Verify a certificate

What a valid code tells you

The code is not a serial number looked up in a database. It is computed from the award itself: the certification, the date it was issued, the exam score, and the name of the person it was issued to. That has one useful consequence. If somebody opens a certificate in an image editor and changes the name, the program, the date or the score, the code printed on it no longer matches what it describes, and this page will say so.

So a code that decodes cleanly and matches the name on the paper tells you the certificate still says what it said when it was printed. If somebody had changed the name, the program, the date or the score, the code would not match.

The code is computed rather than looked up, and there is no secret in it. That makes it a check against editing, not a signature: it cannot prove that ChairsideSource produced the paper, only that the paper still agrees with its own code.

What it does not tell you

It does not tell you who was sitting at the keyboard. ChairsideSource has no accounts, no logins and no proctoring. The exam runs in the learner's own browser, the pass is recorded there, and the name on the certificate is the name the learner typed. Anyone claiming this is a proctored credential is overstating it, and so would we be if we let you believe otherwise.

It is also not continuing education credit and not a licence. ChairsideSource is not accredited by any dental board or professional body and holds no CE provider status. No certificate issued here carries CE hours or satisfies a state requirement.

If you are an employer

The reasonable use is the same as any unproctored course record: treat it as evidence that the person worked through a defined body of material and passed a comprehensive exam on it, and then ask them about it. The certification pages list exactly what each exam covers, so you can pick three things off the list and find out in two minutes whether it stuck.