[IMPACT]
What are SSI objects? Why do we need them?
SSI objects are for example digital identities (DID) and digital credentials.
We all have physical real world credentials already. Your paper passport and plastic card drivers license are good examples. They are physical documentation that you are a legal resident of the country you come from, and proof that you can drive a car. The problem though, is that these cannot be used as proof when you need them on the internet. They are only usable in the physical real world.
<u>Digital credentials are digital versions of these documents</u> in a form that can be used in the (non-physical) internet world.
The DID is your digital identity, to which you can receive these digital proofs and link to you as a digital person.
Why would you want to create a digital credential?
Perhaps you are the manager of a sports club? Perhaps you are a University professor and want to send digital proof to your graduate students for passing a course? You could then make use of DIDs to let your club members or students receive these digital proofs. The possibilities are endless.
With endless possibilities, also endless variations of the same type of credential will be created. Let's give professors, sports club managers and all credential builders out there help finding standard diplomas or club membership credentials so they do not need to figure this out by themselves!! We propose to create a library of standard, reusable credential templates to get the Atala PRISM community off to a good start
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<u>When creating digital credentials there are no standards for what fields and properties are required and which are optional for that particular type of credential.</u> Without standards, all credential creators are free to add fields as they please. While freedom is great while playing or testing, it can lead to disaster when used in real life. Birth certificates without required fields like name and date of birth, or uncertainty regarding time zone of the date, would render the credential useless.
This project will to set up a library of templates for standard SSI related objects to aid digital credential creators as a resource. The library can also be integrated with SSI tools that want to use the templates.
Please make note that the library will created, not all of the different possible types of credential templates. Each template will require expertise into which properties constitutes the credential and no single person or team possess expertise to cover all credential types. We are aiming to create this library so community teams and individuals can contribute their credential templates, and manage these templates using the library.
When credential creators and tools all use the same templates, standards are developed, synergies are accomplished and adoption of Atala Prism SSI is achieved.
We will document how community creators can contribute templates to the library and how they can make use of the templates when creating their own digital credentials.
The library will not use any unknown technology and standard products will be used when possible. The project is not dependent on any other project to be delivered successfully. It is therefore difficult to see any reason for not being successful.
Global adoption of the library is a risk that needs to be addressed. Planning to make use of the library in tool Visual DID & Credential Builder - https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/398408 currently being developed and will make it as user friendly and general purpose as possible so it can be adopted by other SSI tools as well.
[FEASIBILITY]
Month 1: Decide technology platform, communication formats and template standards, development of proof of concept solution. Reaching out and collaborate with community and receiving feedback
Month 2-3: Development of the template library and possibly a communication API if currently not available in the selected technology. Documentation of how to use and contribute SSI templates.
Month 4: Test and deployment
We ask for funding of the first 4 months of development and publication of first version of template library.
$15000 - Development costs. Funds will be used for developing a standard for how credential templates should be represented when saved in the library. Metadata describing the current version of the template. Who can manage the template
$4000 - Documentation how to use templates from and contribute templates to the library. The documentation will need to contain a description of the library governance, management roles and responsibilities and description of credential template standard. Go-through of how to use and contribute templates.
$2000 - Community communications and demoes + project management. Participate in Catalyst After Town-hall breakout rooms and IOG Developer Discord to demo the library and usage.
The developer will be Andre Brunsal, Elementary Software.
Prior experience from development and maintenance of several document management systems during my career, provides high confidence and feasibility for a successful implementation of this library.
Please see full profile on LinkedIn: <https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrebrunsal>
[AUDITABILITY]
Periodic KPI reports and progress reports sent the Catalyst team will give full insight into project development and progress. Library will also be available to the community all the way from proof of concept to finished site.
List of KPI we will monitor
- Number of remaining items to develop
- Number of items developed
- Number of templates contributed to the library by community creators
- Number of templates downloaded by community creators / tools
Successful project is a vibrant and adopted library where creators find templates to use while also being able to share their own templates.
The library is used by SSI creators and SSI tools alike.
The proposal is linked to, but not a requirement for another proposal we have for Fund8, namely <https://cardano.ideascale.com/c/idea/398408> - Visual DID & Credential Builder
There is a need for a library of reusable templates in this tool, and I think this library will also be a great resource for other SSI tool creators needing credential templates as inspiration for the credential they are creating. An alternative to creating this as a public library, would be to enable users to save their favorite credentials as templates on their own computer. In the interest of common needs in the community, I want this to be a publicly available library to benefit the community as a whole.
If this library proposal is voted and funded, the Visual DID & Credential Builder tool will be coupled (integrated) with this library to use templates from and share templates with it, making standard credential templates available for the whole SSI community
