It’s becoming common practice in the education sector to redesign processes with new technologies to cut costs and eliminate bureaucratic procedures. Using Namirial’s electronic signature is one such improvement introduced at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), whose main focus was digitizing the signing of students’ internship agreements.
2,500
internship agreements managed each academic year
6
months to complete the integration
Top 13
ranking on the Young University Rankings (THE)
Autonomous University of Barcelona: A Model of Digital Innovation in Higher Education
Society is currently going through a decisive moment of social and technological transformation that poses a challenge for the education sector. In this new context, it has become necessary to rethink both teaching methods and the traditional sequential path between studies and work — and, therefore, the management processes that connect students with the university and the working world.
The Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), founded in 1968, is a public university with various teaching centers in Barcelona and other cities such as Sabadell, Sant Cugat del Vallès, and Manresa. It is one of the most prestigious institutions according to international studies, ranking in the Top 13 of the Young University Rankings produced by Times Higher Education among universities up to 50 years old worldwide.
UAB is also part of the ‘European University’ project, a European Commission initiative seeking to build transnational university structures involving industry, public organizations, society, and current and future students. Reviewing its internal processes to continually offer added value that upholds its reputation is therefore a priority for the institution.
The Challenge: Digitizing Internship Agreements
As Vicenç Sellés Martínez, Director of UAB’s Employability Service, explains, the university identified a problem in managing extracurricular internship agreement documents — around 2,500 documents each academic year. Everyone involved, from students to companies and institutions, perceived this process as outdated, tedious, and complicated.
The main reasons that led UAB to look for an electronic signature tool were: digitizing the drafting and signing process for the agreements, simplifying the signing process, eliminating paper, ensuring document security, properly allocating resources, and protecting the university’s image.
The Solution: Namirial’s Electronic Signature
To successfully complete the signing of internship agreements by all signatories (students, companies, and the university), UAB was clear that the best solution was integrating an electronic signature tool that would make the entire process digital without sacrificing legal certainty.
According to Vicenç Sellés, digitizing this process with full legal certainty was essential for UAB, since, as a public university, one of the requirements of the chosen solution was compliance with Law 39/2015 on the common administrative procedure of public authorities.
“We’ve cut signing time down to a few minutes, and there are no lost documents or missed signatures. User satisfaction is also very high.”
— Vicenç Sellés Martínez, Director of UAB’s Employability Service
After evaluating the various electronic signature tools already available on the market, UAB chose Namirial‘s advanced electronic signature solution for three main reasons: service quality, speed of implementation, and the reliability and legal robustness of the solution. Once the decision was made, integration was completed in just 6 months, with the technical team on hand throughout to resolve any questions.
UAB has recommended Namirial‘s services to all universities in the Catalan University System at various forums, citing the simplified signing process, document security and safeguarding, and the universality of the signature.
Other Uses of Electronic Signature in Education
There are many use cases where universities and other educational institutions can integrate electronic signature, beyond internship agreements:
- New student enrollment: enrollment confirmations, course registration confirmations, and other related documents can be signed remotely, reducing management time and document dispatch.
- Academic research documents or staff contracts: scientific initiation grant applications, postgraduate contracts, consultants, or temporary faculty can be managed digitally, reducing paper use and ensuring secure document processing.
- Grade records: the high volume of exams and grades can be managed with just a few clicks, avoiding lost requests and delays in other administrative tasks.
- Scholarship applications: reviewing socioeconomic statements, evaluation performance, and the award confirmation itself can all be validated electronically, with no need for paper.
Using electronic signature drastically reduces paper and printer cartridge consumption, while significantly boosting the productivity of educational institutions’ staff.
Disclaimer: this success story was originally produced and published by Signaturit. Following the integration of Signaturit into the Namirial Group, it is now hosted on the Namirial website for archival and informational purposes. The results, figures, branding, and product references reflect the customer experience at the time of original publication and may no longer represent current offerings or outcomes.