Credentials & Certificate Management

Overview

Credentials & Certificate Management covers the issuance, configuration, and management of course completion certificates and program credentials. When a learner completes a course (meeting grade thresholds), the platform generates a certificate; completing a program of courses generates a program credential.

This area sits in Instructor Experiences because certificate generation is triggered by course completion events, certificate management (blocking, regeneration, configuration) is performed by course staff, and credential issuance is tied to instructor-set grade policies.

The credentials service is a standalone Django microservice extracted from edx-platform to handle certificate generation, storage, and verification. Certificates are publicly shareable and verifiable via URL.

Moved from v1.0 Learner Experiences. Previously documented as Credentials & Certificates (archived).

Current State (2026)

• Certificate generation: Triggered by grade thresholds; generated as signed HTML pages (not PDFs) with unique shareable URLs
• Program credentials: Issued by the credentials service when all program courses are completed
• Learner record: frontend-app-learner-record MFE shows all earned credentials and allows sharing
• Themes: credentials-themes provides customizable certificate templates per organization
• Verification: Public certificate URLs are verifiable; certificates contain learner name, course, date, grade
• Certificate management: Instructors can invalidate certificates, regenerate them after grade changes, and configure certificate eligibility criteria
• Legacy PDF: Historical PDF certificate generation deprecated in favor of HTML certificates

Architecture

• credentials service: Standalone Django app; receives signals from edx-platform when courses are completed; manages credential issuance and sharing
• edx-platform integration: LMS sends completion/grade signals; credentials listens and issues certificates
• Certificate rendering: HTML templates rendered server-side with learner data; not PDF (PDF generation was dropped)
• Sharing: Each certificate has a unique URL; learner can share on LinkedIn, email, etc.
• Program logic: Program completion tracked by credentials; checks all required course certificates

Relevant Repositories

Repository	Role in This Feature	Activity Level	Notes
openedx/credentials	Credentials service: issuance and management	High	Core service
openedx/frontend-app-learner-record	Learner record and credential viewer MFE	Medium	View/share credentials
openedx/credentials-themes	Certificate HTML templates and themes	Low	Per-org customization
openedx/openedx-platform	Grade thresholds, certificate signals, legacy cert generation	High	Signal source

Recent Changes

• PDF certificate generation removed in favor of HTML certificates
• Program credential improvements in credentials service

History

Origin

• Year introduced: ~2013 (certificates launched early in edX history)
• Initial implementation: Certificates generated directly in edx-platform; PDF rendered via background Celery task
• Context: Certificates were a key value proposition for MOOCs — social proof of completion that learners could share with employers

Key Milestones

Year	Milestone	Teams / People Involved
~2013	Course completion certificates launched	Unknown
~2015–2016	Program credentials introduced	Unknown
~2017–2018	credentials service extracted from monolith	Unknown
~2019–2020	PDF certificates deprecated; HTML certificates become standard	Unknown

People Who Shaped This Area

• Engineering: Unknown — open question for interview
• Product: Unknown — open question for interview
• Design: Unknown — open question for interview

Open Questions

• [ ] When were certificates first introduced and what form did they take?
• [ ] Why was the credentials service extracted from edx-platform vs. kept in the monolith?
• [ ] What drove the decision to abandon PDF certificates in favor of HTML?
• [ ] How does certificate verification work technically — what prevents forgery?
• [ ] When were program credentials introduced and what was the product reasoning?
• [ ] How are certificate templates customized per institution/organization?
• [ ] What certificate management operations can course staff perform vs. platform admins?