Member Frequently Asked Questions

What is MyCreds™| MesCertif™?

MyCreds™ is a secure online service that allows organizations to issue secure digital records online so that individuals can access and share their transcripts, academic documents, badges, credentials and micro-credentials from their post-secondary studies in Canada.

MyCreds™ is a national initiative led by the Association of Registrars of the Universities and Colleges of Canada (ARUCC). Its members include the recognized post-secondary colleges, universities, institutes and other trusted third party organizations across Canada that work in partnership to support student mobility into, between, and beyond studies in Canada. A document or credential that comes from an issuing member of the Canadian MyCreds™ family through the network is verifiable, official and supported by digital signatures.

What certified online records can I get through MyCreds™?

Digital transcripts, credentials, micro-credentials, badges, letters and other official academic documents are all available to students and graduates of MyCreds™-enabled education providers. The education provider decides which document types they issue on MyCreds™.

Who uses MyCreds™?

Many higher education institutions across Canada use MyCreds™ to issue their secure academic documents. For a list of issuing organizations and education providers in Canada, visit the MyCreds™ Member Directory.

How does it work?

Vetted institutions and organizations who sign up for MyCreds™ are provided with a means to issue digitally certified documents and data to their students/graduates/customers/members. Individuals then receive their certified documents via the MyCreds™ portal. From there, individuals can view and share their records with third parties online, controlling who can see their records, and for how long. Third parties can use our service to receive and verify records in a variety of ways.

Can my organization join MyCreds™?

MyCreds™ is available to education providers, regulatory bodies, government and other trusted issuing organizations that are considered trusted sources for official documents and credentials. Approval to join MyCreds™ is provided through a formal review process conducted by ARUCC. Approved membership in ARUCC is one of the criteria. ARUCC membership information, a first step in the approval process, is available online.

Those interested should send an email to info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca.

What is the cost of joining MyCreds™?

Please send an email to info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca for further information.

How can I be set up as a Receiving Organization?

Organizations who receive large volumes of MyCreds™ documents and credentials may benefit from being set up as a Receiving Organization (RO). Being an RO provides you with your own MyCreds™ portal and various options to manage records.

Please send an email to info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca for further information.

How can I trust a MyCreds™ document?

Documents accessed via MyCreds™ can only be produced by vetted institutions and organizations that have been accepted into the MyCreds™ network. For a list of issuing organizations and education providers in Canada, visit the MyCreds™ Member Directory. Students, applicants and graduates cannot upload or modify documents In MyCreds™. Any PDF documents produced through MyCreds™ contain cryptographic digital signatures to ensure their authenticity and integrity. For documents downloaded outside of the secure platform, these signatures are automatically verified by opening them in Adobe Reader version 9 or later. In Adobe Reader, you will see a “blue ribbon” digital signature at the top of the document that indicates its validity. Note that you must be online for verification to succeed.

MyCreds™ documents contain Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES), which are regulated by the European Union’s eIDAS standards 2016. These signatures can only be produced by authorized officials of fully vetted organizations and require the use of certified physical hardware devices to issue documents. This provides an extremely high level of assurance and legal validity that documents are authentic, tamper evident, and non-repudiable.

Is the underlying technology for MyCreds™ based on open standards?

Yes. the underlying technology for MyCreds™ means documents comply with relevant security standards, such as XAdES-A and PAdES-LTV from the European Technical Standards Institute. Adherence to these standards ensures that the MyCreds™ Network provides the maximum level of security and legal validity of documents and data. Digital signatures are produced on FIPS 140-2 Level 3 cryptographic hardware devices and issued to officials of vetted organizations following a face-to-face identity verification process which is independently audited.

Can I search the MyCreds™ database?

No. By design, MyCreds™ is not an enquiry system that allows you to search a database of records. Instead, the platform enables individuals to generate an access token for you which they can send to you via email or another medium. You can use these tokens to verify their records online. This approach affords maximum data protection to the individual concerned.

Are MyCreds™ documents legally admissible?

Yes. MyCreds™ documents contain Advanced Electronic Signatures (AES), which are regulated by the European Union’s eIDAS standards 2016. These signatures can only be produced by authorized officials of fully vetted organizations and require the use of certified physical hardware devices to issue documents. This provides an extremely high level of assurance and legal validity that documents are authentic, tamper evident, and non-repudiable.

The EU Digital Signature Directive sets a very high bar for international digital signature legislation. By complying with the Advanced Electronic Signature requirements of this EU law, our signatures also meet the less stringent requirements of other international laws including the Australian Electronic Transactions Act, the US E-SIGN and others.

