Abstract
Over the years there have been a great need of easy and fasted means of verify result/certificate to reduce the level or certificate forgery and to ease the stress and also save the time of certificate verification which is done manually today, an employer or anybody concern will have to come or send delegate to school to verify a particular certificate, some employer never did and this has resulted on accepting a forge certificate. Verification is the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something such as the verification of official documents. In this study the document in reference is the academic certificate.
In this prototype which we have created for this study, the user can request the certificates verification through the app. This prototype is created using Java for front-end user interface while the database is controlled my MySQL. We developed a prototype which allows users to make request to get the academic certificates verification by filling the name of institution, course name, year of graduation and the verification code.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
- BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Globally, most of the institutions and organizations rely on use traditional paper verification methods to verify the documents presented to them. These organizations and institution do not have the capacity to verify the document presented to them instantly. One of the problems we have in traditional paper based is that people and especially recruiters and employers find difficult in knowing the validity of documents such as academic certificates presented to them because there is no way they can authenticate those documents instantly. In the current scenario most of the organization does not have the capacity to instantly authenticate the documents presented.Traditional identity information verification and validation processes were developed in a “paper” transaction world.
This Paper is centered on the need to adopt automatic online verification system that will save the huddles of manual verification method. This will enable anybody or an employer to verify an institution certificate online, without having to come down to the school to do so. All that is required of the employer is to log into the verification link given, which is a link to the university portal and enter the certificate number of the certificate he/she wants to verify, then the original copy of that certificate will be displayed on the screen along with the following message (assuming the name of the certificate owner is “Njoeteni Orikeze”), “Njoeteni Orikeze is a graduate of Computer Engineering Department, Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Umudike, he graduated in the year 2015. Please carefully compare the certificate you have there with the one on your screen any alteration renders that certificate invalid”. But if the certificate number is invalid (i.e a forged certificate number), the following message will be displayed on the screen “Invalid Certificate, we don’t have details of this person in our record, it is either you missed typed the certificate number or the owner did not pass through this institution, Verify and try again, please if the problem persists contact the school +2348000000000, admin@university.edu.ng”
- STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM
Verification of certificates is a major concern in organization, academic institutions, recruiters and employers. Employers have been experiencing has high alarming rate of fake certificates. This is as result production of fake certificates. Firstly, the traditional paper-based prototype of verification contributes in production of fake certificates which poses a difficult in knowing the validity of such academic certificates presented to them because there is no way they can authenticate them instantly. Secondly, modern technology and the rise of the internet have undoubtedly contributed to the wide-spread trend of educational fraud and fake degrees, accuracy and convenient.
- OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY
The main objective of this study to design and implement certificate verification system which verifies a certificate against the certificates produced by the school. This method will phase out outdated paper/manual method, though the papers will still be kept safe in schools for future reference.
Other objectives include:
- To make Certificate accessibility Easy
- To save time and Resources
- To prevent risk in transits in result verification, etc.
- SCOPE OF THE STUDY
This study will concentrate on the development of a prototype for academic certificates verifications. The product/Output is a software product called vericert. Vericert is a system for verifying academic certificates. It is available for anyone or any organization that wishes to establish the veracity of academic documents presented to them by any candidate seeking a job.
- RESEARCH QUESTIONS
This research work will be guided by the following research questions:
- Which methods are currently used for academic certificate verification?
- Why proposing a computerized Certificate Verification System for the institution? Is it really important?
- What method and technology may be used to develop and deploy the academic certificate verification system?
- How will the proposed computer-based system affect the existing conventional system?
1.6Significance of the study
When the project goes online the following benefit will be realized:-
- Recruiters and employers receive the benefit because the system gives the opportunity to authenticate the certificates.
- Help the recruiting agencies in verification academic certificates held by an individual.
- Verification Software reduces instances of academic fraud. Improves fraud detection.
1.7 Definitions of important terms
- Grid: Globally distributed units with different operating prototypes and hardware being capable of processing a large amount of data collaboratively.
- Virtualization in computing is a term that refers to the various techniques, methods or approaches of hybrid online creating a virtual (rather than actual) version of something, such as a virtual, operating prototype (OS).
- Clusters A computer cluster consists of a set of loosely connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single prototype.
- Hypervisors: In computing, a hypervisor or virtual machine manager (VMM) is a piece of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines.
- A computer cluster consists of a set of loosely connected computers that work together so that in many respects they can be viewed as a single prototype.
