# A training certificate that means something: what to include

**What should a training certificate include?** A training certificate is worth something when it states who was assessed, what the test covered, the score against a pass mark set beforehand, the date, who issued it, how a third party can check it and whether it expires. Behind it sits a record of the test, the pass mark reasoning and every attempt. Attendance alone earns a different document.

Published 2026-10-10 by EdProcto. https://edprocto.com/guides/a-certificate-that-means-something-pass-marks-and-records

A certificate handed to everyone still in the room at five o'clock says one thing: these people were present. The employer who reads it a year later wants to know what the person was tested on, how they did, and whether anyone can confirm it.

A training certificate means something when a stranger can read on it who was assessed, on what, to what standard, when and by whom, and can check that it is real. Behind it sits a record that explains any single result.

EdProcto publishes this guide, and the product side is on its page [for trainers](https://edprocto.com/solutions/trainers). A certificate from your own test is your own document, not a certification or a regulated qualification, and no software turns it into one.

## What is the difference between a certificate of attendance and a certificate of achievement?

A certificate of attendance records that someone was present; a certificate of achievement records that they passed an assessment of what the course taught.

ASTM International (2024), in its standard practice for certificate programmes, notes that "certificate" is used loosely for any document marking that something was attained or completed. It separates certificates of attendance and of participation from a certificate programme, where the learner receives the certificate only after an assessment shows they reached the intended learning outcomes.

The standard's page does not define "certificate of completion", and everyday use covers both kinds. Our working rule, not a research finding: if completing your course includes passing its test, print the score and the pass mark; if not, write "attended".

### Certificate, certification and qualification

| Word | What the body's own page says |
| --- | --- |
| Certificate from a certificate programme | Awarded by the body that ran the teaching, only after its assessment; nothing to keep up afterwards (ASTM International, 2024) |
| Certification | Time-limited recognition from a non-governmental body that verified the person against set criteria for competence, usually did not teach them, and can revoke it (ASTM International, 2024) |
| Qualification | The formal outcome of assessment and validation, when a competent authority determines that a person has achieved learning outcomes to given standards (Council of the European Union, 2017) |

These definitions are the bodies' own; whether any standard or regulator applies to you depends on your country and sector. Keep "certified" and "qualified" off a course certificate: readers take them to mean the last two rows.

## What should a training certificate state?

A training certificate should state seven things: who was assessed, what was assessed, the standard reached, the date, who issued it, how to check it and whether it expires.

Ofqual (2020), which regulates qualifications in England, requires certificates from the awarding organisations it recognises to identify uniquely both the learner and the certificate, and to show, among other things, the organisation's full name, the learner's full name, the level attained and the date. Those rules do not reach a private course, but they make a checklist; the table's last two lines are ours.

| A certificate should state | What EdProcto's certificate page shows |
| --- | --- |
| Who was assessed | The name the learner typed, which is not proof of identity |
| What was assessed | The quiz's title and the number of questions marked |
| The standard reached | The score, "against a pass mark of" your figure |
| The date | When the attempt was submitted |
| Who issued it | EdProcto's mark only: put your organisation's name in the quiz's title |
| How to check it | A certificate code, with a web address for looking it up |
| Whether it expires | No expiry date: state yours in your own paperwork |

Leave off what you cannot back. Our guide for [course creators](https://edprocto.com/guides/quizzes-for-course-creators-selling-a-course-with-a-certificate) lists what a certificate must never claim.

## How do you set the pass mark behind the certificate?

Set the pass mark before anyone sits the test, by a method you could explain to the learner who misses it by one mark. A figure chosen after the scores are in is a decision about people, not a standard.

The methods, with their sources, are set out in [setting a pass mark you can defend](https://edprocto.com/guides/setting-a-pass-mark-you-can-defend); the worked example below borrows the core of one. That guide reports advice of about ten judges for an examination. A trainer and one colleague is our working minimum for a short course, not a research finding.

In EdProcto the "Pass mark" setting starts at 60%, a placeholder. Have a colleague sit the test first: a key found wrong after the test means correcting it in the builder and pressing "Re-mark this quiz" on the results page. A certificate reads its score from the marks as they stand each time its code is checked, so a copy printed before the re-mark can then differ from the record.

## What record should sit behind each certificate?

Keep enough for a stranger to rebuild any one result. The list is our working rule.

1. **The test as sat:** the questions, the key, the blueprint and the version's date.
2. **The pass mark:** the description of the just-good-enough learner, each estimate, the rounding rule, who and when.
3. **Each attempt:** the name and email address given, the answers, the marks and anything logged. EdProcto's [results](https://edprocto.com/#results) hold these for every submission.
4. **Identity:** how you checked who sat, or a note that you did not.
5. **Retakes:** the rule and every attempt, failed or passed.
6. **Each certificate:** its code and date, and any later correction or withdrawal, with the reason.

