Credential Commons
Open tools to validate and publish credential and learning-outcome data against shared education ontologies — fast. Not a new ontology or portal; a thin interoperability + conformance layer that reuses and supports national vocabularies such as schema.edu.ee.
npx cc validate my-credential.jsonld npx cc export my-credential.jsonld --to ctdl
Profiles
JSON-LD context + SHACL rules — required vs recommended.
Validator
Plain-language conformance report; CI-ready.
Crosswalks
CTDL · ELM/Europass · Open Badges 3.0.
Reference data
250 real micro-qualifications, conformant.
GitHub repository · JSON-LD context · vocabulary · llms.txt · guide for AI agents
Frequently asked
What is Credential Commons?
Credential Commons is an open, free toolkit — JSON-LD profiles, a SHACL validator and crosswalks — for validating and publishing credential and learning-outcome data against shared education ontologies. It is an interoperability and conformance layer, not a new ontology.
How do I validate credential or micro-credential data?
Describe your data as JSON-LD and run npx cc validate . You get a plain-language report of what must be fixed (violations) and what is recommended (warnings); exit code 0 means conformant.
How is it different from CTDL, Open Badges or schema.edu.ee?
Those are the standards; Credential Commons is the fast path to adopting them. It reuses schema.org and national vocabularies like schema.edu.ee, checks conformance, and crosswalks your data to CTDL, ELM/Europass and Open Badges 3.0 rather than competing with them.
Is it free, and what is the licence?
Yes. The code is Apache-2.0 and the profiles, contexts and crosswalks are CC-BY-4.0. There is no paid gate to being conformant — if cc validate passes, your data is conformant.
How do I publish micro-credentials as Linked Data?
Add the Credential Commons JSON-LD context, include the required fields (name, ECTS/EAP credits, language, provider), validate, and serve the file at a stable HTTPS URL. The 10-minute quickstart walks through it.