The future of Digital Student Data Portability: the Groningen Declaration

Paper based diplomas are easy to forge and require a noticeable amount of expertise to verify, especially when presented in a different country from the one that produced them. The so-called diploma mills, illegal operations that sell fake degrees, are running rampant at the moment. Moving to fully digital diplomas can prevent these problems. Digital identity technologies can be used for providing controlled access to verifiable information about an individual academic achievement. The Groningen Declaration has become the centre of a world wide effort to join efforts dedicated to the creation of Digital Diploma Deposits, encompassing developments from China through Mexico and Norway through South Africa. At the core of this efforts lays the work of groups like EUNIS's own RS3G (Rome Students Systems and Standards Group), EAIE's DSDP (Digital Student Data Portability), USA National Student Clearing House or TERENA TF-EMC2. The aim of the present paper and the corresponding presentation is to increase awareness in the European University ICT community of the efforts that surround the Declaration, by presenting the achievements of the first year of its existence, like the meeting that took place in April 2013 in Beijing hosted by CHESSIC and the Chinese MoE.