Lincoln College – Exam Certificate Scanning & Distribution System

Lincoln College—one of the largest education providers in Lincolnshire with over 9,000 students— needed a bespoke web application to manage the high-volume process of scanning, storing, indexing and distributing thousands of student exam certificates every year.

Their manual processes were time-consuming and fragmented, requiring a unified digital workflow that could work alongside the college’s existing Management Information Systems (MIS).

Business Requirements

The college required a secure and efficient system capable of:

• Managing thousands of exam certificates across multiple campuses
• Scanning certificates and indexing them by student, course and staff
• Automatically distributing scanned copies to teachers and students via email
• Providing a secure, searchable online repository for all certificates
• Supplying management with reporting and statistics
• Integrating with the college’s internal MIS system

Solution

New Media Aid designed a secure, purpose-built .NET web application integrated directly with the college’s MIS infrastructure. The system centralised certificate management and automated key steps that were previously handled manually.

Key features included:

• Certificate scanning and high-speed file processing
• Automated indexing by course, group, tutor and student
• Email distribution workflows for staff and learners
• Secure document repository with full search capabilities
• MIS synchronisation to ensure accuracy of student and course data
• Reporting tools for examinations and senior management

Results

The system proved extremely popular with examinations staff, drastically reducing the time required to process and distribute exam certificates. Automation removed many repetitive tasks, while the centralised repository provided fast access to thousands of documents across multiple campuses.

Although the college later transitioned to a different platform, this bespoke system served them for many years and demonstrated the power of tailored workflow tools in busy education environments.

Today, this experience informs how I build secure education systems with advanced document workflows, MIS integration and automated communication processes.