FINANCIAL TIMES MONDAY APRIL 29 2013

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BUSINESS EDUCATION

A smarter way to discover the fishy, the fraudulent and the forged
A digital academic passport will benefit students, universities and companies, writes James FontanellaKhan
hen David Goldenberg was a consultant for a Belgian company and a suspicious CV landed on his desk it took him nearly four days to find out that it was fraudulent. The guy seemed to be too good on paper, but I knew there was something fishy with the CV. Tracking down the university mentioned on the fake CV took time and money. Often universities cant reply immediately to a companys request. They are busy, they have departments to run, he says. But this is a problem for companies as their employees need to make endless calls and waste working days to find out whether the credentials of a potential candidate are genuine. It was then that Mr Goldenberg realised there was an attractive business opportunity in front of him. I thought, I wonder how many other HR departments must go

their professional profile in exchange for the Smart Diploma service. But whats in it for alumni? In exchange for answering a few questions every year from their university, alumni receive a digital academic passport that they can use to promote their academic background to recruiters, job sites and social networks. There is also an automatic certified translation of their credentials in any language, useful for international jobseekers. Why should business be interested? When recruiters see that a certificate has the Smart Diploma trade mark they will know that the CV is genuine. They will not have to call universities to double-check credentials, saving time and money. How does it work? Smart Diploma gives institutions a platform to help them design templates for diplomas, certification letters, transcripts, etc. Once these are designed, schools then grant the credentials to their graduates, who must activate the diploma. Graduates then upload their diplomas on social network sites and send them to recruiters. Prospective employers click on the Smart Diploma link taking them to a secure online environment where the credentials can be verified as genuine. But isnt it easy to copy the Smart Diploma or hack the system? No. Each Smart Diploma is unique and contains a built-in security component that can be verified in a single click. It would require a sophisticated hacker to break into the highly encrypted system. Although the risk of forgery can never be eradicated, it is much lower than the risk of having a student either forging a paper diploma or buying a fake diploma online, which is so common today.

Soapbox

Prepare for the real world

By Paul Kirkham

through this problem . . . Im sure we can come up with a faster digital solution rather than using a laborious human procedure. He decided to quit his job and partnered with Pierre-David Dewaele, a fellow Belgian manager, to set up CV Trust and create Smart Diploma. What is Smart Diploma? Smart Diploma is a standardised, digital, secure system to grant, ensure, monitor and protect peoples credentials in other words a digital academic passport. Several business schools including IMD, Insead and MIT Sloan have already signed up for Smart Diploma. How does it make life easier? Smart Diploma provides schools with a digital means of awarding their students their degree certificates. This allows the schools to protect their brand the institutions names cannot be used improperly. It also helps schools cut costs as credentials can be granted in a click. Smart Diploma also provides institutions with an easy way of remaining in contact with their alumni. Using survey tools within Smart Diploma schools can encourage their alumni to update

Producing MBA graduates who aim high and are committed to making a difference is a key function of any business school. But business schools need to guard against the temptation to produce what might be described as heroes. Today we live in an age of ceaseless transition, one in which innovation and entrepreneurship the ability to adapt and adjust should have infinitely more value than a supposedly heroic attitude rooted in fixed goals and short-term reward. Of course it is important to acknowledge that aspiring business leaders may well wish to cast themselves as heroes, and business schools should not suppress this tendency as it is not without positive qualities. But schools should clearly define the limits of the epic approach and their principle aim should be to prepare their students for the real world. It is vital that schools acknowledge and teach that students are better served if they are encouraged to see themselves not as heroes in an epic but as actors in a larger story that requires them to interact with a multiplicity of possibilities.
The writer is a researcher in the field of entrepreneurial creativity at Nottingham University Business School Join the debate online: www.ft.com/soapbox

David Goldenberg (left) and PierreDavid Dewaele

Wiktor Dabkowski

The business of education

Fresh perspective Signing up for an EMBA an MBA for working executives is demanding for the student. Classes and assignments need to be balanced alongside professional working commitments. But what about the other side of the story? One EMBA blogger asked her employer to tell what he felt she had learned. www.ft.com/mbablog The beautiful game Investing in a football club such as Manchester United, which boasts Patrice Evra as one of its top players, is an attractive proposition. But club valuations can be wildly optimistic. Tom Markham, a PhD student at Henley Business School at the University of Reading, has come up with a system to determine a clubs real value. www.ft.com/bizedvideo

25%
Did you know . . . On average leading companies allocate approximately 25 per cent of their learning and development budgets to executive courses delivered by business schools, according to a recent Financial Times poll. Of 120 companies that completed the survey, one in six spend half or more of their L&D budget on executive education. The FT Executive Education rankings 2013 will be published on Monday May 13.

LulzSec An international hacking group that has claimed responsibility for infiltrating and shutting down the CIA website. It is an offshoot of the hacking group Anonymous. For a definition of this and thousands more words selected by Financial Times editors, visit lexicon/ft.com