How would you feel if your diploma that set you back £80,000, had been forged by a stranger and they were benefiting from all your years of hard work and study? What if you applied for a job and later learned that the person hired instead of you had a forged diploma? Investing up to £40,000 a year in one’s education should include protection of this investment, yet data breaches in the education industry are on the rise.
What’s the solution? Enter blockchain.
A Digital Saviour
Blockchain is rapidly becoming the digital saviour to many high-risk data industries. Healthcare utilises blockchain technology not only for protection against data breaches, but for sharing patient data, payments, and even securing prescription drug transactions. The financial industries are also singing the praises of blockchain. Big players like Barclays, have signed patents for blockchain, and JP Morgan created its own stablecoin, the JPM to capitalise on the benefits of the blockchain movement. Education, on the other hand, is paying the consequences for having slow reflexes.
According to a Gemalto report published on Campus Technology, the number of lost, stolen, or compromised data records went up 164% in the first six months of 2017, and the number of breaches in the education sector increased 103% in the same period. And online, Politico Magazine, reported that in March 2018, nine Iranian hackers breached 144 universities stealing roughly $3.4 billion in intellectual property.
It’s not only data security that is at issue here. Requests for credentials can take weeks to process and can be costly for both the requesters and issuers. Transcripts and records are frequently lost or damaged, costing the education sector billions of dollars each year in both time and money.
The lack of technological adoption in the education sector undeniably feeds the industry of forged documents. Forged diplomas and false transcripts are rampant today as a result of an inefficient request process. Suffice it to say, the education sector is crying out for a solution and the turn to blockchain should come as no surprise.
A Whole New World
Blockchains can provide unique digital assets that verify the credentials of academic degrees and certifications — almost instantly, from anywhere to anywhere — and costs no more than the electricity used to send it. Blockchain could save time and money for universities and educating bodies all over the world, eliminating the concern of compromised or lost data, and reducing if not completely eradicating all threats of a breach.
There are other benefits too. With the rise of web-based learning, students and educational institutions keep more information in cloud-based storage systems, which makes them susceptible to online attacks and tampering. But blockchain-based file storing could prevent this and would be much more cost-effective than other well-known cloud-based storage suppliers. Blockchain technology could go as far as giving freedom to students to hold a digital fingerprint of all their successes. Imagine having your own personal blockchain, built block by block, with all your education and qualifications collected in one secure ledger.
A Light at the End of the Tunnel
The future is bright and education is primed to benefit from readily available technologies that help to resolve security issues and reduce administrative costs.
MIT Media Lab and Learning Machine’s recent brainchild, Blockcerts, is set to revolutionise the way in which education data is stored and transferred. Primarily used to create, issue, view, and verify blockchain-based certificates, Blockcerts already boasts partnerships with MIT University and The University of Bahrain, who have started issuing diplomas on the blockchain platform.
Whether you’re a developer looking to create an exciting new programme or a registrar looking to secure sensitive data, the code is available today on Blockcerts’ simple to navigate website.
A Drag-and-Drop Solution
Singapore is known for its progressive nature, and true to its reputation has pioneered a nationwide blockchain-based education system. With 18 schools involved, it could create hundreds-of-thousands digital certificates in the coming years, resulting in a pressing need for programmes such as Blockcerts to be present in many professional organisations. Singapore has created a custom platform called OpenCerts, which operates in the same way as Blockcerts making verifying job candidate credentials as simple as ‘drag and drop.’ The verifications are then completed through Ethereum, now the world’s leading programmable blockchain.
A Binary Graduation
Canada’s Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT) is another to board the blockchain bandwagon, with more than 4,800 students graduating in the class of 2019 due to receive blockchain documents along with their traditional parchments. The movement was inspired by a group of students who presented the idea to the SAIT leadership team. The idea was eventually expanded to create a full-scale solution, working with On-Demand Education Marketplace (ODEM). Built on the Ethereum blockchain, the ODEM project was created as a platform for education, offering a variety of courses, opportunities to earn credentials, and a platform to showcase skills as candidates connect with prospective employers. Their aim is to make education and employment more accessible, affordable, verifiable, and transferable.
With generations pioneering the adoption of blockchain in established educational organisations and whole nations integrating blockchain into their educational systems, it’s fair to assume that it’s only a matter of time before all students receive a diploma secured by the blockchain.
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