Arts et Métiers ParisTech, formerly ENSAM… this name probably rings a bell! Indeed, it is one of the oldest engineering schools, founded in 1780 by the Duke of La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt. It is, to date, the largest French engineering school (more than 6,000 students per year) and stands as a reference.
The school has set an ambitious strategic plan: to be a talent accelerator for innovation and the industry 4.0 of the future. One of the objectives is to promote the culture of the industry of the future in-house to staff and students and to also serve as a promoter to the outside world. Discover more about Digital Credentials Press Release: University of Lille – France project.
To meet this need, the IT Department is updating its uses by bringing the latest innovations to our students, staff and partner companies. Olivier Barata, project director at the CIO of Arts et Métiers ParisTech, explains the school’s strategy here. In 2019, the school has selected 5 innovative and eco-friendly projects. These include the electronic signature of administrative acts, a mobile app for internal guidance within campuses, and the implementation of blockchain digital micro credentials, i.e. the issuing of 100% digital and secure diplomas.
Why choose a project of dematerialization of diplomas?
“With 6,000 students per year, managing records, loss of academic documents, requests for duplicates, employer verification requests … have become unnecessarily time-consuming processes. Besides, our students need their graduation certificates as soon as possible after the exam boards, and a large part of their internship or job search takes place in a digital environment. As the uses of our young graduates are modernizing, we need to evolve our management procedures with an ambitious digital transformation“, explains Olivier Barata.
What needs does this digital credential project meet?
The choice of the BCdiploma digital credentials examples responds to the need to optimize administrative processes, dematerialize documents and secure data: “With the blockchain storage of our graduation data, our managers have quick access to secure information, which cannot be modified and is directly usable: we no longer have to worry about the archiving, maintenance and accessibility of this essential data. As for the students, they have a certificate that is valid for life, that can be presented on any medium (smartphone, LinkedIn, CV, PDF, etc.), and that cannot be falsified: an immediate benefit for their job interviews“, explains Olivier Barata.
How does this service fit into your management tools?
Arts et Métiers uses the APIs of the BCdiploma solution to automate the creation and sending of micro credentials examples. Interfaced with the ERP Aurion (Auriga), the solution allows to generate, send and store the blockchain certificates without any handling, as soon as the board data is validated, the information is thus guaranteed. To date, we have certified on the blockchain the certificates of our graduates of the general engineering training of the 2016 to 2020 classes: this represents 4000 certificates.
A final word from Olivier Barata
“I recommend to those interested in innovating and in offering their graduates lasting certificates of achievement to trust BCdiploma in the support of their projects. Looking forward to the future so that we can issue our official diplomas in digital version rather than on paper!”
[title[Why choose a project of dematerialization of diplomas?]] [description[Olivier Barata, Arts et Métiers ParisTech CIO, discusses using BCdiploma blockchain for modernizing graduate records.]]