UnBlockEd envisions “A dramatic lowering of the barriers associated with transfer articulation,” enabled by blockchain technology
This is the third blog in a four-part series which covers blockchain technology applications in education, featuring the winners of the U.S Department of Education’s and American Council on Education’s Blockchain Innovation Challenge. In this entry, we will discuss the use of blockchain to support the college/university transfer process.
Imagine you are a community college student transferring to a four-year university. You must petition your new institution to accept your previously earned academic credits. You hope that your prior credits will fulfill some of the degree requirements for the academic program into which you are transferring, however information on transfer credit articulation often does not adequately forecast how your credits will transfer. You may not know which prior courses, if any, will satisfy your transfer program’s requirements until after you’ve matriculated at your new institution. This could affect how long it takes you to graduate and the cost of finishing your degree.
The complexities of transfer credit articulation affect millions of students. Based on a 2014 Department of Education study, an estimated 35% of undergraduate students transfer at least once, and 11% transfer more than once. A follow-up report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office found that on average, 43% of a student’s prior credits do not transfer.
Transfer credit loss is an equity issue. Community college students account for the majority of transfers, and Black, Latinx, Native American, and low-income students enroll in community colleges at higher rates. After transferring from a community college to a four-year institution, lower-income students are less likely to earn a bachelor’s degree compared to students from higher-income families. As the American Council on Education (ACE) Education Blockchain Initiative final report explains, “With community college disproportionately functioning as a primary entry point for students from historically underrepresented race and ethnicity groups and low-income families, there is, to put it mildly, a disservice being done to these students in the transfer process. The [UnBlockEd] project team contends that this disservice has much to do with the hidden complexity of the credit recognition system and the extra time (and cost) that this system places on students who are least likely to be able to bear the burden of ‘articulation surprises.’”
The UnBlockEd Project
The UnBlockEd project seeks to streamline the transfer process by developing a system for transfer credit recognition that makes transfer credit articulation more transparent and provides students with more control over their learning records. The project aims to encourage institutions to be clearer about their degree program requirements and how transfer credits will apply. The project will then utilize curricular analytics to support students with planning their pathways to graduation.
The UnBlockEd project uses blockchain technology to (1) build a system that enables students to access and share their academic transcripts with institutions directly and freely and (2) construct an infrastructure to provide students with insights into how their credits will transfer to particular academic programs by leveraging curricular analytics.
The project is led by the University of Arizona in partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Fluree PBC, and the John N. Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education.
What did the project accomplish?
In this first phase of the project, the team developed a minimum viable project (MVP) to demonstrate the key functionalities of the end-to-end system they envisioned. For this purpose, the project team convened a consortium of institutions in Kentucky focused on transfer articulation and credit recognition. The team developed a blockchain-enabled exchange that was pre-populated with degree programs and course equivalencies from public colleges and universities in Kentucky. With this MVP, they demonstrated two use cases: (1) the creation of a degree completion plan based on course data extracted from a student’s transcript; and (2) the creation of a transfer articulation roadmap based on the selection of an originating program and transfer program.
The UnBlockEd project also advanced data literacy and student agency by producing and distributing short, accessible videos to explain the benefits of the UnBlockEd transfer wallet and provide instructions on how to use the UnBlockEd tools to identify and apply to colleges and universities that would enable them to achieve their education goals in the shortest amount of time.
What’s next?
The project team found that as blockchain technology is still maturing, there is currently no viable open-source solution for storing transcript-level data. The team is thus continuing to work on developing the technologies to support transfer articulation and credit recognition, including open digital wallet solutions. They are also incorporating student feedback to improve the web-based user interfaces.
The project team plans to create regional consortia of college and universities — like the one they brought together in Kentucky — to provide oversight of the transfer articulation and credit recognition exchange.
The UnBlockEd project envisions designing a solution that enables learners to transfer their earned credits and share their academic records to colleges and universities via a blockchain-enabled transfer exchange. Institutions can use the exchange to efficiently receive and verify learners’ credentials, and as a condition of their participation in the exchange, institutions must provide data regarding what credits they will accept and how the credits can apply toward academic programs. Learners will then be able to access greater information and earlier insights on how their previous coursework will map onto prospective transfer programs and propel them towards earning their degree. “A dramatic lowering of the barriers associated with transfer articulation,” explains the project team in the ACE Final Report, “thus improves the likelihood that underserved learners will earn additional higher education credentials, which continues to be the best means for improving economic mobility.”
This effort aligns with the Secretary of Education’s priority to increase postsecondary education access and reduce the cost of college by creating clearer pathways for students between institutions and making transfer of course credits more seamless and transparent.
