Academic credentials are worth securing, no doubt about that.
If you are a university and applicants submit credentials to you, you want to be 100% sure that those credentials are authentic. To that end, you will probably contact the issuer and ask them to “verify” the credential. This is the right way of verification. But it does not have to be the only way.
What if you were to get an assurance as you opened the document that it is indeed authentic, and you can verify the source without actually having to contact the issuer to ask? It would save you and the student time and the hassle of it all.
Now put on the hat of an issuer of a degree (which you are). Receivers will get in touch with you to provide “verification”. This is time consuming and a needless activity. Instead, what if you were to secure the degrees you issue in a way that the receiver can authenticate them without ever having to contact you?
Wouldn’t this be useful? Of course, you say! But can it be done? Thanks to digital signatures, it can well be done and easily too!
Universities can digitally sign and certify their electronic degree certificates using the digital signature certificate of the University. A receiver can identify and authenticate the signer and the degree being tamperproof eliminates any risk of modification. It also eliminates the need for the receiver to re-verify the document with the issuer.
A digital signature certificate is issued after verification of the applicant and the signing is actually done after multi-factor authentication. Systems such as those provided by Truecopy integrate well with student MIS systems, so the signing takes place in a seamless manner.
This is a regular practice being followed in the United States and India has just about embarked on this journey. Every university looking to secure their documents and reducing manual work in providing verifications should evaluate a digital signature system like TRUESigner Credentials
The sooner the universities adopt digital signatures, the sooner the forgeries and tampering will end.
