What is blockchain? And how does it relate to higher education? If you are unfamiliar with blockchain, here is a basic overview from Institute for the Future.
Philosophically and practically, blockchain technology is a compelling answer to challenging imbalances of power and control in the U.S. College system. Blockchain tech offers tools for verification, ownership, and tracking of credentials. It also allows for better exchange of value, fair compensation for educators, and a vibrant peer-support community.
A rough way to think about the impact of blockchains is that they allow us to act with the same or an increased level of security, but without relying on a powerful institution. For example, we have relied on institutions like banks to securely verify financial transactions, but blockchain technology allows a person to send or receive any amount of money to a complete stranger with as much or more security than a bank could guarantee. To think about industries that could be disrupted by blockchain technology, just ask: “Which industries rely heavily on powerful institutions?” (Answer: basically all of them.)
In terms of the impact of blockchain technology on higher education, there are some important implications: The ability to store value on a distributed ledger securely means the community, rather than a centralized institution stores and verifies the data. This is important because it means the data is secure, it can be controlled by the owner and only accessed with permission. And, importantly, the power and control no longer resides mostly in a centralized institution (i.e., the college or university).
The ability to encode distributed attribution means multiple authors can contribute to a course or degree, and royalties can be directly and appropriately disbursed. This was the central argument of my earlier post.
The ability to create unfalsifiable records means we can trust the mastery they document. This blockchain transcript can’t be faked. This is actually a two-fold innovation. The first is documenting to the objective level. My earlier post made the case for this. It’s one thing to have an unfalsifiable record that you got a B+ in your Intro to Anthropology course, but that doesn’t tell us what you actually mastered. The second — enabled through blockchain — is that this record is reliable.
Teachur incorporates four basic use cases for blockchain technology that set us apart. I’ll describe these four cases in a follow up post.
What do you think? Do you see higher education as a ripe industry for disruption through blockchain? Or do you disagree? Please let me know in the comments. Or connect with me on Twitter, My site, LinkedIn, or reach me at: ben@teachur.co.
image from: https://medium.com/@fidelvti/blockchain-for-dummies-df780e083189
