Is this page for you?

This page is for people deciding whether their institution or alliance should participate in QualityLink. You don’t need to be technical. Your IT team will handle the implementation — this guide helps you understand what you’re agreeing to, what you’ll get, and what to expect.

If you’re the developer who’ll actually connect the data, go straight to the technical guide.

What QualityLink built

QualityLink developed a shared European infrastructure for publishing and aggregating course data. In plain terms: your institution publishes its course information in an open, standard format, and it automatically feeds into a Europe-wide catalogue that anyone can search.

Think of it as making your courses findable — across borders, across systems, without extra costs or proprietary platforms.

Three components work together

A common language. A standard way to describe courses and micro-credentials, based on the European Learning Model (ELM).

The data aggregator. Software that automatically collects course data from participating institutions and keeps it up to date.

The course catalogue. A searchable Europe-wide platform where students, researchers, and employers can discover learning opportunities.

Why participate

• Europe-wide visibility
  Your courses appear in a shared European catalogue. Students and employers searching for micro-credentials across EU member states will find you.
• No cost, no new infrastructure
  The hosted QualityLink platform is free of charge, run on a non-profit basis. You don’t need new servers, contracts, or licences.
• Alignment with European Digital Credentials
  Publishing in ELM aligns your data with European Digital Credentials (EDC) — the standard for digital degrees. If you later issue digital credentials, the groundwork is already done.
• Alliance course catalogues
  If you’re part of a European Universities alliance, you can use QualityLink to power your joint course catalogue — one place for students to discover courses across the whole alliance.
• Open data
  Aggregated data is available as an open dataset under the CC BY-NC licence. Other institutions can benchmark their offer, and developers can build new tools on top of it.

Two ways to participate

Option A: Use the hosted QualityLink platform (recommended)

Your institution publishes its course data in a supported format. The aggregator finds it automatically and feeds it into the shared European catalogue. We run the infrastructure — you just publish your data and manifest.

Best for: institutions that want to participate quickly with minimal IT effort.

Cost: Free of charge. Run on a non-profit basis by the Knowledge Innovation Centre.

Your data: stays on your own systems. The aggregator reads it; you control what you publish.

Long-term: KIC is committed to keeping the platform available for the European higher education community.

Option B: Deploy your own instance

Your institution runs its own copy of the QualityLink aggregator on your own infrastructure. Full control over the aggregation process, branding, and data.

Best for: large alliances with specific customisation needs and strong technical capacity.

Cost: Free to download, use and adapt (Apache 2.0 license). You cover your own hosting and maintenance.

Source code: Knowledge-Innovation-Centre/quality-link-infra on GitHub

Our recommendation: start with the hosted platform. It’s the fastest way to participate, and you can always move to your own instance later.

How to get started: four phases

Most institutions move through phases 1 and 2 in a few weeks, with IT involvement mainly in phase 3.

Step 1 Plan (your team, a day or two)

Decide scope: which courses will you include? All offerings, a pilot selection, or courses dedicated to alliance students?

Identify your IT contact — the person who’ll implement phase 3.

Check whether you already use ELM, OOAPI, Edu-API, or OCCAPI. If yes, phase 3 is straightforward.

Step 2 Prepare (your IT team, a few days)

Check your local systems hold the minimum required data: title, learning outcomes, language of delivery, thematic area (ISCED-F 2013).

Decide whether learners should be able to click through to your enrolment portal. If yes, those links need to be part of your data.

Step 3 Deploy (your IT team, a few days)

Publish your course data in a supported format (ELM, OOAPI, Edu-API, or OCCAPI).

Publish a manifest file so the aggregator can find your data.

Log in to the dashboard, trigger a data refresh, and verify your courses appear correctly.

Your courses are now in the European catalogue at courses.app.quality-link.eu.

Go to the dashboard: dashboard.app.quality-link.eu

Step 4 Optimise (ongoing)

Monitor the dashboard to check data quality.

Expand to more courses as confidence grows.

Use the joint catalogue for further use cases — for example, cross-alliance enrolment.

What happens to your data

Your data stays on your own systems. The aggregator reads it from your published endpoint and copies it into the shared dataset. You control what you publish; you can update or remove it at any time.

Aggregated data is published as an open dataset under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC-BY-NC) licence.

Read the data and access policy: specs.quality-link.eu/policy.html

Will this still be available after the project ends?

Yes. QualityLink concluded in May 2026, but the Knowledge Innovation Centre (KIC) is committed to keeping the hosted aggregator and catalogue available for the European higher education community.

All software and specifications are open source and will remain freely available.

Ready to move forward?

Share the technical guide with your IT team, or contact us if you have questions before you start.

Technical guide for your IT team: quality-link.eu/use-the-aggregator/technical-guide

Contact us: contact@quality-link.eu