SUMMARY
Blockchain technology can be used as a useful educational resource during the learning process
Blockchain enables students to completely own their records and manage their academic identities
Sony Global Education claimed to have successfully modified blockchain technology in 2016 to enable ‘open and safe sharing of academic competency and advancement data’
Blockchain, a buzzword with transformative potential, is a public ledger that automatically records and verifies transactions. Its significance has been highlighted in the last ten years, and many organisations around the world have embraced it and developed innovative applications. Even the education sector is reaping the benefits of blockchain technology these days.
One widespread use of blockchain in education is record keeping. There are virtually infinite student records, and verifying academic credentials can be time-consuming, requiring extensive paper documentation and case-by-case checking.
Blockchain’s Edtech Potential
According to a 2019 study by Credential Engine, there are over 738,000 unique credentials documenting learning, including degrees, certificates, digital badges, and apprenticeships. Blockchain has the potential to eliminate much of the overhead associated with this process while also streamlining verification procedures, saving educators and administrators time when transferring students between schools or states.
An institution accepting a transfer student could use blockchain to verify their record and the courses they took with a few simple clicks. The same concept applies to sharing records with an employer.
Blockchain technology has far-reaching implications for education that go beyond record keeping. The management of university curricula may change as a result of technological advancements.
For starters, blockchain allows for the secure storage of electronic course materials and syllabuses. Institutions use hard drives for this, but they are susceptible to corruption or destruction. Another option is cloud storage, which may be too expensive for some organisations.
Smart contracts on blockchains could also make educators’ jobs easier. A smart contract is made up of lines of code that are programmed into a blockchain and are executed automatically when certain conditions are met.
A teacher, for example, could program lessons and courses into a blockchain, assigning tasks to students. The blockchain’s smart contract would automatically verify each task’s completion and then assign the next task to the student until all tasks were completed.
Similarly, higher education has two goals: passing on knowledge to future generations of students and expanding current knowledge through new research. The use of blockchain technology would provide a platform for freely publishing research and tracking the reuse of their work in the field.
Sony Global Education, a Japanese technology startup, claimed to have successfully modified blockchain technology in February 2016 to enable ‘open and safe sharing of academic competency and advancement data’.
By storing a person’s prior learning history on a publicly distributed ledger, blockchain technology can record learners’ learned skills. This way, the learner will be fully aware of their accomplished or lacking competencies.
Final Thoughts
Blockchain technology can be used as a useful educational resource during the learning process. The vast literature on harnessing its potential for education speculates on this technology’s prodigious potential.
They reveal and discuss how industrial and financial blockchain can be adopted by education and across almost all of its subdomains, such as financial procurement, school funding, monitoring students’ learning and so on.
It enables educators to openly publish content and track any reuse without imposing restrictions on the source material. Agreements for automatic credit transfer can be written as smart contracts on the blockchain.
Universities have traditionally owned and controlled student records, forcing students to rely on institutions to access and share their academic history and achievements. Blockchain enables students to completely own their records and manage their academic identities.
Furthermore, the blockchain, with its distributed ledgers, promises to improve educational institution management and administration. However, the majority of its real-world applications are limited to degree attesting, identity authentication, and a few instances of monetary transactions involving cryptocurrencies for donations and school tuition.
