Credential Sharing
##################

Open edX Credentials service supports multiple ways to share and
recognize learner achievements beyond traditional certificates.
Learners and institutions can distribute verified credentials to
third-party platforms, professional networks, and digital wallets.

This section covers two sharing mechanisms.

- **Digital Badges** - issue digital badges through providers like
  `Credly <https://info.credly.com/>`_ and
  `Accredible <https://www.accredible.com/>`_. Badges recognize
  specific achievements like course completions or skill milestones
  and can be displayed on LinkedIn, personal websites, and other
  platforms.
- **Verifiable Credentials** - issue W3C-compliant verifiable
  credentials that learners store in digital wallets. These
  credentials are cryptographically signed and independently
  verifiable without contacting the issuer.

Architecture
************

Three roles interact with the credential sharing system: **Site Admins**
configure badge templates and VC issuing, **Learners** complete courses and
earn credentials, and **Verifiers** (employers, institutions) check credential
revocation status. Credentials flow to external Digital Wallets and Digital
Badge Platforms.

.. figure:: ../_static/images/sharing/credential_sharing_system_context.png
   :alt: C4 System Context diagram showing Open edX credential sharing with actors (Site Admin, Learner, Verifier) and external systems (Digital Wallet, Digital Badge Platform).

Inside the platform, the openedx-platform (LMS) publishes certificate and
course-passing events to the Event Bus. The Credentials service consumes these
events, stores achievement data in its database, issues and revokes badges on
external platforms via REST API, and sends signed verifiable credentials to
learner wallets.

.. figure:: ../_static/images/sharing/credential_sharing_containers.png
   :alt: C4 Container diagram showing Open edX internals: openedx-platform, Event Bus, edX Credentials service, MySQL database, and external integrations.

.. toctree::
   :maxdepth: 1

   badges/index
   verifiable_credentials/overview