin-off. I think we've got Vest now on the call from Slovenia. She's working with the DOBA faculty, and we piloted with her. Maybe she can share a couple of things later on. But the idea was that students were at the core of it, of the user experience, which was not a topic of the project itself. Okay, Davo, I think... We'll just move on and just... Thank you, Ildiko. So maybe you can continue with the presentation. We'll just kick it off with this thing. So I've got two screens, right? So I'm going to kill this off, and I've got two screens of the same. On the right-hand side, I've got myself as a student, hopefully, when I log in. And I urge you to log in as well. And on the left-hand side, I'm logged in as an admin. So I'm the super admin on the left, and I'm the student on the right. So when I come in to identify, obviously, I get a welcome, but I'm requested to go to my institutions or go to my achievements, right? On the left-hand side, I've got my achievements. I've got my credentials, users, and institutions. I'll tell you why I've got institutions and users, is because when you first log in to identify, and you've got the details on the slides, we will ask you to log in to choose a role. One role is for student, for teacher, and for admin. Admin is the admin of your institution. The teacher is a teacher at any institution, and the student is a student at any institution. So you come in, right? I pop in as a student. Let me make this bigger. Pop in as a student. I've got all of these institutions in Identify, and I choose which I want to be engaged with. So... Can you please zoom in on your... Oh yeah, sure, sure, sure. Is this better? Even more. Even more, right? No problems. Okay, thank you. Right. So I'm a student at this university, which is coincidentally our coordinator. I am an admin at Yosef Stefan. I'm a student at Tempre, and I am a student at the Belgium campus, at University, and I'm probably something more. Yeah, I'm just that. So the reason why is because we are trying to solve the problem of multiple institutions creating one credential or one achievement, right? This is something that follows the idea of the Erasmus Plus mobility. If I go from my institutions, I'll see them here, and I'll see my roles, right? Let's say I want to be with Yosef Stefan, so I pop in, right? I see the members there. These are the members that are within JSI. I have my overview. I can delete this institution, and I can update my institution. I can, you know, just type in whatever I want, and I say update, and it's updated. These are the users that I'm also being in charge of because I'm an admin, if I go back, I'm an admin at Yosef Stefan, right? So I'm just one, sorry. So these are the same people that are in the JSI thing. And I can see achievements on this tab from Tampere, Deja Beve, Yosef Stefan, and where Yosef Stefan is also involved, right? And the combinations off. I can see all of these achievements. I can also create a new achievement. Just to show you quickly, if you're looking at this form, what you're looking at essentially is the metadata standard done in a different way, so that it fits the application, but it's basically the metadata standard, right? So I can type in, I can create one, and then I'm off. At the same time, I've got my credential tabs, so it's the last tab that I'm describing. I've got all credentials listed from the people that I'm managing as admin, right? And I've got my credentials here, the credentials that I've asked for. And if I go for this one, for example, which is complete, I can click on it, and obviously my name is Sofia Loren. This is how I'm logged in at the moment. And I've got my details from my achievements, so achievement can be anything. And we just shape it in that way. And then I've got the credential metadata fully... This is a very, very good example. It's fully described here. If I go back, I mentioned that we are storing this on a blockchain. So if I say show blockchain transaction, this is how the digital version of the digital credential looks like, right? If I click more, then I've got... Then I've got this is my encrypted credential. So the difference between what we did and what other players in the field did is that we have put all of the credentials on the blockchain. So this is that. Not just the shortcut, so to speak. So we're not saving anything else. Can you zoom in again? Okay, sorry. I've got this thing that is coming up from, actually, the zoom. Here, right? So this is a test blockchain. It's not public. And I've got... This is what I've been showing. This is the codified file of my credential. And then I've got all of the other specs, as you can see. This is the credential here. I wouldn't want to go into details on this, but if you have questions, let me know. And we've got our software people to answer to all of these details. I wouldn't be paying a lot of attention on this, but it is something that adds value. So if I go back and I go for the achievements, as I've shown you, I can create a new one. Right? And there it is. And then I choose yours as Stefan because I'm an admin. My credential. It's a tag. And then essentially I can connect this with other digital credentials. So anything can be a digital credential in this environment. Either it can consist of, so this one can consist of something else, or it can consist of. Probably not the best words, but we're still experimenting. And then hopefully, if I want to, I can create a new achievement. And there I have it, right there. This would be an admin from any institution could create an achievement like that. So that's on this side. Are there any questions at this point? I see a lot of activities in the chat, but I'm not really paying attention. Yeah. I can hang out, so Ildiko is pitching in and there's two unanswered questions. One is from Brian Morgan asking, does putting the full credential on the blockchain have an implication for costs in the longer term? That's a very good question, Brian. I think, so we haven't done the full financial costs yet, but I think the answer would be that it would be cheaper rather than more expensive. If you would have more on the blockchain, then probably it would show on the final financial statement