Professionals taking a short course alongside their work primarily need one thing: quick and secure access to their online learning environment. They do not need an extensive student account, a mailbox they will not use, or information about printers and other student facilities. That is why Erasmus University Rotterdam (EUR) is exploring how eduID can help give participants in Lifelong Learning (LLL) education easy access to Canvas.
Why is this relevant?
Lifelong Learning (LLL) is an important theme in Erasmus University Rotterdam's strategy. The university aims to be a place where people continue their education during or after their careers. Until recently, access to Canvas was mainly designed for full-time students, rather than for professionals or other participants in short-term education. Information manager Manon de Jong and consultant Maria Korteweg worked with colleagues from Education & Student Affairs (E&S) and Erasmus Digitalisation & Information Services (EDIS) on the eduID project. They explain what is now possible.
A specific target group
LLL participants are often professionals, PhD candidates or people from the business community who take a course alongside their work. They are not regular students and generally do not need all the facilities that come with a full EUR account. For lecturers, eduID makes it possible to guide this group in the familiar Canvas environment. This means course materials, assignments and communication in one place, without participants first having to apply for a comprehensive ERNA account.
“I think it is very good that we can easily bring people to our virtual campus.”
Prof. Bas Donkers, Erasmus School of Economics
From a full student account to appropriate access
Until now, participants in short-term education often received a regular ERNA account. This gave them access to far more than they needed, such as a EUR mailbox, library services and campus information. This can be confusing, Maria explains: participants in an online course usually do not need messages about printers, a campus card or library facilities. They mainly want to log in and start learning. With eduID, access is limited to what is needed for the course: in this pilot, that is Canvas.
What is eduID?
eduID is a personal digital identity for education participants. People can use this identity at different educational institutions, before, during and after a programme or course. Within the EUR project ‘Taking LLL education with an eduID’, eduID is being used for participants in short-term education. They create a verified eduID and use it to gain secure access to the Canvas course environment. The project is part of the Npuls Get Connected incentive scheme.
Npuls is the National Growth Fund programme in which all public universities, universities of applied sciences and vocational education institutions in the Netherlands work together towards a future-proof education sector. Read more about EUR’s contribution here. The Community for Learning & Innovation (CLI) coordinates the key team that ensures EUR is well connected to Npuls.
The pilot: Choice Modelling Academy
Since 1 September 2026, a pilot has been running at the Choice Modelling Academy of Erasmus School of Economics (ESE). In this online course, professionals learn how to model choice data and choice behaviour. Participants come from different countries and often combine the course with their work. They include PhD candidates, academics, consultants and professionals from the business community. Professor Bas Donkers, one of the three lecturers, describes the difference between the situation before and after eduID was introduced. Previously, the course used a free version of Canvas, where participants could easily be invited by email. After the Canvas hack, that option was no longer available. According to Donkers, this made access to Canvas for LLL participants “virtually impossible” because of the complex and costly ERNA procedure. eduID now provides an alternative: participants can use a verified digital identity to access the secure EUR Canvas environment. This also allows lecturers to continue working in the Canvas environment they already know.
How does this work for participants and lecturers?
During the pilot, the eduID process worked as follows: ESE submits a list of participants, after which participants receive an invitation email. Using the link in that email, they create an eduID. They can then be added to the course using their eduID, log in to Canvas and take the course. In this way, they are created as guest users and linked through their eduID, rather than being enrolled as students via an ERNA account.
In this first version, there is still an additional administrative step for lecturers: an eduID number is used to link the participant to the correct Canvas account. The project team aims to automate this step over time. Ultimately, the goal is for lecturers to once again be able to invite participants easily by email, while eduID provides secure and appropriate access in the background.
What could eduID mean in the future?
The current pilot only concerns access to Canvas. In the longer term, eduID could potentially play a role throughout an LLL participant’s learning journey:
- registering for a course;
- gaining access to digital learning environments;
- taking education and achieving results;
- receiving an edubadge or microcredential;
- taking previously achieved learning outcomes to another institution.
Bas Donkers also sees opportunities to link certificates in the future to, for example, verified LinkedIn badges. This would allow professionals to show which course components they have taken and completed. For now, the focus is on a feasible first step: giving professionals secure, simple and appropriate access to Canvas.
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