Digital Signature Documentation
The College of Education’s online Masters, CAGS and Doctoral Degree forms, as well as the online
individualized study and practicum contracts, are now set up to accept digital signatures. Please note that
the University will not accept digital signatures on their Degree Eligibility Form.The use of digital
signatures is designed to streamline our processes and thus better serve students, particularly online
degree students.
Note: The signatures have to be signed in order and once a signature is signed manually, the rest of
the signatures must be manually entered.
The student should be a steward of their own process and thus be responsible for acquiring all
signatures.
1. Student acquires the degree form from the School of Education’s website at
http://www.umass.edu/education/students/current/forms
2. Student completes the required form online, saves it, and then e-mails it as an attachment to the
first required signer on the form.
3. The first signature faculty member then signs it digitally (see procedure below), and sends the
signed copy to the student.
4. The student then continues this process obtaining all required signatures.
Note: Adobe Acrobat Reader 9 or higher is required for this procedure.
Using Digital Signatures
The signer should directly download the degree form attachment in the e-mail from the student by rightclicking on the attachment icon or selecting the Download icon (if present). Open the degree form file.
Enter your name and the date in the designated areas. Then click in the Signature box. You will then be
prompted to Save a Copy of the form on to the local computer. Select Save As in the File Menu and then
PDF file. (Do not use Save A Copy if that is an option!). Use a new file name and make sure you save
your changes. (If you do not get prompted to save, close and re-open the file). AFTER THE FORM
IS SAVED, YOU MUST CLOSE THE ORIGINAL FORM, AND OPEN THE COPY OF
THE FORM YOU JUST SAVED.
Page 1 of 4
May 22, 2013
Return to the signature box and click once. The following message will appear. Note: If it does
not appear, close out of the form and open it again.
The first time, select “A new digital ID I want to create now”. Then select Next.
In this dialog box, select the Windows Certificate Store radio button if you are on a PC. If you
are on a Macintosh computer, select the New PKCS#12 digital ID file (Personal Key
Cryptology Standard) radio button. Select Next.
Page 2 of 4
May 22, 2013
The following dialog box will appear. Note: The requested information may vary in different
versions of Adobe Acrobat Reader. Enter the requested information. Organizational Unit and
Organization Name are descriptive and can be entered as desired. Ignore the Enable Unicode
Support checkbox. (In some versions, you may be asked for a digital ID storage location. Accept
the default. You may also be asked for a password. Enter a password that is at least six
characters long. Confirm the password. You will need this password when you use your digital
signature at another time.) Then select Finish.
Page 3 of 4
May 22, 2013
A dialog box will appear summarizing your information. (You may be prompted to enter your
password). Select Sign. (The digital ID will temporarily disappear).You are automatically set up
to save your file. Your digital signature will appear after you save the file.. See below. The actual
information for your digital signature is embedded in the PDF.
Now, e-mail the signed PDF file back to the student.
Next time you decide to sign a form digitally, the digital signature will automatically pop up
when you click in the signature field.
Page 4 of 4
May 22, 2013