What is the benefit of Blockchain for universities?
Our Project lead, Hristian Daskalov, shares his personal experience and knowledge…
My experience as a project lead at OS University, the world’s L&D ledger on the Ethereum blockchain, shows that there are 6 main (groups of) benefits that universities are seeking/interested in when it comes to the opportunity to integrate blockchain technologies into their operations (list is not ranked):
- Brand recognition as a leading pioneer in the field, along with innovators such as MIT and opportunities for academic collaboration on EU and broader international level (e.g. the European Commission has an extensive report[1] on the subject).
- Improved student satisfaction by enabling students to participate in distributed learning experiences online and have a digital footprint of their diplomas on the blockchain[2], so that their accomplishment receives stronger visibility in a highly-competitive job market.
- Improved cost structure by transforming part of the learning process online; providing traceability of all participants in courses and degrees; real-time performance information related to studies’ progress (manual input eliminated[3]); automatically suggesting suitable candidates for newly formed specialisations (easier selection process).
- Optimised income structure by increasing number of students due to the increased satisfaction; financial benefits given by the business when matching the right learner (opportunity for the business to approach learners) as well as by partnership with businesses[4] to organise internship programs.
- Increased market scalability and continuous improvement of the education — adequate to the real live students’ and business’ demands by receiving feedback from learners about feature improvements, rating, information about students hired; unified collaboration space with other universities[5].
- Anti-fraud protection by recording encrypted meta-data[6] about all issued credentials in a global decentralised database, which serves as a single source of truth when it comes to inquiries/background checks, etc.
For all of the above mentioned insights, I provide links to relevant video content by industry experts. The list is not exclusive (in fact it is not limited to universities — it applies to schools and other education providers), but it reflects on my observations from my recent participation at UK’s biggest edtech event — Bett Show 2018, where I was able to meet with key stakeholders from the field of Academia and exchange ideas.
[2] Open Source University: EdTech Blockchain Platform Explainer
[3] Using Blockchain for student certificates slashes admin costs | GovInsider
[4] OS University & Job Tiger — a successful partnership in the making
