Blockchain Is Disrupting Education — But How?
Do you remember Mike Ross, a college dropout from the Suits series, who cheated both the Harvard and the American Bar Association by hacking their systems and adding himself into the list of graduates? This wouldn’t be possible if those systems were powered by blockchain. And this is not the only use case of the technology in education. Check out more opportunities below.
How It Can Guarantee Integrity
Have you heard about the scandal with Axact, a Pakistani company trading fake university degrees? Just like in Ross’ case, blockchain would prevent fraud here.
This would work in the following way. Once a college student finishes her high school, her record is automatically added to the list of the graduates. The blockchain-driven system can’t be hacked in order to add any unauthorized records manually. The technology allows storing transactions as append-only, with every new record including all the previously recorded information. This makes adding anything new to the chain just impossible.
What’s Here Now?
Sony Corporation and Sony Global Education are adopting the IBM blockchain for secure sharing of learners’ achievements. It can immediately provide authorized members with the details of the students’ learning curves.
Open Source University became the first distributed university acting as an academic and career development ledger. On the one hand, the platform supplies its students with free learning materials. On the other hand, it shares legit results of its graduates with businesses interested in hiring such specialists.
How It Can Cut Education Costs
“The centralized model of present-day learning is no longer sustainable — indeed, blockchain technology allows for a total disintermediation and disaggregation of higher education,” says Professor John Domingue, Director of Knowledge Media Institute.
Growing annually, the average tuition fee for a public in-state college in 2017–2018 was as much as $9,970 a year. Private education was more than three times pricier. Why is it so expensive? Apart from teaching staff’s high salaries, education costs are greatly affected by administrative expenditures.
Blockchain with its smart contracts can take intermediaries out of the educational system. The technology can trigger a salary payment once the required lecture scope is delivered, or add a student’s result to the system once the exam is passed.
What’s Here Now?
The Ethereum-based Odem automates all administrative chores in the educational process and connects students with educators directly. The software enables one-on-one and group classes and transfers payments from students to lecturers only when the course is over.
How It Can Motivate Students
Unfortunately, e-education is characterized by a poor retention rate, with 40–80% of students dropping out. One of the reasons behind this is that currently students are not motivated enough to complete courses. However, if they would be rewarded for their achievements, their retention rate could be much higher.
Blockchain-powered smart contracts can provide educators with a fair system of rewards when a student is paid only if she duly fulfilled her curriculum-related obligations.
What’s Here Now?
Knowledge.io is about revolutionizing the way knowledge acquisition is rewarded. Based on the complex blockchain-driven monitoring of students’ achievements, the platform allocates its tokens among successful students. Then, the software allows its learners to spend their tokens on products sold through the Knowledge Marketplace.
How to Get In There with Your Own Solution
Despite so many blockchain-led apps popping up monthly, there are no clear market leaders. It means that the EduTech industry is still open for newcomers to either design solutions for their internal needs or fill a market gap with a new software product.
The most cost-efficient way to build a decentralized application is to use a pre-designed blockchain with a range of out-of-the-box features, such as genEOS. It contains ready-to-use smart contracts, enables decentralization, and supports digital record witnessing — everything that can help you in crafting your own blockchain-led software.
Education, Reshaped
With the help of its inherent features, blockchain can detect education fraud and eliminate the need for any third parties, which makes the process more affordable for students as a result.
Also, the technology can act as an incorruptible ledger confirming students’ achievements and rewarding them with tokens to be spent on real goods. This new way of delivering education can make the entire industry fairer, cheaper, and more stimulating for its members.
