Docusign for education: 5 excellent use cases in 2026

When many people hear the name Docusign, they immediately think of corporate dealmaking. But this electronic signature solution is useful in a multitude of settings, such as healthcare facilities, general contracting businesses, nonprofits, and so on.

Docusign is also useful in education, which is the focus of this particular article. Keep reading to learn where Docusign for education is most useful and to find out about an alternative electronic signature tool that could make the signing process even easier.

Docusign for education is most useful when schools need legally defensible e-signatures for high-volume paperwork like consent, policy acknowledgments, and enrollment documents.

5 ways you can use Docusign in education

To help you maximize these benefits, here are five practical ways schools and universities are already using Docusign to streamline their most pressing administrative challenges.

1. Permission slips and parent/guardian approvals

Schools and universities regularly need signed approval for student activities and services, from field trips and clubs to athletics, media releases, and health-related acknowledgments. Docusign helps education teams send these permission slips and consent forms for electronic signature, so staff can confirm approvals faster and avoid chasing paper copies.

For example, teachers and administrators can use Docusign to collect field trip permission slips, photo and video release forms, extracurricular participation waivers, and parent or guardian consent for student programs. Because e-signatures are captured digitally, schools can track who has signed, follow up with non-responders, and keep a clear record for future reference.

Permission slips and approvals are some of the most common education workflows that still create bottlenecks. Docusign streamlines collection by letting schools send documents for signature electronically, track completion, and store signed copies in one place for easier recordkeeping.

2. Institutional policies

Educational institutions frequently require students, teachers, and staff members to acknowledge and comply with a variety of policies, such as those relating to academic integrity or technology use.

Shanal Aggarwal, chief commercial officer of TechAhead, says Docusign makes it possible to electronically distribute and sign these policies, which ensures that all individuals are aware of and agree to the relevant requirements and responsibilities.

“It’s an easy way to maintain policy compliance that can also be audited, and it eliminates the administrative load of collecting and arranging signed acknowledgments.”

Institutional policy acknowledgments are documents that confirm a student or staff member has read, understood, and agreed to follow school rules, for example, academic integrity and technology use. Docusign distributes policy documents for e-signature, so institutions can prove acknowledgment and reduce manual collection work during audits.

What to include in a policy acknowledgment

• Policy name and version or date
• Who must sign
• What compliance means
• Consequences of noncompliance
• A record of signature completion for auditing

3. Research participation

“Informed consent is an important part of research studies conducted by universities,” says TechAhead’s CEO Vikas Kaushik. “The institutions can deploy Docusign to deliver consent forms, procedures, and other associated materials to participants and to get receipt of their acknowledgement or consent to proceed electronically. This streamlines study administration and helps ensure compliance with ethical requirements.”

Research participation workflows rely on informed consent, and Docusign helps collect consent electronically so study teams can document participation approvals more consistently.

If your study requires in-person verification or specific IRB processes, confirm whether an e-signature workflow meets institutional and ethics requirements before deployment.

University research often requires informed consent, plus clear documentation of what participants agreed to. Docusign can send consent forms and related materials for electronic acknowledgment, which can streamline administration and support compliance with ethical requirements.

4. Alumni activities

Educational institutions frequently engage alumni in a variety of activities, including fundraising drives, event registrations, and donation acknowledgments.

“Alumni can digitally sign donation agreements, event registration forms, and gift acknowledgments through Docusign,” says Azzam Sheikh, digital marketing strategist at Money Advisor. “This not only increases donor involvement but also minimizes the amount of administrative work required to manage alumni relations.”

Docusign can capture alumni donation agreements and gift acknowledgments electronically, so advancement teams reduce manual paperwork and speed up donor follow-up.

Alumni relations teams handle recurring documents such as donation agreements, event registrations, and gift acknowledgments. Docusign supports digital signing for these materials, which can increase completion rates and reduce administrative work tied to printing, mailing, and manual tracking.

5. Admissions

Jessica Carrell, co-founder of AnySoftwareTools, says it’s easy to see the relevance of Docusign for education when it comes to admissions.

“The platform provides a seamless and efficient way for educational institutions to manage their enrollment and admissions processes. Students can easily complete and sign forms electronically, reducing the need for physical paperwork and streamlining the process. This not only saves time but also helps maintain the accuracy of records.”

Admissions teams use Docusign to collect signed enrollment documents electronically, so students can complete paperwork faster and schools reduce physical filing.

Can Docusign handle multi-step admissions paperwork? Yes, admissions teams typically send multiple forms for signature across enrollment steps, then track completion before finalizing records.

Enrollment processes often require multiple signed documents from students, and sometimes guardians. Docusign can deliver these forms electronically, helping reduce printing and scanning, and making it easier for admissions teams to confirm completion and maintain accurate records.

Requirements and constraints for e-signatures in education

Requirements

• Identity and signer role clarity, student vs parent or guardian vs staff
• Clear consent language, what is being agreed to and why
• Record retention, where signed documents are stored, who can access them
• Auditability, timestamped completion, version control of the document

Constraints

• Wet-signature-only policies, some institutions or document types may still require ink signatures.
  On-prem requirements, some teams cannot use third-party cloud tools due to internal policy.
• Accessibility needs, ensure the signing flow supports accessibility requirements for all users.

	Docusign	Jotform Sign
Best for	High-volume document signing and standardized agreements	Collecting form data and signatures in a single workflow
Primary workflow	Document-first e-signatures with templates and recipient routing	Form-first e-signatures with optional approval routing
Mobile signing	Mobile signing available, features vary by plan and configuration	Jotform Sign Mobile app for collecting in-person signatures and managing requests
Tracking and audit trail	Status tracking with audit history and completed document records	Sign Inbox for status tracking and signature request visibility
Data collection	Limited to what is included in the document fields	Strong structured data capture through form fields before signing
Automation options	Workflow automation depends on plan and integrations	Workflow templates and conditional logic for routing by job type, urgency, or location

Jotform Sign: A powerful Docusign alternative

Clearly Docusign for education is a solid choice, but it’s not the only tool available — or even the one that users prefer. Consider Jotform Sign, a free e-signature software that pairs with its parent product, Jotform, to help you easily build numerous educational forms.

Jotform Sign combines form creation and e-signatures, so education teams can collect data and signatures in a single workflow instead of switching between tools.

Jotform Sign enables you to automate your e-signing process, eliminating time- and resource-intensive manual, paper-based processes. With just an email address, you can build intelligent approval flows that you can add anyone to — administrators, teachers, vendors, parents, students, and so on. Then you can track the signatures in your Jotform Sign Inbox so you can stay on top of things.

If you’re moving permission slips online, use Jotform Sign to create user-friendly forms with built-in e-signatures, appointment slot sign-ups, customizable confirmation emails, and downloadable submission records, so you can collect parental consent without wasting paper, as one G2 reviewer in education management put it: “The forms are very user friendly and have been so helpful for my programming.”

AS ALWAYS, CONSULT AN ATTORNEY BEFORE RELYING ON ANY INFORMATION ON THIS PAGE. THE CONTENT ABOVE IS FOR INFORMATIONAL PURPOSES ONLY. JOTFORM IS NOT PROVIDING LEGAL, FINANCIAL OR OTHER ADVICE.