The role and importance of credential schemas is well captured in W3C documentation, for example: <https://w3c-ccg.github.io/vc-json-schemas/v1/index.html>
A schema is a template for a verifiable credential. A schema is often written by a governance authority, so that it becomes the standard for all the organizations that “defer” to that authority, and can be published for public use (any issuer can discover the schema and issue credentials on it) or private use (only the author can use it).
A schema tells the issuer, holder and verifier what information must be included for a credential to be valid, e.g. a certificate of employment must be contain Employee Name, Employee Passport Number, Employee Position, Employment Start Date, Employment End Date, Employer Name, Employer Registration Number.
The output will be a standard representation of PRISM credential schema and credential definition with a set of open-source tools for verifying this standard and defining a way to store a schema in Cardano blockchain.
The impact will be:
1. Open source docs and tools for implementing a critical piece of the SSI infrastructure for Atala PRISM
2. Opening the possibility of trust networks (and the positive secondary impacts therein) to the Cardano community
3. Greater efficiency in the creation of credential workflows for Cardano community
The proposed solution addresses the challenge in the following ways:
The overall question to be addressed by the challenge is: “Can we build an Open Ecosystem to drive growth, give equal opportunities to all, and increase the synergies across Cardano projects?”
- Credential Schema Definition is a vital part of the SSI infrastructure for PRISM and is a critical enabler of scaled use of PRISM in trust networks and a wide range of web 3.0 business models.
Two of the areas of focus of the challenge are: increase commercial adoption and provide needed infrastructures.
- This is a much-needed piece of the PRISM infrastructure and will enable greater commercial adoption through viability of trust networks.
- Risk: Risk of duplication of effort that is being undertaken elsewhere in the open source community.
- Mitigation: we are engaging directly with the Atala PRISM core team and reviewing what is already out there in open source.