The GDN welcomes a new partnership with PESC
October 29, 2024 (Washington, D.C.) – The Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC) and the GDN Network have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to signal a new partnership in support of standards development and interoperability. The two organizations have been working together informally over the last decade and are now at a stage where revitalizing their relationship represents an important next step.
By formalizing their collaboration, the GDN Network and PESC are signalling a plan to engage in intentional ways to cooperate to the benefit of their communities. Examples might include co-locating or collaborating on the development of future activities and research, holding learning webinars, and creating new content to help elevate the call to adopt quality assured open standards for data exchange across the diverse world of decentralized systems.
“PESC has a longstanding tradition of supporting learner mobility and data portability from the vantage point of being a premier standards body in North America,” said David Moldoff, board chair. “Our community and board have been stalwart supporters of the GDN Network across several years. The opportunity to support decisive action that contributes to creating a Network of Networks through this new MOU is critical as we work in partnership across organizational and geographic boundaries to enable trusted data exchange. The PESC community stands ready to support helping international GDN stakeholders around the world to transform and reshape the lifelong learner credential experience.”
“As a long-standing participant in the open standards community, I’m thrilled to see the relationship between PESC and the GDN Network formalized,” said Alex Jackl, president, Bardic Systems and PESC board member. “We need to reach across organizational boundaries and find new and different ways of collaborating to advance interoperability and open standards. These are the secret ingredients to enable movement of learner data and credentials and doing it right benefits from bringing thought leaders together in new and different ways.”
The GDN Network seeks to catalyze a Network of Networks model as a way to build digital capacity across states and countries and to provide sustainable technology solutions for digital credential exchange that transform organizational capacity and expand and extend services for citizens. As an international not-for-profit, PESC seeks to advance trusted open standards to ensure the evolution of a data exchange foundation that supports sustainable education technology.
Today the GDN Network consists of participants and signatories from countries around the world who endorse citizen-focused, privacy-compliant data exchange principles that support mobility. PESC’s efforts complement the global cause because it delivers a family of tested market-defined data standards that deliver efficiencies, interoperability and quality. Together and in partnership with other standards bodies, these two organizations seek to remove mobility barriers, advance automation opportunities and create resources to aid their stakeholders in evolving access and outcomes for learners.
“The GDN Network is made up of an incredibly diverse stakeholder community that represents the bedrock of education expertise in place to ensure citizens worldwide obtain rapid access to work and learning,” said Joanne Duklas, Executive Director, GDN Network. ”By working together through a Network of Networks model, particularly with open standards bodies like PESC, we believe that rapid interoperability can be achieved more effectively. We are excited by the prospect of working with our not-for-profit standards community to advance real change for learners and citizens.”
About
About the Groningen Declaration Network (The GDN Network): The GDN Network is an international, non-profit federated trust located in the Netherlands. It represents a voluntary network of like-minded organizations and individuals that seek to make digital student data portability happen. Its network of thought leaders from around the globe are collaborators who seek to support, advise, and offer innovative changes in the ways we share artifacts of academic learning. The GDN Network seeks common ground in best serving the academic and professional mobility needs of citizens worldwide by bringing together stakeholders in the digital student data ecosystem. It seeks to develop and support best practices and globally accepted standards for safe and citizen-oriented convenings and information exchanges. Learn more about the GDN Network at: groningendeclaration.org.
About the Postsecondary Electronic Standards Council (PESC): PESC serves as an incubator, publisher and curator of open-source standards for education. Established in 1997 at The National Center for Higher Education, it operates as an international 501(c)(3) non-profit, community-based, umbrella association headquartered in Washington, D.C. It supports a variety of stakeholders with its work including Data, Software, Technology Service Providers and Vendors; Schools, Districts, Colleges and Universities; College, University and State/Provincial Systems; Local, State/Provincial and Federal Government offices; Professional, Commercial and Non-Profit Organizations; and Non-Profit Associations and Foundations. Learn about PESC at: pesc.org.
Media Contacts
Maya Hardy, Outreach Coordinator, the GDN Network: [email protected]
Jennifer Kim, Director of Membership Services, PESC: [email protected]