in general. No, no, I'm not kidding. I can share this with you later on because this is not getting crunched further and it's also a closed system. In terms of the achievement on LinkedIn, yes, it is shareable. I can show one, but I would have to go if I quickly show something. These are my credentials. This is my credential. We have a very small tool if I come in and I want to verify. The way this functions is that if somebody wants to verify a credential, it verifies it with us. I click it on it and I've got all of my details right there taken out and I want to verify this credential. Let me show you first and then it'll make more sense. OXSET is an external partner that we are working with. All of this stuff is open source so it can be reused so no worries. The verifier says that the asset is valid. The asset is in this context our digital credential, a digital asset. If I want to go for the, and this is the details, these are the details of the credential. This is something for us to see the outside world doesn't see all of this data. If I go for the embed I can generate a QR code. I have it here. This is the spot where we are trying to fill in the partner's logo. This should be the university's logo in the right there in the middle of the QR codes. Download this save it go for the desktop. It is a bit clunky I know but it does work so I have my I've got my QR code right there so I can post this on LinkedIn. If I go back I can generate a URL and I can post this URL and this QR code on LinkedIn and then hopefully the magic would happen. You can scan that with your phone so you see a candidate on LinkedIn. You scan with your phone his QR code and it says that he really did it that he really did that so that he achieved that credential and you're vouching for it with this verifiable technology. Our answers to the problem of verifying things so I could go back take this away and maybe show you a bit more of what we've got so we created this micro credential so we could come in and show you just how the request is made obviously you can update this achievement go back I can obviously delete it and I can request it so this request has been sent to the admin and if I go in the other space I should see this as the admin I should see it so I see this request as the super admin I could show it in the other window because I'm admin also there but it doesn't matter so I see this request right see it right there and I say accept request from Sophia Loren the student so I say grade achieved I say grade 10 credits awarded I say one because it's a micro credential so this is one ECTS expiry period I'd say I could say until you know end of October but I could as well say you know this is 20 32 36 just for the fun with 37 and while cheating I would say not apply this as an option and I say credential passed I'm about to confirm this yes and now hopefully this thing is being crunched right so it's crunching if you see on your right hand side this crap sorry it's getting issued now if I go back for the student side will probably hopefully it works usually during presentation everything fails but I could refresh this and go for the student side and right and it says that it's issuing my digital credential right there and when it crunches it then I'll be able to show you what I've shown you before for the previous one I could show you where it's stored on the blockchain and so on and so that's I think that and if I go as a super admin obviously this is GDPR kosher but you know this is a presentation so I've got three new requests and from Stefan probably a bit more down and but the idea I think would be that this software should solve a problem for teachers and faculty and the way it would solve problems is that it would be implemented into the workflow of the registry office or implemented into the workflow of you know the university itself or of the program and then through an API so that you people would not be using one more interface but they would be using this ubiquitously through other tools that they have either a model or anything else and I think this should be it for now if there are any questions thank you sorry may I have one? so I stopped sharing but if there's need for more sharing I'll share more thank you for it was very clean and clear cut one question is that how do you differentiate in this clearing house between a very concrete instance of a micro-credential owned by a specific person and the general definition of the micro-credential that can be earned by 10,000 persons after each other or parallel or anything like that so this is a short course on marketing for I don't know what purpose and that sort of short course is delivered in three different universities and they all would like to issue the same credential I mean the same content of the credential and it will be earned by different persons it's actually a very good question it's a general definition and all instances are just owned by the learner who achieved this I'm trying to find there was so with Vesna from DOBA we did create that scenario so we had five institutions they have created their own one one credential so you asked specifically for micro-credentials but they have created one credential which they shared and then they through their admins each admin of each university then approved to their own cohorts of students that specific credential because the students from university A could see the credential the students from university B could see the credential and it wouldn't be mixed because when they came into the clearing house they actually ticked that they want to be members of one institutions or that they are members of one institution because students are always they have their native institution and then they can probably if I would come into an application like this I would say I'm a graduate of UCL so I would probably click UCL and I would probably click MIT or Lubiana or something else just for the fun of it but if I simply share my screen again the idea for the I'm not sure what to share my screen anymore the idea for the how to have a differentiation is if I pop in here and I go for the achievements and I add one achievement now what we figure out would be a very good