Global Interoperability
A verifiable career credentials platform is by all definitions a multi-sided platform. On one side are the Holders, individuals who want to own and control their career credentials, privately store them, and share them at their discretion, to access better career and education opportunities. On the other side are the Issuers, who issue credentials to the individuals, asserting their career records, as well as the Relying Parties, the organizations to whom the individuals will present the credentials.
To provide genuine utility to individuals, Velocity Network is designed to ensure credential portability across all sectors and pertinent job markets. Labor market related interactions transcend borders and today's workforce frequently transitions between industries, geographies, and employment types (such as full-time, contingent, freelance, and platform work). Additionally, the increasing prevalence of remote hiring creates job opportunities that span different jurisdictions.
The world of work will be mired in Babel forever until platforms talk to each other. That’s interoperability: in the context of self-sovereign career identity, interoperability is the ability of different actors in the labor market and education spaces to issue, revoke, share and verify credentials, and cooperatively use them in a coordinated manner, within and across different systems, tech environment, and verifiable data registries.
Many organizations are working to develop and implement industry-wide technical standards across the education space and the world of work, to tackle this challenge of interoperability.
Technical standards are a critical aspect of Interoperability, but they’re just the start. Truly functional interoperability requires a more holistic, thorough approach, that must address five layers: technical/foundational, structural, semantic, legal, and business process.
Layer 1: Technical Interoperability
The Foundation is committed to technical interoperability within the Network and across different blockchain networks and different verifiable data registries through rigorous adherence to industry standards. We are monitoring closely the work done by W3C and DIF on standards and interoperability for distributed identity networks, and we adhere to the developed standards for verifiable Credentials and DIDs.
Layer 2: Structural Interoperability
We are committed to structural interoperability, deploying industry-recognized schemas and syntax. The community sets the direction for the network’s Data Standards protocols. Participation in discussions are open to all participants.
Layer 3: Semantic Interoperability
Credentials schemas include an alignment link. Using these features, Issuers of credentials can link to external repositories of credential descriptions or skills ontologies to add a deep semantic layer that is machine-readable. This can be used by Relying Parties for semantic processing of received credentials.
Layer 4: Legal Interoperability
Each participant in the Velocity ecosystem works within its own national legal framework (e.g., employment, privacy). Legal interoperability is about ensuring that organizations and individuals operating under different legal frameworks, policies and strategies are able to work together. This requires participants to agree to the network’s terms and conditions to ensure operational consistency and legal clarity for every transaction.
Layer 5: Business Process Interoperability
For different entities to efficiently participate in the exchange of credentials, they must establish common business processes to avoid a fragmented user experience or the exclusion of entire use cases. This includes aligning differing incentives and costs to participate, as well as reconciling processes between relying parties and issuers. Velocity Network’s protocol incorporates embedded processes and uses Velocity Tokens for payment reconciliation, addressing the critical aspects of business process interoperability.
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