How Blockchain Will Change Education — Student Ownership of Learning
The blockchain has come a long way from being a buzzword to holding the potential to change the future of data ownership. It is primarily popular for being the tech that powers cryptocurrencies. It is understandable then, as much as it is unfortunate, that the socioeconomic issues and speculation about cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin have drowned out the fact that the blockchain can revolutionize the world in many other ways. One of them being how ownership of digital properties is defined. The blockchain has the potential to change the education system and how educational properties are looked at. Let’s understand them better.
Blockchain 101
In simple terms, a blockchain is a digital ledger that is open to the public, and yet secure from unauthorised modifications. Technically, a blockchain is a distributed database which is made of immutable and incorruptible chunks of data known as blocks. Any edit or modification of data has to be verified and approved by all of the parties mutually. This makes the data trustable. Also, when an information is edited in a blockchain, it does not change anything in the older blocks. Each modification of information after the verification and approval, creates a new block attached to the older one with timestamp of the modification. This creates a virtual chain of blocks containing all the information with time and date.
Blockchains works like the centuries old ledger systems, which used to keep the older information intact with a note of each new update with date and time. As a secure, trustable system, a blockchain can remove the need of mediators like banks, university databases or lawyers to store and handle information.
Blockchain in Education
Education has traditionally been fairly centralised — with a single university or institution in charge of nearly all the data. It’s also featured long lectures and certifications, all designed and approved by this single institution. With the internet taking over, more options — such as online courses, distance learning, seminars, webinars, conferences, tutorials and more, came in to democratise the sector. Despite all of this, there remained a dependence on this single authority for the very basics — such as your certificate, degrees, or even minor changes to other details.
The education sector is still in its infancy in terms of ‘blockchaining’ itself. But that doesn’t mean the potential here is any lesser. In fact, there are dozens of potential use cases the blockchain can be put to in the education sector. Blockchains allow us to store multiple copies of data, and each change that is to be updated to the chain goes through complex verification processes approved by all the miners on the blockchain. What this ensures is that the data on the blockchain is legitimate, and not owned by any singular entity. Consequently, this data can be shared with the rest of the network for multiple purposes:
- A student’s personal credentials, identity, courses, university, hours of learning, certifications and everything can be included in a blockchain — available for everyone to see should the need arise.
- If a student were to lose his degree, he’d have to rely on the typically over bureaucratic institution to get a replacement, which would often take a lot longer than any of us had the patience for. This sort of lethargy extended to other areas as well — a background check for your job could take fairly long if your institution took its own sweet time in responding.
- Imagine a system where all of these things — certificates, courses, hours of classes, content and and more could be stored with a timestamp that could be showcased to the employers while looking for a job, always accessible to the candidates.
Blockchain is the solution. Volunteers can be students, teachers, lecturers, trainers, universities, institutions and even employers. All parameters pertaining to a student — his identity and achievements, and more could be be securely recorded and stored. Students will remain the owners of their learning history, and be able to select who this information should be shared with. This pretty much covers the textbook definition of ownership, and is an unprecedented idea in the education sector, made possible only because of the blockchain. Employers could track records, learnings, skills, achievements etc. but can not access the information they are not meant to, such as the student’s university bills, payment history, driving license or anything that is strictly personal.
Summing it up:
- No records of achievements, learnings and certifications can lost with time and go unnoticed
- Students can get digital certificates
- Employers can be assured about not getting any fake candidate with fake identity, experience or skills
- Learnings can be accessed globally
- Some skills like soft skills, personal development courses and extracurricular activities and achievements are poorly recorded in many cases. These can be counted too while selecting a student’s profile for job or higher education
All of this is of course, has a long way to go before it becomes the norm. Some complex questions remain needed to be answered — access rights will need to be well calibrated and defined. Most importantly, the security of the system will have to be tamper proof. Blockchains can potentially blend learning and earning in near future and make education a trustworthy mediator free system altogether, bringing us a whole new look at an age-old industry.
Originally published at peerbuds.
