FAQs About OPAC®'S Online Certification

The OPAC Certification has been a staple in the business education community for twenty years now. The thing is that paper certificates—like diplomas—are nice for hanging on a wall, but they aren’t very useful otherwise. Electronic certificates, on the other hand, are portable, renewable, verifiable, and permanent.

Business educators’ main focus is the development of their students. One thing that educators will all agree upon is that students need something to encourage them. Encouragement to do their best, encouragement to complete, encouragement to push as far as they can push…all are vital. The OPAC electronic certificates take on this encouragement role wonderfully. Rather than waiting to the very end of the students’ program to issue a certificate, the new OPAC electronic certificates should be administered early in a program. Once done, students are notified electronically that the certificates exist. As the students achieve certification levels on more tests, the certificates update automatically, creating an impetus for students to achieve more and more success. An unintended consequence of certifying up front is that the instructors are not under pressure come graduation time to be certain that the certificate data is transmitted and the certificates are received in time for graduation or program’s end.

The new online OPAC Certificates feature an online certificate that is a PDF-based document. Upon initial certification, this PDF document is emailed directly to the student, along with a link to the OPAC Certification website. This website permanently stores the OPAC Certification data so that certificates may be displayed and saved at any time. Built in to each certificate is a permalink that students can insert into their job applications so that prospective employers are able to view and verify their OPAC Certificates. A lost certificate can be remedied by simply returning to the OPAC Certification website, searching by name, and printing, saving or emailing a new copy of the certificate.

The OPAC certification site is compatible with OPAC 10.8 and above. Any clients wishing to issue OPAC Certificates should contact their OPAC Software representative at (800) 999-0438.