The Central New Mexico Community College (CNM) has announced plans to issue Blockchain technology-based digital credentials like diplomas to its students after completing their studies. The plan is similar to the initiative launched by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in October 2017, in which it issued digital diplomas to more than 100 graduates.

According to CNM President Katharine W. Winograd, their plan is aimed at providing more value, independence and convenience to their students who exerted great efforts to complete their higher education courses.

“We are very excited to begin adopting this technology that’s going to provide more value, independence, and convenience to our students throughout their lives . . . Students put forth tremendous effort to earn their higher education credentials and we’re going to start empowering more students with ownership over their own educational achievements.”

Brief details of CNM’s plans

In its announcement, CNM stated that it will start implementing its digital credentials system on Dec. 15, 2017. Under the system, students who want to secure their higher education diplomas digitally through Blockchain technology can do so. The school also cited some benefits of digitally-issued school credentials like they can be easily verified by employers, they are securely stored, they can be accessible anytime and anywhere and free of charge.

Moreover, the CNM system can store information related to the skills that were acquired by the students during their study at the college. The system can also facilitate the conduct of background checks by the employers. They can also be sure that the credentials are real and not fake because they are directly provided by the school.

In a related development, CNM has also announced that it is developing a platform that can be used by other universities, colleges and K-12 schools to issue Blockchain-based digital credentials to their students.