Over the past months, the QualityLink consortium has been working on a technical architecture for exchanging data on courses and micro-credentials. After initial discussions with our Standards Consultation Board during 2024, the concept paper on the technical architecture is now available.
The proposed standards aim to facilitate the exchange of quality data between higher education institutions (HEIs), quality assurance agencies (QAAs), ministries, recognition information centres (ENIC-NARICs), ranking bodies, professional associations, course directories and other stakeholders.
Data on micro-credentials, courses and other learning opportunities is already covered by several established data standards. Most quality domains and indicators that QualityLink focuses on can be adequately represented by existing data standards, with the European Learning Model (ELM) offering the widest coverage. QualityLink will thus propose a data model as an extension to ELM, adding ontologies for indicators not covered yet.
The project aims to design an interoperable architecture that functions with several widely used standards and data models. Some of the existing standards (e.g. the Open Education API, OOAPI, or the Edu-API) provide REST APIs. Other standards (e.g. ELM) do not include such capabilities directly. Most existing standards do not cover discovery and registration of data sources, or are based on a manual approach.
QualityLink aims to fill the gaps by specifying a flexible data exchange/transport layer for ELM-based and other data, as well as a scalable discovery mechanism that allows higher education institutions to expose their data easily.
Although each existing standard accommodates a designated field for course identification, there is no harmonised system or format for identifying courses. In particular, there is no common understanding, terminology and business rules across standards. The QualityLink architecture thus includes a proposal for a unique course identifier that could be used across different systems and that is agnostic regarding data formats.
This concept paper focuses on the technical architecture that is being designed and later tested by the QualityLink project. See the overview of quality domains and indicators for details on the type of data and indicators the project focuses on.
QualityLink is dedicated to creating a seamless and interoperable environment for sharing quality data across European higher education
PROJECT REF: 2023-1-DE01-KA220-HED-000161253
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