Education

Many opportunities, benefits and savings within education, thanks to electronic signature

Within education, the educational institution, students, parents and placement companies sign various agreements such as an Education Agreement or a Practice Agreement at the start of a course.

In addition, there are other agreements that need to be signed that do not involve students, such as employment contracts and tenders. Signing these types of documents and agreements is usually a time-consuming process, which indirectly wastes a lot of money that therefore cannot be spent on education.

Digitizing this signing process can save a lot of money and time in operations, but also has great value for process control. An educational institution thus has real-time information about the location and status of the agreements to be signed and therefore has a grip on counting data and the related funding. Based on calculations made by some educational institutions, it is expected to save 5 euros per document.

Signing with iDIN

For years, the Ministry of Education has stated that there must be a high level of certainty regarding the identity of the signer for digitally signing agreements with students (in concrete terms, this means STORK level 3). In the past, the advice was that the education sector had to perform the authentication for electronic signing by means of DigiD, which is STORK level 2.

Authentication with DigiD is also a problem in the case of minors because it means that the BSN number of the parent/guardian is obtained illegally by the educational institutions.

With iDIN both problems are overcome and nothing seems to stand in the way of signing documents in education. iDIN meets the requirements of STORK level 3, requires no storage of BSN and does not require a difficult and costly DigiD audit process. Education is ready for electronic signing!

Identifying with IRMA

IRMA offers a solution for logging in in a privacy-friendly way. During that login, you as a user reveal some relevant characteristics (attributes) of yourself, via an IRMA app on your own cell phone - for example, that you are over 16 or to verify that someone is a student. What makes IRMA special is its privacy-friendliness: the visitor does not reveal any information other than the fact that he/she is a student.

It is possible to request additional information through the IRMA app, namely the role of the visitor (student or employee) and the name of the institution (university or college) to which the student or employee is affiliated. This allows, for example, special access to be organized only for students and/or employees of a particular institution.

In addition, the IRMA app allows you to create digital signatures, also identifying yourself as a signer with personal attributes.

Choose the right platform

If an educational institution chooses to electronically sign, it is important to look beyond the issues of the day. Experience shows that in many organisations one type of document is the reason to start signing electronically. However, if one looks a little further into the future and a little more broadly in the organisation, many more types of documents appear to qualify. Also take those documents into account when choosing the platform to sign with!

The choice of the platform is important because of the diversity of documents to be signed in the education sector, the possibilities of advanced and qualified signing (on 1 document), the necessary means of authentication (including iDIN) and the possible changing legislation.

Because in addition to agreements involving students,(advanced signing where authentication is done, for example, via iDIN), the educational institution may also want to electronically sign other documents. A good example is the employment contract. Since July 1, 2016, by law, this must be signed by the employer with a qualified electronic signature.

In addition, the platform must be able to respond quickly to changing legislation and/or its enforcement. As indicated earlier, as of 1 July 2016, it is mandatory for employers to sign a qualification. On the basis of this legislation, supervision of compliance will increase, either by the Telecom Agency, auditors or other (audit) bodies. Partly in view of the financial impact associated with balanced funding dossiers, Zynyo advises educational institutions in any case to have the responsible educational directors sign with their own certificate. The platform must then support this qualified electronic signature.

Zynyo, partner of education

Zynyo is the ideal Signing Service Provider for the education sector and enables the education sector to sign electronically at the right reliability levels. For example, educational institutions can sign at the highest level with their own certificate and students, parents and placement companies can sign at reliability level (Stork level) 3. Zynyo offers high quality services at low cost and always complies with current legislation and regulations.

With Zynyo, you have access to a variety of authentication means including iDIN. This provides the desired level of reliability for each signing process. Zynyo itself uses a Dutch PKI Overheid certificate for its signing services and advises the educational institutions, partly on the basis of the "guide for government services", to do this as well. By doing so, the European legislation for qualified and advanced electronic signatures is complied with.

Therefore, choose a platform for electronic signing that supports both advanced and qualified signing, offers iDIN and can react quickly and adequately to legal changes.

5 reasons why Zynyo

Zynyo Signing Service Provider offers the following benefits:

✓ Advanced and qualified signing on 1 document
Compliant with current laws and international agreements
Personal and organizational PKI Government Certificates
✓ Cost savings and maximum process control
✓ Wide variety of authentication means, including iDIN

Also want to sign and identify digitally in a safe and reliable way?

Then make a no-obligation appointment with Zynyo.