Core concepts

This page is the reference for the vocabulary the rest of the docs lean on. If you've been reading the Learning track or the Recruiting track and want to look up exactly what one term means, this is the place.

For longer-form context on any concept, the glossary has a dedicated URL per term — 315+ definitions, each standing on its own. This page is the short version.

Challenge

The unit of work on Ewance. A short, project-shaped brief modelled on the work a working professional in a given discipline would actually do. Every challenge has:

• A scenario — the situation you're working in.
• A deliverable — what "done" looks like (slide deck, written report, code repo, design file, mixed).
• Constraints — time, budget, audience, technical limits.
• A rubric — what reviewers will look for.

Briefs come from two sources: Ewance's editorial team (the bulk of the catalogue) and industry partners who sponsor briefs directly. Industry-sponsored briefs are flagged on the challenge page and are particularly valuable for the learning experience — they map to a real company's actual priorities. See How challenges work for the longer version.

Verifiable credential

The artefact a student earns when their submission is accepted. Not a PDF — a standards-compliant, cryptographically signed document anchored on a public blockchain (Base, an Ethereum L2).

Three standards converge in one document:

• W3C Verifiable Credentials 2.0 — the umbrella spec for portable, verifiable claims.
• Blockcerts v3 — the blockchain-anchoring profile.
• Open Badges 3.0 — the achievement-credential profile.

This is what makes a credential independently verifiable — a recruiter can confirm authenticity without trusting Ewance. The cryptography speaks for itself.

Longer version: Certificates (student framing) and Verified credentials (recruiter framing).

Rubric

The published evaluation framework for a challenge. Every brief states its rubric up front; reviewers grade against the stated criteria, not against any hidden bar.

Three rubric outcomes:

• Accepted on first submission — signal: got it right the first time.
• Accepted after revision — signal: responded well to feedback.
• Not accepted — rare; requires multiple compounding issues.

Recruiters can filter candidates by rubric outcome. See Searching for talent.

Submission

The deliverable a student uploads when a challenge is complete. Format depends on the brief — slide deck, report, code repo, design file, or a mixed bundle.

A submission stays private by default. Ewance does not publish it. What becomes public is the credential the submission is anchored to, not the work itself. The student decides who to share the work with directly.

Team format

Three working modes for any challenge:

• Solo — one person, end-to-end.
• Pair — two students splitting the work along natural seams.
• Squad — three to six students, often mixed-discipline.

The team format is recorded on the credential, so recruiters see how a submission was produced. See Teams and collaboration.

Sponsored challenge

A challenge whose brief was contributed by an industry partner. Students who complete sponsored challenges surface higher in that sponsor's recruiter search results — it's the most direct route from the learning surface into the recruiting surface.

Sponsored challenges are flagged on the challenge page. The student experience is the same as any other challenge; the difference is on the recruiter side.

See /for-industry for sponsorship enquiries.

Recruiter

The end-user on the hiring side. A recruiter — internal talent team, hiring manager, or external recruiter — searches the talent pool by what candidates have shipped, reads the submissions, and reaches out directly. Recruiting runs on a paid subscription (four named tiers, account-gated pricing) — see pricing.

See How recruiting works for the recruiter-side flow.

Industry partner

A company that sponsors challenges on Ewance. Industry partners are distinct from recruiters — a recruiter might be from any company; an industry partner is one that has paid to put a brief in front of students. The two roles often live in the same company.

Anchor

The on-chain transaction that ties a credential to a permanent, public record. We use Base (Ethereum L2) for low gas costs while inheriting Ethereum's tamper-evidence. The anchor is what makes a credential outlive the platform — even if Ewance disappears, the cryptographic proof remains on Base, and any Blockcerts-compatible verifier can confirm authenticity.

Verification

The process of confirming a credential is authentic. Five checks run client-side:

1. Schema — is this a valid W3C VC / Blockcerts / Open Badges document?
2. Signature — was it signed by Ewance's issuer key?
3. Issuer — is the issuer key currently valid?
4. Anchor — does the on-chain reference match?
5. Revocation — has the credential been revoked since issuance?

If all five pass, the credential is valid. Verification happens in the recruiter's browser, with no API call to Ewance.

The verification surface lives at verify.ewance.com.

Revocation

The mechanism for marking a credential as no-longer-valid after issuance — for example, if plagiarism is discovered after the fact. Revocation is rare in practice; its existence is what makes the credential trustworthy at issuance.

A revoked credential isn't deleted (that would be cryptographically suspicious) — verification returns a "revoked" status instead of "valid."

Where to next

• For the student journey through these concepts: start at Learning.
• For the recruiter view of the same concepts: start at Recruiting.
• For a quick hands-on: Quickstart.