The ESVA consortium has started to work on an independent e-signature validation module compatible with Erasmus Without Paper.
Many administration processes in higher education, especially those related to international cooperation, are already digital. Digitization will become even more common in the future. Paperless solutions simplify and speed up procedures, but at the same time, they involve the question of the authenticity of electronic signatures and the verification of the identity of the signatory.
The ESVA project aims to solve this issue, which has been mentioned by several higher education institutions linked to the EWP.
The project intends to develop an independent validation module integrated with the Erasmus Without Paper network. This module will validate electronic signatures and electronic seals of the documents and data exchanged through the EWP network.
The release of the eSignature validation software package is due in May 2022. This first phase will be followed by its integration with EWP and an intensive testing phase. All the software developed will be open source and available in an accessible and structured format to the community.
We hope ESVA allows accuracy and security in university procedures while reducing bureaucracy and the time consumed under manual verification procedures.
The members of the ESVA consortium are the University of Porto, DigitalSign – Certificadora Digital SA, the Mendel University in Brno, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, and the European University Foundation.
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