Leveraging ChainTrail and Blockchain in Academic Records
The move from physical to digital academic records hasn’t necessarily resulted in academic institutions being the sole keepers of student information, offering access only after a slow and complicated application process. On the other hand, recording and verifying student credentials are expensive and time-consuming for both businesses and academia. What imparts the problem an entirely new dimension is the proliferation of online courses offered by new-age education providers. Naturally, rising educational claims are hard to manage. Blockchain offers an innovative solution with a unique infrastructure that enables various stakeholders, update, verify and validate data.
Leading Universities like MIT, Stanford, Princeton, and Duke are now using blockchain to store student records in a cost-effective, secure, and verifiable manner. Essentially a distributed and decentralized ledger, blockchain allows for storing information on a global, trust-creating consortium powered network that cannot be tampered with. It is now revolutionizing the education sector, offering tamper-proof credentials to assist students with academic record use and ownership. The use of blockchain in education has the potential to minimize institutional data costs, enhance learner ownership, and end paper-based record keeping practices.
Using Chaintrail Blockchain to make academic records immutable & verifiable
Verification of academic credentials still remains a largely manual process that is characterized by case-by-case evaluation and paper documentation. It is time-consuming, requiring potential employers and graduate programs to request confirmation from slow-to-respond universities. Distributed ledger technology (DLT), like ChainTrail’s jurisdiction Blockchain network, can effectively streamline the verification procedure and significantly reduce fraudulent educational claims. Moreover, this can do away with paper-based processes, enhance accountability and transparency between different stakeholders. Few jurisdictions, India for example, have attempted to create local databases in initiatives led by government. The key questions around a single source of data, user experience, and availability remain in such centralized solutions.
Blockchain in education can be employed for storing standards and issuing credentials in different ways. For instance, smart contracts could lay down the conditions for students to receive a certificate from a provider with a series of contracts defining an entire degree. As a student would near degree completion, their Blockchain records could be tracked and shared in real time with potential employers.
Developed by MIT’s Media Lab, Blockcerts serves as an example of Blockchain’s potential for providing authentic records of student credentials and competencies. It is a solution that allows users to create, view, and verify education credentials. Issuers (schools and universities) can create certificates with declarations of a student’s achievements. Upon earning a certificate, students share their identification to the issuer, who ultimately signs the certificate and submits to the Blockchain. In this way, external agents are able to verify the authenticity of certificates without having to rely on the issuer. Students, in turn, can share their credentials with any number of parties, their indisputability backed by the security of blockchain.
Chaintrail distributed ledger system
Ledger maintained by ChainTrail through the participation of a consortium of cross-industry entities is probably the most credible way of creating reliability in data created in any jurisdiction. Data digital fingerprints are distributed across this consortium removing any ‘single source’, data mutation or availability risk. The current state of the ledger is simply whatever is in the ledger of the record maintained by the consortium. Other entities must travel to the ledger to consult the ledger or to submit records for inclusion. Ledger identity and integrity are ensured by the various participants who can easily validate the changes that could have been made to the document.
A growing adoption of blockchain in education
In 2015, Holberton School of Software Engineering in San Francisco became the first school in the world to deliver certificates in the blockchain. The school did so in a bid to simplify the verification process by employers and reduce instances of fake credentials being shared. By doing so, the school saved money from building and operating its own database.
Just a few days back, Calicut University in India announced plans to use blockchain technology for digital certification and validation of academic certificates. The authorities emphasized the ease of tracking down fake certificates and helping employers validate the authenticity of academic records.
Despite a growing adoption (and understanding) of blockchain in education, transcripts and degree records are largely stored at universities. This means students must verify their identity with government-issued documents to access their own records. In the event of a geopolitical crisis or a simple loss of documentation, this could spell trouble for students’ careers. With blockchain, educational records remain safe, easily accessible, and tamper-proof, empowering both students and third parties such as employers. In the near future, blockchain-based education initiatives such as ChainTrail will pave the way for easy verification, storage, and access to academic records, bringing down the costs, paperwork, instances of fraud associated with the process.
With an exciting network of Trust being created in Jurisdictions (ChainTrail60 — Malaysia, ChainTrail 971 — UAE, ChainTrail91 — India, ChainTrailEU — EU and the like), we invite any entity interested to be a part of this network to be in touch with Team ChainTrail!
