Home » Blog » Blockchain in education
Blockchain in education
3202 ,41 yaM

Blockchain in education

The story began in Massachusetts Institute of Technologies, where experts were doing a focused research of the possibility of using the Bitcoin blockchain to store education records. They used the OP_RETURN function, which allows writing additional data into each transaction, and suggested calculating the hash of each document by means of SHA256 algorithm, adding an encrypted signature. Using that, after five approvals on the blockchain the certificate is to be stored in the system forever. However, the idea did not take hold due to the limited amount of data stored  and unreasonably high costs compared to the rather low efficiency.

But the scientists did not give up. They kept on working and created a new project in collaboration with MachineLearning. It was called Blockserts. It involved graduates, each of whom was sent a public key of their educational institution, which would be later used for hashing and registering their documents. In addition, the initiative group of developers created an application called Blockcerts Wallet allowing to check whether a certificate is valid and the records are unaltered, with the help of a unique digital ID.

The first who supported and appreciated the idea was AIC (Art Institute of Chicago), Yale and Stanford Universities. Following them, European universities also wished to incorporate blockchain in their educational process. Thus, in 2017 UNIC (University of Nicosia) adopted blockchain technology,  making their methods of storage and searching of the graduates’ documents simpler and more convenient. It also helped to start open online courses for students from 85 countries. Nowadays not only graduates’ certificates are stored on blockchain but also their academic papers. UniS (University of Surrey) created a system called ARCHANGEL, one of the pioneering educational projects on a blockchain. It aimed at ensuring security of the national archive documents. The first testing of the system was carried out in 2019 in the UK, Norway and the USA.

Use cases

How exactly can blockchain help universities, students and administration in their hard work and everyday routines? There are many ways, including:

  • Documents maintenance. Blockchain makes the usually hard and boring process of maintenance simpler and more convenient and efficient by means of making chronological records. It helps to find and display the students’ academic transcripts, monitor attendance rate and inform them and other interested individuals about their educational success on time. Students themselves can hand in papers with the help of blockchain without the risk of the papers being lost and receive electronic certificates.
  • Educational motivation. Professors may be able to motivate their students with crypto rewards for good marks. Moreover, competitive and even ‘gaming’ principles may change the educational process completely and encourage students to study better, and make their studies more exciting.
  • Optimization of payments. Paying educational lodging fees, etc. is a complicated process which involves a lot of participants and intermediaries (such as students, their parents, banks, foundations, credit organizations, university accountants, etc.). Blockchain will help to reduce this amount of participants and stages to pass, simplify the process and may lead to reducing administrative expenses and even costs of education itself.

Benefits and issues

As every new and bold project, blockchain has a number of advantages, which makes its use so popular and appreciated.

  • Publishing. Lots of brilliant scientific studies are carried out and papers are created annually, but it takes quite a while to publish them. Moreover it is not easy. On the other hand, publishing academic papers on a blockchain will help to store the data securely and prevent piracy and author’s rights violations.
  • Data and materials exchange. Blockchain can be used to provide access to open educational sources (such as books, podcasts, additional material, encyclopedias, etc.) and exchange the materials securely and with minimal expenses.
  • Smart contracts use. Students can use smart contracts for signing a ‘digital deal’ with their professors regulating task deadlines, scope and checking.
  • Transparency. Blockchain technology does not allow cheating and changing marks or degrees in educational documents. It guarantees employers that future candidates will have the necessary skills and knowledge and prevent hiring of untrained individuals with forged credentials.
  • Unlimited access to data. All students’ and graduates’ data is stored on a blockchain in a decentralized way with no authority with the power to control it. Each student can store their papers and personal information there on a life-long basis.
  • Research. Students and scholars can use blockchain during their research practices for storing data in a secure place and getting access to it whenever they need to. The research process becomes more efficient and less time-consuming, especially since students or scientists no longer need to fill in a lot of papers and store them in piles with a risk of losing some important data.
  • Digital diploma. Digital diplomas are always at hand and information in these certificates, stored on a blockchain, allows students to manage their achievements and share them with anyone they like. This information can not be forged or altered. Prospective employers can get the real data when they are searching for the best candidate for this or that position. Digital diplomas are safe from physical damage, and can not be lost or stolen.

However attractive it looks, there are still some issues with the use of blockchain technologies in education. The process of integration of this technology is quite complex, but this is not the only problem.

  • Low level of trust. No wonder, that any technology can be proved successful, if it gains the necessary amount of trust among institutions and authorities. Educational sector is quite conservative, which  slows down the integration process.
  • Low scalability. Institutions and universities store huge amounts of data concerning their students and graduates and can face problems with scalability. As long as each operation needs verification, the number of blocks grows fast along with the growing amount of data scope, and transaction speed falls dramatically.
  • High price and time-consuming. Blockchain integration is a long and, unfortunately, quite costly process. Moreover, there are a lot of universities and institutions where employees lack the necessary skills and knowledge to work with the technology and even databases, while respective training courses are long and cost a lot.

We use cookies on our website to improve user experience and analyze website traffic. By clicking “Accept“, you agree to our website's cookie use as described in our Privacy Policy.