This is how we’ve built the first education platform on the blockchain

How we’ve built the first education platform on the blockchain

The significance of education and its contribution in the evolution society has risen exponentially in an increasingly technology-driven world. Its role as a social vaccine is imperative for expanding society’s potential. It encourages higher civic participation and healthier standard of living.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution, at its onset, witnesses the emergence of the knowledge economy. It strives to establish knowledge as a currency to produce and distribute knowledge further in an economy. Unlike other economic systems that are based on finite resources and limited transactions, this economy would offer an unlimited supply of resources in the form of knowledge.

Also identified as a product of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, a key tenet of a knowledge economy is digitally imparted education. Massive Open Online Course, abbreviated as MOOC, is one of the earliest concepts under the purview of this format. A number of online portals such as Coursera and edX offer MOOCs to facilitate online learning. Though monetization of these courses has resulted in reduction of enrolments on such platforms. Adding to the low enrolment ratio, the high dropout rates on these platforms have rendered them inefficient for large-scale digitization of education. The lack of student-instructor interaction is also a major drawback in the process.

Addressing similar other challenges in the existing anatomy of online education, one0x supports the vision of a knowledge economy with its blockchain-powered database solution. This knowledge supply chain solution endeavours to materialize experiential learning and promote eLearning by incentivizing. It is building a global ecosystem of learners, educators, and employers across multiple platforms for exchanging knowledge .

one0x is a decentralized blockchain platform that traces each user’s performance to build a ledger of their learning journey. It keeps a track of all the activities that an individual undertakes on the platform. It further promotes continuous learning through various incentives and reward pools.

Through its approach of quantifying knowledge and sharing it as a commodity, one0x has created its own cryptocurrency, Karma, an ERC20-compliant token. It also uses another token — “Gyan” as a standard measure of value for the distribution and intake of knowledge taking place on the platform. A minimum of an hour of learning earns you one Gyan point. The platform continuously measures users’ knowledge acquired from different sources. A user’s Gyan balance determines their Karma rewards. The value of the Karma token depends on Gyan. The higher the supply of Gyan, the more the demand for Karma. This means with increasing learning, the value of the Karma token also increases. The binary of Gyan and Karma facilitates the exchange of knowledge as a renewable commodity.

The platform functions on the concept, Learning is Earning. It offers users the opportunity to earn Karma tokens by various ways. They can participate in online communities by posting questions and answers to initiate insightful discussions. They can upload useful content and teach the courses. They can also take up work contracts offered by the employers.

one0x also attempts to personalize learning with its Proof of Concept mechanism. Every individual has access to their own ‘learning story’, which records all the learning activities the user has engaged in across multiple platforms that are powered by one0x. The learning story collates the knowledge scores earned from different courses, projects, and community participation. This feature enables participants to create unique and verified online identities on the platform.

As a part of a new online education system, one0x operates on a subjective Proof of Work mechanism to assess students’ performance. In the Teacher Assessment Model, teachers create contracts which define the parameters for assessing a student’s work. This process automatically calculates the student’s Gyan score. The Peer Assessment Model facilitates student evaluation by their peers. The Third-Party Assessment Model, considered to be the most reliable, involves assessment from third parties that operate independently.

one0x seeks to redress the faults in the current online education system and create the first learning platform based on the blockchain technology. With them, learning is incentivized, personalized, and documented to facilitate and scale up the process of knowledge exchange.