How does MyCreds™ protect records in the long term?
As Digital Certificates are only valid for a maximum period of 3 years, how does MyCreds™ ensure that the PDF documents are still valid many years from the time of signing?

MyCreds™ documents comply with the security standard PAdES-LTV, which stands for PDF Advanced Electronic Signatures – Long Term Validation. Long Term Validation means that the document is Time-Stamped by a Time Stamping Authority (TSA) shortly after it is initially signed. This time-stamping verifies the validity of the certificate used to sign the document at a certain point of time; in other words, it ensures that the certificate has not expired. Therefore, when the certificate used to initially sign the document has long since expired, the PDF document will still present with a valid Signature as the Time Stamp proves that the certificate used to sign the document was valid at the time of signing.

How long are MyCreds™ documents valid for?

It depends on the issuer’s policy. Some documents, such as status letters, expire after a few months or years, a decision that rests with the issuer. However, degree certificates and final transcripts are life-long documents and do not expire at all.

How can I verify a person’s record using MyCreds™?

To view a person’s record, you need to ask them to share it with you online. The simplest way is for them to generate a share URL that is unique to their shared document(s), and that points to the MyCreds™ website. You will need to check that the URL corresponds to the MyCreds™ URL, https://learner.mycreds.ca/.

How can external background screening agencies verify a candidate's credentials on our behalf?

MyCreds™ is designed to allow students, applicants and graduates to control who can access their records, rather than functioning as an enquiry system for third parties to search an online database of records.

For this reason, the simplest way to verify a candidate’s credentials would be for the agency to request that the student/graduate share their document(s) online with the agency (see above for How can I verify a person’s record using MyCreds™?).

Is there an easier way to receive volumes of certified documents?

Yes. MyCreds™ provides larger organizations with an online inbox facility into which documents can be easily sent by applicants. In order to use this method, your organization will need to be vetted by us, before being added to our database of recipients. For more details, please contact us at info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca.

Can I integrate MyCreds™ with my recruitment / HR system?

Yes. MyCreds™ has an API for B2B integration. For more details, please contact us at info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca.

How can MyCreds™ help my institution?

We replace paper-based processes with a highly efficient online workflow, enabling you to reduce costs, protect your brand, increase efficiencies, and improve service levels for your students, applicants and graduates. Our colleges, institutes and universities say that MyCreds™ has had a positively transformational impact on their operations.

How does MyCreds™ compare with the U.S. eTranscript exchange model?

Rather than issuing documents all year round, MyCreds™ enables institutions to consolidate document production into a few hours or days per year. After that, your students and graduates can access their documents and share them with third parties, without any further intervention required by your institution. This removes your institution from the transcript delivery business altogether and is a more efficient approach to support mobile learners.

What documents do you implement?

We can handle any document, transcript, badge, micro-credential or credential. Our MyCreds™ members have implemented transcripts, parchments, credentials, micro-credentials, badges, letters of graduation, letters of enrolment, awards and more.

What student information systems can you work with?

Our experienced team has implemented MyCreds™ at colleges, institutes and universities. The environment has been integrated with all the major student information systems: Banner, Oracle / Peoplesoft, SITS (Tribal), Callista, StudentOne (TechnologyOne), CollegeNet plus a variety of in-house systems. We use modern technologies such as REST APIs, JSON and XML data standards to allow for easy data export from any underlying student information system. In fact, many of our customers have commented that by adopting MyCreds™, they have also benefitted from data cleansing.

How long does MyCreds™ take to set up?

Some institutions and issuing organizations can start issuing and receiving MyCreds™ documents in a matter of weeks. If you want to export data from a Student Information System into MyCreds™, we will provide you with our standard REST APIs. The data export and document implementation process can take eight to twelve weeks but depends heavily on institutional factors. Our experienced Project Management team can work with you to estimate the scope of the onboarding process.

Can I receive credentials via MyCreds™?

Yes, MyCreds™ also enables you to receive verified digital credentials from around the world, including from postgraduate applicants and international students. Through our global partners, we can transform your international admissions process by allowing your office to receive verified digital documentation from all international applicants, regardless of where in the world they have studied previously.

Can MyCreds™ be rolled out to a consortium or group of institutions?

Yes, MyCreds™ has an unrivalled track record of successful sector-wide rollouts. Please contact us for more details at info@aruccnationalnetwork.ca.