separator from different types of credentials including micro-credentials and within micro-credentials other credentials is the tags so I could say I could say I'm not diploma but economics MA well yeah I mean let's say digital humanities MA and then I would say use of Stefan in this particular instance and then I would say program no micro-credential and so on so with these tags if I have 10,000 credentials then I can cluster them then I can understand this is phase 2 which belong to which cluster and then I can differentiate and how they then I can even if somebody would come in and type in rather than digital humanities they would say digital law then I could have a recommendation in the tags which would pull out you want to create a micro-credential you want to create a program that would have micro-credentials in it is it something else so we're trying to experiment we don't really know what is the best option but we are getting input from different stakeholders within the project and outside of the project for that so hopefully we can polish this idea okay thank you I believe we might have time for one more question and I've also shared the link to the google form which we set up so please get in touch with us with any questions or if you'd like to be informed about any new developments I invite you to click on the link and get in touch with us so maybe just one more question Mihaela I would like to have Visna if she wants to comment because she has used the thing so she can say best whether it makes sense or not I mean from a user point of view because she's been involved with a very simple thing hacked on and then we were designing how do we issue a micro-credential or digital-credential for that purpose it was not an easy task to be honest we had to change a lot of things but yeah Visna has turned on her camera if you want to pitch in yeah so you got muted thank you yes thank you for inviting me to share my experiences it was really a good experience for us we were facing the same challenge as it was mentioned a bit before that we are working on international projects it was called hackathon and we wanted to issue a credential for this project and by more institutions we were from five institutions from different countries so and this application really enabled us to try that and also to try this organization of students from each institution how they applied requested the credential how we together prepared the achievement all institutions because each country has some specifics or regarding the credits and credit systems and so on so they were able to update it from their side as well it was interesting to observe the whole process from the preparing the achievement then how students perceived the application we found out that it's very intuitive when they started it didn't really have many questions and also partners as institutions when they were preparing for updating it and at the end the same thing that you already asked before also students asked how they can use it for their CVS or LinkedIn and so on so this was the same what we could share with them with QR code or URL link so yeah it is still really exciting to see how we will be all together be able to develop this further and how the whole ecosystem for micro credentials will develop so that it will really be possible for the future for students and for institutions and for employers to use it I really think this is the future so really thank you to all that you are putting your hard work into this project and making it work and developing it so from my side and if any questions please feel welcome to ask or contact me maybe just one comment the idea of micro credentials is very solid I think this is my personal opinion not even professional it does make sense the problem that I see is that European universities are to a certain degree very much risk averse and I wouldn't if I would be in management I wouldn't want to include any type of technology that would allow people to work more or to receive more questions from students or even students to question or even to open the whole debate of why are we doing this but I think times might be changing even with the argument of the COVID-19 thing but just for the sake for the sake of having European technologies for European universities and European students it would just be a shame not to use it or at least test it that's my opinion I mean we can always piggyback behind the Americans which is true but then again if you have our own stuff it might be well worth trying at least I'm not saying that could identify the answer for that obviously but people should be more risk averse and see whether they can fiddle with technologies that are newly built and out there ready to use Thank you Davor these are great words to finish this session on and thank you Weisner for your input and for your encouraging words and participation in exploring this technology we have quite a lot of questions and about two minutes to finish so we can't address them all so please feel free to get in touch with us over the Google form as I said and we're gonna try to get back to everyone so I'd just like to use this last minute to thank Eden for putting effort into organizing this organizing this conference to be an experience as an on-site conference Thank you Timothy for backstage support, thank you Ildiko for coming in and there's some links in the chat Davor, yeah you wanted to say Just one thing so the cleaning house does not issue any credentials on its behalf right so the cleaning house is a tool that allows other players to issue through it credentials that's the ideal but there's no point in us issuing anything, we're just there to facilitate the issuing in between institutions I'm saying this because I'm quickly going through the comments that I didn't see before so the idea is to really empower the universities and the students rather than having standalone technology that has no meaning or no usability whatsoever that's it Thank you Davor we really hope to hear from you we are going to publish the slides and also the presentation will be online so we can get all the links and hope to hear from you all again thank you for participating, goodbye Thank you, bye Bye