DIGITAL PARCHMENT: Making student transcripts clickable may seem like a no-brainer idea, but many schools still rely on paper. Parchment, a Scottdale, AZ-based digital credential company, hopes to accelerate the digital transition by proposing a five-step "Credential Innovation Framework" in a white paper (PDF) released last month.
The framework walks through steps to turn transcripts from being simply a digital copy of classes and grades into a platform that contain visual, machine-readable data that communicate actual skills and competencies that students can share. "Just like a movie is more than filming a play, transforming the transcript is more than taking a picture of something that was paper," states the report.
In the company's survey of more than 100 registrars, only 41 percent reported being "somewhat to very likely" to offer digital credential. At the same time, over half of the 550 recent college graduates surveyed said they're sharing scanned or digital transcripts on cloud-based servers like Google Drive.
Already, learners are sharing what they've learned--both in schools and via non-traditional means like MOOCs, on social networks like LinkedIn. "Students are going to share their credentials, online and socially, doing what they have to do to be marketable," explains the report. "But they want to do so with the institution’s seal of approval."
