How Nackademin Turned Two Weeks of Diploma Work Into Nothing

TL;DR: Nackademin used to spend at least two weeks a year issuing diplomas. They were made digitally, printed, signed by hand by two people, then scanned back in. The school now issues blockchain secured diplomas through TRUE: a hash of each document is written to Ethereum through a smart contract Nackademin owns, the diploma lives on the school's own site, and graduates who share it send traffic back. More than ten thousand diplomas have been issued this way.

What did issuing a diploma cost Nackademin?

Two weeks, every year, of work nobody wanted.

Nackademin runs vocational higher education programmes in Stockholm and Uppsala for more than 3,000 students a year, in fields including IT. Each of those students ends with a document. The document was created digitally, printed, signed by hand by two people, and scanned back into a digital archive.

Peter Hampus, who led the change, puts the before and after in one line.

“In a normal year we would spend at least two weeks issuing the credentials. With the new digital system and the blockchain we are saving a huge amount of time, we can guarantee the authenticity of the credentials, and we drive a lot of traffic back to our site.”

Three benefits in one sentence, and the school only went looking for one of them.

Why was a PDF not enough?

Nackademin started where most schools start, with the PDF. It is the natural format for a digital document and it fails at the one job the document has.

Peter Hampus is blunt about the reason. Forged diplomas are becoming more common, from universities as well as vocational programmes, and there is a great deal of carelessness on top of that. Employers often do not follow up to check whether a credential is real.

That is the part worth holding onto. The problem is not only that documents can be faked. It is that almost nobody checks, which means a fake works.

What actually goes on the blockchain?

A hash, and nothing else.

TRUE creates a cryptographic hash of each diploma. That hash, and only that hash, is published as a transaction on Ethereum through a smart contract TRUE creates for each customer. The customer owns the contract.

“For each credential we generate a hash, and it is the hash that is published publicly on Ethereum. We have developed a smart contract that receives the hashes and stores them on the blockchain, including an expiry date so you can tell whether a credential is still valid.”

No student data goes to a public chain. What goes there is a fingerprint that proves the document in front of you is the document that was issued, unchanged.

Why does a diploma send traffic back to the school?

Because it lives on the school's own address. The diplomas sit on a subpage of Nackademin's site, so a graduate who posts one on LinkedIn is linking to Nackademin, not to a platform.

Nackademin and TRUE both point at the same effect: a shared credential brings visitors back at a rate of roughly ten per credential issued. The school can also see where its diplomas are shared and how many clicks they generate, which no school could see before.

More than ten thousand diplomas have now been issued this way, and they have been viewed tens of thousands of times. A document the school used to pay two weeks a year to produce now works for it after it has been handed over.

What did being first cost, and what did it give?

“As far as I know, we are the first school in Sweden using this technology.”

Being first is usually described as a risk. Here it was a position: a vocational school that trains developers, showing its own students a working use of the technology they are learning about.

Where to read more

Nackademin describes its programmes at nackademin.se. Two other schools that moved the same work off paper: IHM Business School and YH Akademin. On why fake credentials are getting easier to produce, see how blockchain prevents AI generated fake certificates.

Frequently asked questions

How long did issuing diplomas take Nackademin before?

At least two weeks of work in a normal year. Diplomas were produced digitally, printed, signed by hand by two people, then scanned back in.

What does Nackademin publish to the blockchain?

A cryptographic hash of each diploma, and only the hash. It is written to Ethereum through a smart contract created for Nackademin, which owns it. The diploma itself never leaves their control.

Why did Nackademin reject PDF diplomas?

Peter Hampus argues that diploma fraud is a real and growing problem, and that a PDF is not reliable enough to serve as legal proof.

Do the diplomas bring anything back to the school?

Yes. The diplomas sit on a subpage of Nackademin's own site, so when graduates share them the traffic lands on Nackademin. The school can also see where a diploma is shared and how many clicks it generates.

How many diplomas has Nackademin issued with TRUE?

More than ten thousand, viewed tens of thousands of times.