Certification Architecture

Data model

Every kind of certification has a versioned "certification definition." Once a definition is active its content cannot be edited, only replaced by a new version. An issued certificate records the exact definition version it was issued against, so a later definition change never retroactively changes a certificate already issued.

Certification has five levels, from lighter to stricter requirements: a Course Completion certificate (L1) confirms a learner met that course's own lesson, practice and assessment thresholds; an Applied Skill certificate (L2) adds, on top of completion, a submitted piece of work that an instructor or credential administrator reviews and passes against a rubric; a Role Credential (L3) is built from prerequisites such as other courses, certificates or a specific set of competencies, and can also require a capstone assessment, representing a role-level competency that spans several courses; an Authentic Practice certification (L4) needs a real, instructor- or reviewer-verified contribution to an industry or campus project, never just enrollment or participation; a Professional Certification level (L5) would need proctoring and identity verification the platform does not currently offer, so an L5 definition cannot be activated and it is not open for issuance.

As of now, all 28 published courses (across the AI, DS, AD, IL and GoAI series) each define their own completion and applied-skill requirements, covering that course's own lesson, practice and assessment thresholds, and in some courses an additional reviewed piece of work. Exactly which certifications a given course offers, and its own eligibility requirements, are listed on that course's page under "Assessment and proof of learning."

Eligibility and issuance

• An assessment score alone is never enough for a Course Completion certificate or an Applied Skill certificate; some other form of capability evidence is always required, and an Applied Skill certificate always needs a manually reviewed piece of work
• How a certification is issued depends on its definition: some Course Completion certificates are issued automatically by the system once qualifying evidence exists; Applied Skill certificates and the other levels are reviewed and issued manually by an authorized instructor or credential administrator; in no case is a certification issued purely from progress or a score alone
• A Role Credential (L3) becomes eligible through a rule engine that checks things like prerequisite certificates or courses already held, a required set of competencies, and whether a capstone assessment was passed; an Authentic Practice certification (L4) requires an instructor or reviewer to first confirm the learner's real contribution and verified membership in the project before it can be issued
• Issuing the same certification to the same person twice is idempotent: it will not create a duplicate certificate
• Revoking or superseding a certificate always keeps the original record; only its status changes, and it is never deleted

Public verification

Every certificate has a public verification page and a scannable QR code. The verification page shows the certificate holder's name (a fixed snapshot of the certificate name taken at issuance, unaffected by a later account name change), status, title, level, issue/validity dates, a public-safe description of the competency, and, for certificates of courses that define one, the learning hours, never a score, an email address, or internal scoring detail. The page only ever serves one specific, already-known credential: there is no way to search, browse, or list other certificates or holders by name. An unknown certification code and an opted-out Skills Passport both return the same "not found" shape, so neither can be used to probe whether a code exists.

Certificates can be exported as Open Badges 3.0 or CLR 2.0 files for use with other systems that support those standards; exports apply the same disclosure scope as the public verification page. A Skills Passport itself is private by default: a publicly browsable page link only exists once its holder chooses to turn on public sharing.

• How to view and share your certificates
• Look up a certificate by code
• Privacy

Issuance policy and governance

Each certification definition carries an issuance policy that states in plain terms how it may be issued: automatically once qualifying evidence exists, automatically only when both assessment and practice evidence exist, after individual review, after batch approval, after council approval, or not at all (disabled). By convention a Course Completion certificate (L1) targets automatic issuance and an Applied Skill certificate (L2) targets the evidence-checked automatic policy; L3 and L4 require review and L5 is disabled. Whatever the policy, issuance is still gated by the eligibility rules above.

A policy change is a tracked request rather than a direct edit. A credential administrator proposes it, the registered course managers of the course are notified by email with a single-use, expiring link, and the policy changes only when that person (or another authorized administrator who did not propose it) approves; rejecting leaves the policy untouched. A course manager can also decide pending requests in the Teacher area. This keeps the person who proposes a change separate from the person who approves it.

Credential administrators work in an admin console that shows, for each certification, a readiness checklist (an active rubric, an active definition, a registered course manager, the issuance policy at its target and no pending request) with a suggested next action. Activating a rubric or definition cannot be undone, and activating, retiring and every issuance-policy change are written to the audit log, which also feeds a recent-activity timeline in the console.