Applications of Blockchain within Education

Over recent months, blockchain technology has been applied to almost all industries. However, education remains one of the few sectors where the word blockchain is still few and far between. To remedy this, below I have detailed how blockchain could be valuable within education and where it would be more than just a “nice to have”. However, I should forewarn you that, as with other industries, blockchain technology is only truly valuable in a select few use cases, not a broad brush number. Secondly, huge barriers to adoption mean a shift to blockchain will most likely be gradual.

Definition — A digital, decentralised ledger that keeps a record of all transactions taking place using a P2P network. This ledger is constantly growing as completed ‘blocks’ (the most recent transactions) are recorded and added to it in chronological order. Each market participant can keep track of the transactions without a centralised record-keeping body as they automatically download a copy of the blockchain. How can this be applied to education? See below…

Key areas of opportunity

Certification verification

In a world where activities are increasingly moving online yet qualifications remain on paper certificates, fraudulent qualification claims understandably remain an issue. Moreover, as many new institutions pop up offering qualifications online, how does one certify the credibility of qualifications an employee may claim to have from a less well-known institution or online course? Here blockchain offers a potential solution.

By issuing certificates on the blockchain, educational institutions can provide employers with clear verification that the employee earned a specific qualification, fraudulent claims could quickly be unearthed through simple checks, there would be a reduced need for paperwork and an issuers credibility could be easily verified due to the need for multiple people to verify a certificates issuance.

Proof of learning

On the employee side, issuing certificates on the blockchain enables individuals to provide undoubtable proof that their educational qualifications were truthfully obtained, from verified sources. Moreover, from an admin perspective it provides a quick and simple way to keep track of one’s educational attainments and the documents necessary to prove this in a period when micro-learning is becoming increasingly commonplace.

A potential solution could follow the trend among medtech startups to keep ones documents in a wallet and only give access to third parties on demand.

Corporate learning

With an increasing percentage of learning now occurring on the job, there remains an inability to keep track of and verify qualifications gained through corporate training. This is especially the case given corporates are not traditionally recognised educational institutions. For example, compliance training may be conducted quarterly but I have no verifiable record of this when I start at a new firm. Hence, blockchain provides an obvious organisation-agnostic solution enabling me to prove, without doubt, the qualifications (formal or informal) that I have earned across my career. A further benefit associated with this is my enhanced ability to keep track of such qualifications over one’s working life.

Apprenticeships

With the introduction of the Apprenticeship Levy by the UK government, there is an increased focus on alternative education paths. Two questions subsequently spring to mind where blockchain technology could offer a potential solution. These questions are as follows:

1. How does one keep track of on-the-job qualifications with a disparate workforce and on-the-job learning?
2. How does one compare qualifications requiring a written exam to on-the-job qualifications?

Micro-payments and Micro-certification

Recently there has been an notable growth in micro-learning and subsequently micro-certification. Nevertheless, tracking, verifying and commoditising the resulting qualification remains hard. Here blockchain technology could provide a potential solution.

Moreover, there is a growing trend of applying micro-payments to areas of education. For example, paying a small amount every time one accesses academic journals rather than a fixed yearly subscription. Thus, here lies an opportunity for blockchain technology and more specifically tokenisation.

Student financing

I believe student financing is ripe for innovation with particular opportunities for blockchain technology. There are two questions/areas that I particularly want to highlight below:

1. Can smart contracts be implemented into the funding of education, more specifically into scholarships that are attainment based?
2. Many countries subsidise education on the basis a course is completed. However, this can be hard to track leading to an opportunity for smart contracts?

Unification of differing learning systems

Currently we lack a unified database to compare the quality of qualifications, among other metrics, across institutions and geographies. Issuing certificates on a decentralised, open framework would enable the development of a unified database of a populations qualifications. This would be hugely valuable from a data perspective. One could easily identify the education levels of populations and subpopulations, trends in the types of qualifications obtained by sub-groups, typical qualifications obtained by individuals in certain industries and trends in qualification choices over time. Moreover, from this one could compare the value add of two education systems and their respective impact on human capital. Here blockchain is in no way necessary, however, it is one solution that could work.

Likely solutions

Many of the problem areas that I have highlighted overlap considerably. Thus, I want to conclude with a summary of potential solutions in the above areas that are being seen in the startup ecosystem.

1. Utilising blockchain technology to verify and issue educational certificates. — A number of companies are already doing this; GradBase, SmartDiploma, CVTrust, BCDiploma etc. However, key questions around this remain; (i) Is false certification an issue for the institution, corporate or both? (ii) Who pays; institution, corporate or both? (iii) Does this depend on network effects?
2. Utilising blockchain technology for intellectual property and data management. — A potential solution here would revolve around recording proof of existence of intellectual property on the blockchain and thus preventing others from patenting your existing technology. However, in the world of software, where many outcomes can be achieved with a number of different coding inputs, patents hold increasingly less importance. Moreover, recording proof of existence can easily be done through other, less energy consuming, ways.
3. Similar to healthcare, maintaining a digital CV where all qualifications are timestamped, verifiable and unalterable and which individuals can give potential employees access to.
4. Student financing based on Smart Contracts
5. Micro-payments for access to educational resources

To conclude, I believe blockchain technology is more than a just nice-to-have in areas of certification issuance and verification, student financing, micro-certification and within corporate learning. With regards to creating a unified database and apprenticeships, blockchain technology applications would be a nice-to-have that may help circumnavigate traditional barriers.

If you are a founder of a startup or know one that is making use of blockchain technology within the education sector, I would love to hear your thoughts on the topic and learn more about what you are doing. Please do reach out and connect with me on Linkedin.