Rethinking the Attributes of Academic Certificates: Implications for Policy and Practice

Abstract

Educational institutions and employers who depend on the authenticity of academic certificates for making admission and hiring decisions face a considerable challenge in identifying the features of genuine academic certificates including tedious verification processes and wrongful engagement of unqualified personnel. The purpose of this paper was to identify trends in academic certificate production with specific regards to their standard features, such as wording, security enhancements and features, and other unique features, and the extent to which these features contribute to the intrinsic and extrinsic values of certificates. Furthermore, the paper investigates the extent to which selected universities replace lost or damaged certificates. The study employed a qualitative design involving document and web content analysis. To address the central question of the study, the authors analysed the standard features of academic certificates issued by 20 universities across the globe. Furthermore, we performed a web content analysis to find policies or guidelines on the replacement of academic certificates. The results revealed that while academic certificates from the selected institutions bore a few unique characteristics, most of the certificates, however, bore many common features. Some of the common features included the location of the emblem/logo of the on the certificate, date of the award, degree name, signature specimen of top officials, and security features such as holograms. On the other hand, unique features included some certificates displaying a statement on the availability of electronic certificates, rendering of the university’s name in multiple languages, among others. The study also found that lost or mutilated certificates are replaced by European-based universities, whereas those in Africa did not. Among others, the paper recommended that awarding institutions in Africa should consider re-issuing lost or destroyed certificates.