E-verification-A case of academic testimonials

Abstract

Recruitment and selection is a core process for any organization as it serves to provide the organisation with the sufficient number of staff that has the appropriate qualities in terms of skills and experience. In such an activity the process of verifying academic capabilities must be employed. The process is manual and allows fake or unverified papers to pass on to other stages of recruitment. This is despite e-recruitment systems being used all over – leaving verification to be manual and tedious. The study examined the current methods of verification as well as the score of fake certificates over genuine ones. Two hundred and thirty two respondents were examined to identify also the electronic methods used in the process and how their academic certificates were treated in the last job interview or school admission sessions. It was found that in both cases, there was little use of ICT in verification (< 5%) and the process took days and was not efficient at all. In an attempt to curb the issues and improve efficiency, a technique for electronic verification was proposed and tested. This is a technique that employs the web and database programming, XML data sharing as well as message passing via a very simple web service to share academic data between employers and the schools. The prototype was continuously improved via the RITE (Rapid Iterative Testing and Evaluation) approach. In evaluating the technique further, twenty respondents were surveyed and academic info subjected to verification via a questionnaire. It was found that the average verification time was reduced from weeks to an average of 5 seconds. The technique is then poised to be the solution of fighting academic paper vices and enable employers select the best with little effort and resources.