How to Make Certificates for Students at Online Schools?

How to make certificates for students? The task of creating certificates for students can often seem daunting. Picture this – a classroom buzzing with energy, minds eager for knowledge, and amidst this, the need to acknowledge each student's unique achievements.

And this is what we want to focus on in this piece.

After graduating from an online school, students should receive a certificate confirming that they participated in particular courses and passed final exams. Learn how to do that without putting in a lot of effort!

Certifier certificate maker for school certificates

Fortunately, you don’t have to create all certificates alone.

Even better – you can automate the whole process easily with Certifier.

Certifier is an online certificate maker that automates the whole process of issuing and sending certificates to students. Create from templates, generate, send, and track, all within one dashboard. And up to 250 certificates a month it’s totally free to use.

Don’t worry, you don’t need any previous experience with certificate makers. Certifier is a super user-friendly program that's simple to learn. Keep reading to see how you can use it in your online school.

Types of certificates for students

But before we get to the point, let's take a quick look at each type of certificate for students that you can create.

• Certificate of Achievement – The academic achievements award is given to a student who has achieved a high level of proficiency in the chosen field.

• Certificate of Participation – An official document issued by the institute/college/university that states that the student has participated in a specific course, e.g. participation in sports.

• Certificates of Completion – It's a student award certificate that prove that the participant has gone through the online certificate course or any other activity.

• Certificate of Training – It shows training participation and can certify successful completion of the training.

School certificate templates for each type of these certificates are available in the free Certifier templates library.

How to make certificates for students using Certifier

Here’s a simple guide on how to make a certificate of appreciation and create well-designed certificates for online schools.

#1 Create a list of students

To start creating e-certificates for students using Certifier, you first need to create a list of students.

The best and easiest way is to download a CSV file with students' names from an online school platform you use.

If the platform you use doesn't provide such an option, you can list your students in an Excel file and save it as a CSV.

Just remember to keep the student's name and surname in separate columns. Here you can find more information about how to prepare the spreadsheet for certificates.

#2 Choose a template of certificates for online school students

Now Certifier comes into play.

The first thing you need to do is to either choose a beautiful certificate template from a huge library of pre-made certificate design templates or create your own certificate design.

To do any of that, you need to log in to your account and select the Design tab.

Then click on the Create a new design button.

Go through the library of student certificate templates mentioned above and choose a template you like or create one from scratch.

➡️ Don't forget about any crucial element of certificate design: Creating A Modern Certificate: Design Elements for Success

#3 Customize the certificate design

You can easily add and remove certificate elements from the editable templates. Upload your logo (best in SVG format so that you can easily use branded colors).

When your custom certificate is ready, it’s time to fill the certificate out with data.

Choose the text fields you want to use on your certificate:

• certificate title

• name and surname of a student

• school name

• course name if applicable

• student ID

• date of issue

• certificate ID

Some of these elements will be the same on each certificate, whereas others will be created using dynamic attributes.

Dynamic attributes enable you to personalize each certificate because they are replaced with unique data you provide during the issuing process.

You can also choose the orientation of the certificate and certificate size.

Don’t forget to save your certificate!

#4 Upload a list of online school students

The first time you save a design, it will trigger a window to upload the recipients' information. These data Certifier will use to fill out Attributes fields with each recipeint’s information.

You can do that manually or via the spreadsheet.

Remember that the names of columns in a CSV file must be the same as the Attribute’s names. Otherwise, data won’t be uploaded correctly.

After uploading the data, you will get personalized certificates for online students in PDF Format. Certificates are personalized because the system replaces Attributes you placed on the certificate’s template with data you provided in a CSV file.

As soon as you upload the data, you will find them under the Credentials tab. Go there and click View under Actions column to check if the certificates were generated correctly.

#5 Send certificates in bulk to all students

If you wonder how to give certificate to students, you can automate this process and include a list with every email address in the CSV file. Thanks to that, you will be able to send certificates in bulk automatically.

To do that, click the “Publish” button. 

All online students will receive a personalized certificate straight to their inboxes.

(You can customize this template in the Emails tab).

Solution for online schools – Why should you generate certificates?

Certificates are an important element of the user journey in every digital educational product. And yes, your online school is a digital educational product, and it also benefits from creating and distributing certificates.

First of all, personalized certificates increase students’ satisfaction after graduating from your online school or finishing a class. A certificate is a tangible evidence that they acquired knowledge and gained new skills.

Graduates can share the certificate of completion they received with their online network, which will also work as an additional promotional activity for your school.

Moreover, issuing personalized certificates builds relationships between an online school and its students, making them more likely to enroll in other courses.

Bonus: Best tools to create and run an online school

As a bonus, look at some popular online learning platforms you can use to enhance your students experience (and the business plan for your virtual school) even more.

Moodle – Learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators, and learners

Source: G2

Moodle is a really popular choice for creating online courses. The software is free, but you will have to install it on your own server and pay for its maintenance. It allows you to customize the name of your course weblink and the platform's design according to your school's branding. It also offers a wide variety of free plugins created by the educational community to increase its functionality. Moodle is a really advanced solution that can be used at the university level as well.

Schoology – Set of tools to enable K-12 school districts

Schoology looks and works very similar to Moodle, with the advantage that you can create an online course or virtual classroom for free just by registering on this online platform. You do not have to deal with any installation or maintenance of the server, such as implementing log monitoring tools. Compared to Moodle, Schoology allows a lower degree of customization, the look of the course is predetermined by the platform interface, and you can't install additional plugins in the free option. However, you can integrate it with cloud storage services.

Canvas – Learning management platform

Canvas is a cloud-based LMS (learning management system) platform, like Schoology, that has gained a lot of popularity in recent years due to its ease of use and the fact that it requires a low level of technical support and user training compared to Moodle. This platform stands out for its clean and simple design, which varies from the typical interface of other LMS, making it easy for the teacher to configure the course and for the student to navigate through the published materials.

Teachable – create online courses and coaching services

If you want to create an online school and sell courses without having to set up a payment system or maintain a server, you can choose a very comprehensive online platform - Teachable.

Teachable offers you an integrated secure payment gateway, so you don't have to take care of this technical part. In return, you have to pay a monthly fee for its use that differs depending on the plan you choose. Teachable also takes 5% of the amount of the price course you sell.

If your courses are free, it also allows you to use the platform at no cost. The number of courses and students is unlimited, and you can customize your course page with your logo, colors, and styles.

Symbaloo Learning Paths – easy to use in the classroom

In the case of young learners, a very simple and attractive option to consider is Symbaloo's Lesson Plans online platform, which offers the possibility to create multimedia lessons with different learning paths customized to the learner's pace.

By simply registering, the teacher can start uploading materials. Within the blocks that each lesson consists of, the teacher can support the explanation by adding different elements such as videos, documents, questions, web pages, and educational games. Then, students join the lesson by simply entering a 5-digit code.

Wrap up

Creating and running an online school is a demanding and sometimes tedious task.

That’s why it’s worth it to automate as many processes and tasks around it as possible. It also applies to issuing and sending certificates for online school students, which are an essential element of every online school strategy.

To have this part of online school management covered, create a free Certifier account and start issuing certificates for online school students in bulk.