Building the Web 3.0 community through Quality Education

Decentralization, in the simplest sense, refers to the transfer of authority from one central location to multiple locations. It signifies that the power to control does not rest with any one individual, but is distributed.

The internet, for instance, is a decentralized group of networks. There is no central authority that supervises its operations or dictates its usage. A good example can be online content portals, such as Wikipedia, which hands over complete control to its users.

The Blockchain Technology

Like the internet, blockchain technology works on a decentralized framework. It consists of multiple layers that are run by an interoperable consensus protocol. This protocol allows individuals and organisations to build their products and services through a decentralized procedure using the blockchain, and secure the data on it. The absence of a single governing entity to administer the transactions, makes the blockchain secure and less corruptible.

The blockchain technology has had a significant impact on a number of industries. It is expected to disrupt and revolutionize quite a few sectors, some of which are banking, healthcare, real estate and education.

• With faster, cheaper, and more secure means of financial transactions, the blockchain has positioned itself as a better alternative for the existing banking system
• The healthcare industry is also witnessing a shift to digital health records on immutable blockchain databases, thereby, solving the challenge of security and accessibility
• The real estate sector has also been influenced from the blockchain technology. It facilitates the creation of new business models while also providing a convenient channel for interaction between buyers and dealers.
• The legal affairs sector deploys the blockchain technology for contractual requirements, business support, transactional services, and protection against fraud.
• The educational technology sector is another key recipient of the benefits accorded by the blockchain. Let’s dive into those details.

Decentralized Education with Blockchain

With increasing takers of distance learning programs, there is, of course, a greater need to enhance the education ecosystem (beyond one that just hands out degrees) as we know it today. The blockchain is fulfilling this requirement in the following ways:

• Building a secure database to verify academic records
• Providing a peer-to-peer network of learning
• Creating a trusted marketplace for online learning
• Making education cost-effective, more accessible and standardized
• Enhancing the quality of education in terms of objectivity and transparency

In a hypothetical (but quickly racing towards reality) world dominated by blockchains, intellectual property, like learning resources, will not only be more accessible but also well protected. By timestamping documents to validate their ownership, blockchain-powered platforms eliminate the risk of theft and plagiarism of online content. This way, the tech builds an education system that is more reliable than the traditional framework.

Authentication, transparency, and accreditation are some other important attributes that blockchain brings to the education sector.

Web 3.0 Community

The World Wide Web, at its onset, witnessed the creation of Web 1.0. This brick and mortar form of the internet was supported by read-only websites. These static websites offered only one-way communication and did not provide any interactive content to the audience.

The emergence of Web 2.0, also recognized as the Participatory or Social Web, was marked by the arrival of social media websites. This set of interoperable websites asked for user participation in the form of content and encouraged interaction amid them. Concepts like blogging, social bookmarking, curating, podcasting, and web content voting, among others, were representative of this milestone of the World Wide Web. Going forward, the advancement in the blockchain technology signals at the coming of a new form of internet.

Blockchain-powered educational platforms — such as the Blockchain University — function as channels for building a global ecosystem of learners and instructors, who interact with each other by sharing content and hence, making the internet more intuitive. It is through this process of sharing and learning that it becomes possible to build a Web 3.0 community of users that control the quality of education. The Blockchain University is powered by one0x, a new age protocol that seeks to quantify learning, reinvent the education ecosystem, and incentivise and reward the transfer of knowledge. Here’s a detailed look at how it works.

The growth of the internet is supplemented by the growth of security challenges in the online domain. Blockchain-enabled decentralization offers a means to resolve these challenges through community control of online resources. Decentralization in education, thus, can help develop a community of users driven by the need for quality education.