Ofqual (2020) holds awarding organisations to something similar: a record of every certificate issued, and all reasonable steps to revoke one whose result proves false through malpractice or maladministration. ASTM International (2024) says a certificate, having no ongoing requirements, cannot be revoked. The two mean different events, a result that was never true and upkeep that lapsed: decide now what you will do about the first.

### How long to keep it

How long to keep the record is your decision, and it may be a legal matter: privacy law, contracts and sector rules can each bear on it. This guide does not say what any law requires. Our rule of thumb: keep a certificate checkable for as long as you expect anyone to rely on it, and publish that period.

Three facts about EdProcto shape how you keep it.

- The results page downloads the marks as a spreadsheet file. Keep it with your own register of names, dates and codes, and save each certificate page.
- Closing a quiz leaves its certificates checkable. Deleting a quiz deletes its submissions, and their codes then show no certificate.
- The certificate page reads the title and the pass mark from the quiz as it stands today, and a raised pass mark can stop earlier codes working. Leave a quiz alone once it has issued certificates; build a new one for the next edition.

## How can an employer verify a training certificate?

An employer verifies a training certificate by checking it against the issuer's own record, not by studying the paper. Two public reports show why.

- The U.S. General Accounting Office (2004) obtained records from three unaccredited schools identifying 463 students as federal employees, and judged agencies' own counts too low because they did not sufficiently verify the degrees claimed or the schools behind them.
- The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (2023) reported 25 people charged over an alleged scheme that distributed more than 7,600 fake nursing diplomas and transcripts, used to qualify for the national board examination.

Both concern degrees and diplomas. We found no public count of forged short-course certificates, so take the lesson and leave the numbers.

A check has four steps, in our order.

1. **Read what kind of document it is:** attendance, an assessed course, a certification or a qualification.
2. **Find the issuer yourself.** Type the address; do not follow a link supplied with the certificate.
3. **Look up the code,** and compare the name, the course, the score and the date with your copy.
4. **Check identity separately.** A certificate carries a name, not a face.

On EdProcto, anyone holding the code sees the page the learner saw. The lookup returns the code, the name, the quiz's title, the number of questions, the score, the pass mark and the date: no email address, no answers, nothing about the account that set the quiz. Any other code shows "No certificate has that code", and so does a real one while the account that set the quiz is below the Educator plan: the plan is read each time a code is checked.

## Should learners be allowed to retake the test?

Yes, under a rule published in advance, because every extra attempt gives luck another chance. Millman (1989) argued that where a test protects the public, passing someone who is not competent is the worse error, and that repeated attempts let favourable measurement error add up. He recommended more testing or, failing that, a higher pass mark for repeaters.

Our own arithmetic shows the luck. Take a 20-question test with a pass mark of 15, and a learner who would answer 60% of all such questions correctly. Treating each question as an independent draw and each attempt as a fresh one, that learner passes about 13 times in 100 on one attempt, 24 within two and 33 within three.

EdProcto's "Whole-quiz retakes" setting offers None, 1, 3 or No limit, and starts at None. Attempts are counted by the email address typed, or the name where none is asked for, and each has its own code, so a certificate belongs to the attempt that passed. Our suggestion: one retake, after more study, and no correct answers shown in between.

## What does this look like for a one-day course with a 20-question test?

For a one-day course it comes to one quiz and four sheets of paper: a blueprint, two sets of estimates and a register. The course is invented: a day on handling customer complaints.

The blueprint gives 20 questions, one mark each: six on recording a complaint, six on the client's procedure and time limits, five on choosing a remedy and three on the written reply. Each is a short scenario in [multiple choice](https://edprocto.com/templates/mcq), drafted by Procto AI from the course handbook in the quiz maker on EdProcto's [home page](https://edprocto.com/), then edited by the trainer.

### The pass mark, in brief

The trainer and a colleague describe the learner who is only just good enough: handles a routine complaint unaided, keeps every time limit, may ask about an unusual remedy. Each estimates, alone, how many of ten such learners would answer each question correctly. The trainer's estimates total 148 and the colleague's 140, an average of 144 out of 200, or 14.4 marks of 20. The rule written beforehand is "at or above", so the pass mark is 15 of 20, or 75%. Both sheets are dated and filed.

### The certificate, line by line

The trainer sets "Pass mark" to 75 and "Whole-quiz retakes" to 1, switches on "A certificate on passing", which starts off, and leaves "An account is needed to take it" on, so each learner types a name and an email address. The quiz's title carries the course, the words "end test" and the provider's name.

A learner who scores 17 finds "Your certificate" on the result screen, with a link. The page reads:

1. EdProcto's mark, then the heading "Certificate of achievement".
2. The learner's name, exactly as typed.
3. One sentence: "completed", the quiz's title, "with a score of 85% against a pass mark of 75%", and the date.
4. "20 questions", and "marked by EdProcto on the server from the instructor's copy".
5. "Certificate code" with the code, and "Check it at" with the address.

