Certificates: Lyceum
Updated
The certificate on completion: how it comes about, why the number is not sequential and who can verify it.
A certificate, not a flag
The certificate is its own record, not a checkbox on the enrolment. It comes into being at the moment of completion, carries date, course and recipient, and stays unchanged afterwards, even if the course is rebuilt later.
The number gives nothing away
It is not sequential. A number like 000007 would tell every recipient they are the seventh graduate, information about your business that has no place on a certificate.
Verification without an account
Anyone shown a certificate (an employer, an association) can verify it publicly. The answer carries only what verification needs: valid, which course, which date. No address, no order data.
No PDF, and we say so
The certificate is a page, not a file. A PDF would need an extra renderer on the server and would lose exactly the verifiability. A document in an attachment proves nothing, an address that answers does. Anyone needing a file prints the page.