Southern New Hampshire University

Responding to the needs of students.

Launched

Spring 2018

Sector

Education

Partner

Office of the President

Digital Degrees

Bachelor’s and Associate degrees have been issued to SNHU’s spring 2018 College for America graduates in a digital format anchored to the BTC blockchain for instant global verification.

“In some ways this is piloting what a modern transcript would be: digital, portable, owned by the student, can be verified using the encrypted assets. Employers … don’t need to call up SNHU and verify that information, it’s self-verified,” said Colin Van Ostern, vice president of workforce initiatives at SNHU.

While not the first to consider the potential implication of blockchain technology with regard to accessing credentials, SNHU approached this launch as test for future possibilities to further benefit its more than 100,000-member alumni population.

“This project was a great proving ground for how we can use technology to be flexible and agile in responding to the needs of our students, who are becoming lifelong learners with the expectation to control and manage their own digital learning records.”

Heidi Wilkes
Associate VP of Learning Solutions, SNHU

SNHU’s competency-based College for America was intentionally chosen for this program to see how graduates might use these records in the real world. “Competencies give a rich amount of metadata. If someone has mastered all of these competencies and skills, how might having the ability to control and share this information empower them?” said Heidi Wilkes, associate vice president of learning solutions.

She points out that consequence of having evidence of competencies, beyond traditional resumes, which can be instantly validated, allows graduates to “have and control a lifelong learning record.”

Customer Stories

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