ICPEdu accelerates digital transformation at UFSC

- 13/04/2021

The pandemic and social isolation brought an urgent demand for solutions that automate the processes of teaching and research institutions in Brazil. In March, the Ministry of Education (MEC) launched its National Program of Digital Certificates for Federal Education Network, and one of the technologies adopted is the Public Key Infrastructure for Education and Research (ICPEdu), in the form of Personal Certification. It is estimated that the program will benefit 2.5 million people in the academic environment.

What few know is that part of the solution was developed and implemented at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (UFSC) before becoming generally available. The university participated in a pilot with UFPE, which preceded the launch of the new ICPEdu service when the certificate was tested in different academic systems. 

The use of digital certification at UFSC was implemented in September 2019 by Normative Instruction 276/2019/GR. Now, it is possible to request digital certificates at the university with three types of electronic signature: PKI-Brazil, qualified and with national legal validity; ICPEdu; and the digital certificate GOV.BR, an advanced type, i.e., with legal validity and a high degree of reliability.

All of these electronic signatures are integrated into the System of Signatures of UFSC: The assin@UFSC, the Administrative Proceedings System, and Signature Verifier (SPA). The most recent system is Assin@UFSC (https://assina.ufsc.br), created to integrate all signatures and simplify the process of signing documents with a digital certificate. 

According to the Coordination of Digital Certification of UFSC, with the creation of assin@UFSC, everyone linked to the university began using electronic signatures in internal administrative and academic proceedings. Thus, UFSC has contributed to the reduction of paper-based processes. Since October 2019, over 24,000 certificates have already been issued, allowing the signature of over 765,000 electronic documents.

With the onset of the pandemic, many problems were solved with the use of digital certificates. "Now, everything at UFSC is digitally signed, from dissertations to theses and terms of internship, including everything that students can do in their academic life", informed the researcher in charge, UFSC professor Jean Martina.

This is the case of Bruna Peter Rosa, a student in the International Relations program who has been using the digital certificate to sign documents such as the terms of internship and subject validation. "I went on a student exchange program in 2019 and had to fill out a lot of paperwork, so the digital signature and processes were very practical," she says. "In addition, they are much faster than to print, sign, scan, and send back a document. And I have a printer at home, but this is not the case for many students", she considers.

To RNP, the new ICPEdu service provides a significant contribution to the process of digital transformation in universities. "The ICPEdu digital certificate service is, therefore, another action by RNP to minimize the effects of this unexpected social circumstance, contributing to the continuity and efficiency of activities of the national academic environment," said the manager of the service at RNP, Jean Faustino.

For an institution to have access to this new service, they need to be a member of the Federated Academic Community (CAFe) and complete the registration process. To register, please contact us at atendimento@rnp.br or 08007220216.

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