AN ACADEMIC CERTIFICATION VERIFICATION SYTEM BASED ON CLOUD COMPUTING ENVIRONMENT

INTRODUCTION

1.1         Background

Verification is the process of establishing the truth, accuracy, or validity of something such as the verification of official documents. Most of applicants falsify their educational credentials. What's more, industry experts cite academic fraud as the most common lie on resumes. This poses the greatest dander to organization. This has been accelerated by applicants who falsify the information. The risks involved of not verifying applicants’ includes, greater recruiting and replacement costs, increased employee turnover, compromised business performance, embarrassment and negative impact to your organization's reputation, declining market value, cost customers and revenue and civil and criminal liability.

Globally, most of the institutions and organizations rely on use traditional paper verification methods to verify the documents presented to them. These organizations and institution do not have the capacity to verify the document presented to them instantly. One of the problems we have in traditional paper based is that people and especially recruiters and employers find difficult in knowing the validity of documents such as academic certificates presented to them because there is no way they can authenticate those documents instantly. In the current scenario most of the organization does not have the capacity to instantly authenticate the documents presented. Traditional identity information verification and validation processes were developed in a “paper” transaction world.

According to Association of Certified Fraud Examiners, 41% of applicants lie about education. It is estimated that resume fraud costs employers approximately $600 billion annually.

According to ADP Screening Index, 45% of employment, education and/or credential reference checks reveal discrepancies in the applicant's information.

According to Wall Street Journal 34% of all application forms contain misrepresentations about the applicants' experience, education, and ability to perform essential job functions.

Career Builder 49% of the 3,100 hiring managers surveyed caught a job applicant fabricating some part of his/her resume.
American Psychological Association: According to a recent study, 67% of job applicants' resumes in the U.S

While global trends indicate an increase in falsification of academics fraud, local conditions in Kenya have had such a challenge to verify these academic certificates. This means that people continues to falsify document without been easily detected due to inadequate detection tools and methods used.

Several studies have been made towards developing models to verify and authorize certificates in government sectors. According to International Journal of Advanced Technology & Engineering Research (IJATER) Yogesh A.C, Roopashree H.R,Anjan punith B.G and Rajesh.B designed and developed a model to authorize certificates in government sectors using cloud computing environments. University of Grants Commission in India developed an e-certification/verification for online.

This disturbing decline in ethics, which touches everyone from recent graduates to seasoned executives, has serious implications for all organizations. Several actions can be taken by businesses to protect themselves. First, employers must independently check prospective employees’ backgrounds. Second, those with questionable backgrounds or who lie on their resumes should be considered high fraud risk individuals. Third, every effort must be made to avoid hiring those with criminal backgrounds.

The motivation came as a result of reading Daily Nation where the chairman of IEBC Isaac

Hassan said that “we do not have any mechanism of authenticating certificate instantly”. I saw this as a problem and now took initiative to come up with a prototype which when open to public can be used to solve the problem of verifying academic certificates of member of parliament and anybody wishing to verify in our country at large.

To overcome and minimize this problem we need a secure automated verification method. One of the existing methods is the accessing of documents online and verification and authenticity via a secure hosted website. This study proposes a model for academic certification based academic certification based on cloud computing environment. The proposed prototype works on the basis of cloud computing. Here the application is placed or installed and hosted in the cloud. The cloud computing is chosen because it provides and deliver application via internet which are accessed from web browsers by using devices such as laptop, mobile, desktop etc. User can access through online by using website tools or web browser. The database will be hosted in the cloud in which verifications of academic certificates can be instantly verified. To do this we ensure that the data integrity and security is enhanced in the cloud.

For security issues for cloud computing. Cloud computing is not secure by nature. Security in the cloud is often intangible and less visible, which inevitably creates a false sense of security and anxiety about what is actually secured and controlled. The off-premises computing paradigm that comes with cloud computing has incurred great concern son the security of data especially the integrity and confidentiality of data as cloud service providers may have confidentiality of data as cloud service providers may have complete control on the cloud computing infrastructure that underpins the services[14].

Several thing can be done with cloud computing. Cloud computing environment can be set up to enable sharing of resources.

We ensure the data integrity and security is enhanced. In cloud computing, hardware, software and services are used by many users .The role of identity and authorizations is to ensure that only authorized persons may use the sytem.Access to all the It prototypes or services must be made secure by identifying and authenticating the users or IT prototypes seeking access[6].

1.2         Problem statement

Verification of certificates is a major concern in organization, academic institutions, recruiters and employers. Employers have been experiencing has high alarming rate of fake certificates. This is as result production of fake certificates. Firstly the traditional paper based prototype of verification contributes in production of fake certificates which poses a difficult in knowing the validity of such academic certificates presented to them because there is no way they can authenticate them instantly. Secondly, modern technology and the rise of the internet have undoubtedly contributed to the wide-spread trend of educational fraud and fake degrees, accuracy and convenient.

• On Demand Self-Service: allows for provisioning of computing resources automatically as needed.

• Broad Network Access: access to cloud resources is over the network using standard mechanisms provided through thin or thick clients in a heterogeneous manner

• Resource Pooling: the vendors’ resources are capable of being pooled to serve multiple clients using a multi-tenant model, with different physical and virtual resources in a dynamic way. The pooling and assigning of resources is done based on the changing needs of clients or consumers. Example of resources include; computation capabilities, storage and memory.

• Rapid Elasticity: allows for rapid capability provisioning, for quick scaling out and scaling in of capabilities. The capability available for provisioning to the client seems to be unlimited and that it can be purchased as demanded.

• Measured Service: allows monitoring, control and reporting of usage. It also allows for transparent between the provider and the client

1.3         What Are the Risks

The risks of not verifying applicants' education credentials include:

• Greater recruiting and replacement costs

• Increased employee turnover

• Compromised business performance

• Embarrassment and negative impact to your organization's reputation

• Declining market value

• Lost customers and revenue

• Civil and criminal liability

1. Research on the various  clouding computing platforms and models

2. Review the methods used  for certificate verification in current systems

3. Develop a prototype for academic certificate verification and hosted on cloud computing environment.

1.6         Research questions

The use of cloud computing poses significant questions which form part of the proposed project study:

1. Which are the various models of cloud computing appropriate for certificate verification?
2. Which methods are currently used for academic certificate verification?
3. What method and technology may be used to develop and deploy academic certificate verification on the cloud?

1.7          Research hypothesis

The following hypothesis is put forward: The verification prototype based on cloud environment will provide more reliable and trustworthy services.

1.8            Significance of the study

When the project goes online the following benefit will be realized:-

• Recruiters and employers receive the benefit because the system gives the opportunity to authenticate the certificates.

• Help the recruiting agencies in verification academic certificates held by an individual.

• Verification Software reduces instances of academic fraud. Improves fraud detection.