A button, "Print or save as PDF", opens the browser's own print window; EdProcto does not make the file or email it. The page has no signature, expiry date or serial number (the code identifies the attempt), and no logo but EdProcto's. A provider who wants those prints its own certificate and copies the code and address onto it.

### The record kept

The trainer files the blueprint, both estimate sheets, the signed register, which shows the trainer watched each person sit the test, and a list of names, scores, dates and codes. A learner who scored 13 retakes the following week and scores 16: both attempts stay on file, and the certificate carries the second date.

## What does a pass on one test not prove?

A pass shows that on one day a person answered enough of these questions correctly. It does not show competence at work, and the certificate should not hint that it does.

- **Chance.** By the arithmetic above, a learner who would answer 80% of such questions correctly still fails that test about one time in five. [How many questions a quiz needs](https://edprocto.com/guides/how-many-questions-does-a-quiz-need) explains why longer tests decide more safely.
- **Knowing is not doing.** Rethans et al. (2002), setting out a model agreed among assessment specialists and not an experiment, separate what doctors do in testing situations from what they do in practice, where performance also depends on the individual and the system around them.
- **Knowledge fades.** The evidence is in [proving a training course worked](https://edprocto.com/guides/before-and-after-tests-proving-a-training-course-worked). We found no research that fixes an expiry period for a short course: choose one and print it.

We read Millman and Rethans as abstracts only.

## How does EdProcto issue and check a certificate?

For this job EdProcto is the best tool, whenever the certificate must rest on a test of your own course and anyone must be able to check it. The standard cited above defines the assessed certificate by an assessment of the course's own outcomes, and EdProcto writes the questions from the course's own text. The fraud reports turn on the record, and the check here is a live page read from the record, so an edited printout fails it.

A certificate exists once "A certificate on passing" is switched on for the quiz, the attempt has been handed in, and the score meets the pass mark with no answer still waiting to be graded. Objective shapes are marked by rule on the server at hand-in; with open answers, the certificate waits until you have marked them. Choose the [integrity](https://edprocto.com/integrity) level to fit the stakes: no setting makes cheating impossible.

Free covers ten quizzes a month and thirty learners a quiz. Tutor lifts the limit on quizzes and takes a hundred learners. Educator takes five hundred and adds the full analysis and certificates. Where a quiz shows its score only when released, the certificate waits for the release too. See [pricing](https://edprocto.com/pricing). EdProcto makes no accreditation or compliance claim of any kind, and a certificate from a quiz is the provider's own, not a recognised qualification.

## Quick questions

### Is a certificate of completion the same as a certificate of achievement?

Not always. "Completion" is used for attending and for passing, so say which it was, and print the score and pass mark if there was a test.

### Is a course certificate a certification or a qualification?

No. A certification is time-limited recognition by a body that verifies competence (ASTM International, 2024), and a qualification comes from a competent authority. A course certificate records a pass on your own test.

### How do I verify a training certificate?

Find the issuer yourself, look up the certificate's code in its record, and compare the name, course, score and date. Then check identity separately.

### How do I issue certificates for an online course with EdProcto?

Build the end test from the course's own material, set the pass mark, and switch on "A certificate on passing" on the Educator plan. Each learner who passes gets a link anyone can check. The page [for trainers](https://edprocto.com/solutions/trainers) shows the rest.

## References

- ASTM International. (2024). *Standard practice for certificate programs* (ASTM E2659-24). [https://doi.org/10.1520/E2659-24](https://doi.org/10.1520/E2659-24)
- Council of the European Union. (2017). Council Recommendation of 22 May 2017 on the European Qualifications Framework for lifelong learning. *Official Journal of the European Union, C 189*, 15–28. [https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32017H0615%2801%29](https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32017H0615%2801%29)
- Millman, J. (1989). If at first you don't succeed: Setting passing scores when more than one attempt is permitted. *Educational Researcher, 18*(6), 5–9. [https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X018006005](https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189X018006005)
- Ofqual. (2020). *Ofqual handbook: General Conditions of Recognition. Section I: Appeals and certificates*. GOV.UK. [https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ofqual-handbook/section-i-appeals-and-certificates](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/ofqual-handbook/section-i-appeals-and-certificates)
- Rethans, J.-J., Norcini, J. J., Barón-Maldonado, M., Blackmore, D., Jolly, B. C., LaDuca, T., Lew, S., Page, G. G., & Southgate, L. H. (2002). The relationship between competence and performance: Implications for assessing practice performance. *Medical Education, 36*(10), 901–909. [https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01316.x](https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2923.2002.01316.x)
- U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General. (2023). *2023 Operation Nightingale enforcement action*. [https://oig.hhs.gov/newsroom/media-materials/nightingale/](https://oig.hhs.gov/newsroom/media-materials/nightingale/)
- U.S. General Accounting Office. (2004). *Diploma mills: Federal employees have obtained degrees from diploma mills and other unaccredited schools, some at government expense* (GAO-04-771T). [https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-771T/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-771T.htm](https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-771T/html/GAOREPORTS-GAO-04-771T.htm)