The Skills and Education Group Protect Qualification Integrity with Secure Digital Certification & Blockchain Technology

The adoption of our Digital Certificates® and Blockchain Paper® technologies results in a secure, interconnected certification system that protects qualification integrity for their organisation, centres and learners.  

The Skills and Education Group unites education and skills-orientated organisations with similar values and objectives.

With more than 100 years of collective experience, the Group works across awarding, membership, training and workforce development services to support learners, centres, employers and education professionals throughout the UK. Their strategic partnerships help inform, influence and represent the wider education and skills sector. As a trusted organisation responsible for issuing qualifications that support career progression and professional recognition, protecting the integrity and value of those credentials is a critical priority. 

With certificate fraud becoming increasingly sophisticated and stakeholder expectations continuing to evolve, protecting award integrity, maintaining employer confidence and ensuring the reputation of their organisation and centres became key priorities. Skills and Education Group therefore sought a solution to protect the integrity of their certificates, reduce operational costs and allow them to meet changing customer needs. 

What research & development was undertaken?

As stakeholder expectations evolved towards digital-first services, Skills and Education Group recognised the need to modernise how achievements were issued, accessed and shared. However, with an understanding of the increasing risks of qualification fraud and the importance of maintaining credential security across printed and electronic documents, they focused their research on how digital certification and blockchain technology could support a more secure, accessible and learner-focused certification experience. 

“Our research investigated the challenges and risks posed to both printed and electronic certificates and how an integrated digital certificate platform and blockchain technology could work to mitigate fraud and protect the reputation of our organisation and centres. In addition, Skills and Education Group looked at opportunities to improve how secure certificates could be offered to our learners through a centralised platform for all digital and printed credentials.”

Key areas of research included:

• The latest security best practices to ensure the integrity of qualifications are protected from fraud 
• Understanding how learners’ expectations have changed 
• How to provide a flexible self-service digital certificate experience for learners and employers 
• Exploring the challenges of delivering printed certificates and the acceptance of digital services 
• What certification security means for the integrity of our qualifications and reputation 
• The use and benefits of blockchain technology in certification 
• How quick and secure verification processes could improve employer confidence in awarded qualifications. 

What were the challenges, and how were they overcome?

“Before adopting any certification solutions, our printing processes and certificates had limited security, increasing the risks of fraud. On top of this, the distribution and manual collation of certificate batches to our centres were time-consuming and costly. With the recent merger of BIIAB, we knew we needed a system that could manage hundreds of different templates and offer advanced certificate verification. 

To overcome this, Skills and Education Group outlined specific requirements and implemented a secure, feature-rich certification platform and Blockchain Paper® solution that has significantly improved our security from start to finish. In addition, the certification system has streamlined our print and publish processes with auto-collation and certificate templating to manage hundreds of templates in a controlled and intuitive environment.” 

How has the innovation benefited the organisation, centres, employers, and learners?

“Adopting a secure and efficient digital certification solution underpinned by security best practices for Skills and Education Group and our centres has enabled us to meet our stakeholders’ expectations and ultimately protect the integrity of our qualifications, awarded certificates, and our organisation’s reputation.

For our learners, self-service functionality provides instant access to view, order and share their digital certificates with third parties, such as employers, from the convenience of their mobile devices, delivering an excellent learner experience. Additionally, learners receiving printed certificates now benefit from a world 1st innovation in secure paper technology, using embedded blockchain technology and advanced printed security features to create a verifiable and immutable certificate paper stock that protects the value of their qualifications throughout their careers.  

For employers, our blockchain-printed certificates, combined with our digital certification platform, offer intelligent verification features. These enable employers to validate the personalised data of the award using a smartphone whilst also verifying that the certificate papers are genuine and originated from the Skills and Education Group. Therefore, supporting our learner employability initiatives, ensuring employers are protected when looking to hire a Skills and Education Group qualified learner, and protecting the integrity of awards.  This reduces the risk of qualification fraud, increases confidence in hiring decisions and enhances trust in the qualifications presented by our learners

In summary, Skills and Education Group now benefits from a secure, efficient, and connected certification ecosystem that is focused on all key stakeholders; Learners, Centres, Employers, and other third parties.”

What is the potential for further development?

”Subsequent development is currently being implemented for additionally verifying the personalised certificate information using blockchain technology. This will use blockchain technology to ensure that tampering and manipulating the records is not attainable. Soon, we will offer blockchain documents, blockchain papers®, and blockchain badges® of any type to our learners from a single, interconnected secure certification system.”

About Advanced Secure Technologies

Since 2004, Advanced Secure Technologies has worked to STOP FRAUD for our customers. We lead the way in best practices and set a global standard for Secure Paper and Secure Digital Certificates. Our holistic approach to developing secure certification solutions features multiple layers of security across the issuing process. This ensures our customers remain ahead of the fraud risk. As a result, our innovative and high-security solutions protect the integrity of documents issued while safeguarding the reputation of over 200 education organisations worldwide.

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