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Blockchain in education: Opportunities, applications, and challenges
Article in First Monday · August 2020
DOI: 10.5210/fm.v25i9.10654
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Blockchain in Education – Opportunities, Applications, and
Challenges
Mara-Florina Steiu
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i9.10654
Abstract
This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges of applying blockchain technologies in
the education sector. The key blockchain-in-education applications discussed are the digitalization
and decentralization of educational certifications and the enhancement and motivation for lifelong
learning. Some of the key challenges explored are data protection laws such as the General Data
Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Protection Act, which pose impediments for
application developers and scalability challenges that arise because of slow-speed blockchain
transactions and the Scaling Trilemma. Additionally, market adoption and innovation challenges
highlight that blockchain-in-education is a relatively immature innovation that governance bodies
within educational institutions often disregard or perceive cautiously.
Research Topic and Questions
Blockchain has been extensively discussed as the foundation technology behind
cryptocurrencies, as shown in Yuan and Wang’s (2018) study, and lately as a data storage
opportunity that can generate significant, beneficial impact in previously unexplored industries
such as manufacturing (Angrish et al., 2018), healthcare (Agbo et al., 2019), and education
(Bartolomé et al., 2017). The goal of this study is to explore the potential opportunities, challenges,
and overall implications of implementing blockchain in the education sector. In doing this, the
paper will explore two key questions. First, how can blockchain technology improve the
performance of educational institutions and their students’ learning? This question will
analyze three different segments that may benefit from blockchain solutions: 1) educational
organizations (e.g. universities, start-ups, NGOs) that may be looking for ways to enhance the
efficiency and security of students’ data storage and management; 2) learners who may benefit
from more engaging, reliable, and sustainable ways to accumulate, attest, and share knowledge; 3)
employers who are looking for reliable, secure methods to assess the validity of students’ skills
and certifications. This paper will discuss the incentives, fears, and overall goals of these three
parties and analyze blockchain as a solution that may generate both individual and collective value
through educational applications.
The second question explored in this paper is: what are the impediments of blockchain
implementation within the education sector? This question will focus on identifying and
analyzing the types of challenges that may arise for both private and public education organizations
that aim to develop or implement blockchain solutions.
2
What is Blockchain?
As shown in Zheng et al. (2017) overview of blockchain technologies, blockchain is an
immutable, decentralized database - a chain of “blocks” which store information such as
transactions’ dates, times, amounts, and/or participants (participants on the blockchain are usually
not personally identifiable). There are different types of blockchains: public, private, and
permissioned.
A pubic blockchain allows anyone to join and contribute to the network (Zheng et al., 2017).
This way, public blockchains are valuable in that they provide truly decentralized,
democratized and authority-free operations. Unlike public blockchains, permissioned blockchains
only allow verified participants, such as the members of an organization, who are invited and
validated before joining the network. The third type of blockchain is private; private and
permissioned blockchains are similar, but a difference between them is that private blockchains
are owned and maintained by a single organization (2017, p.559).
There are multiple mechanisms that ensure the security of a blockchain. For instance, each
block within the blockchain stores a hash of the previous block. A hash function takes an input of
variable length and produces an output of fixed length. This way, hashing within the blockchain
(i.e. hash chain) makes it very difficult to change previous blocks, thus ensuring immutability.
Additionally, the miners who add blocks on the blockchain are incentivized to ensure the integrity
of the network by disproving any malicious transactions. The nature of such incentives may vary
based on the blockchain protocol used, but one of the most popular protocols, Proof of Work
(PoW), requires “work” (i.e. computational power) for miners to add blocks to the chain, which
incentivizes them to not waste valuable resources by approving malicious transactions/blocks.
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Another technical blockchain term worth understanding for the purposes of this paper is that
of a smart contract – a computer program on the blockchain, which contains the terms of the
agreement between a buyer and a seller, and could be automatically executed by miners (Zheng et
al., 2017). A smart contract thus enforces and facilitates the negotiation and performance of a
contract.
The State of Blockchain in Education Research
It is worth noting that the use of blockchain in education is still in its incipient phases, which
affects the access to and the quality of available research on the topic. As Alammary et al. (2019)
state, “although the volume of literature on the application of blockchain to education has been
increasing in the last few years, it is still fragmented, and no systematic review has yet been
conducted on the topic”. Similarly, Thayer (2018) claims that “today’s blockchain technology may
not be evolved enough to scale for all use cases. This is a particular concern for the education
platform use cases [e.g. blockchain record keeping or digital assets use cases]”. Given that
blockchain exploration in the context of the education industry is so recent, many of the currently
influential blockchain-in-education initiatives have not yet been widely researched and
documented.
To ensure that the scarcity of available research does not negatively impact the quality of this
paper, this study expands the number and type of sources used, as shown in the following section.
Methodology – Case-based and Research-based
In response to the key questions mentioned before, this paper combines two approaches: casebased and research-based. As part of the first approach, this study researches educational initiatives
that are implementing blockchain solutions. The range of initiatives discussed is broad, going from
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private to public, national (U.S.) to international, and small to large-scale educational
organizations.
Table 1 presents a record of the interviewees that participated in this study, across two key
categories: beneficiaries of blockchain-in-education solutions (e.g. universities) and suppliers of
blockchain-in-education solutions (e.g. start-ups). The names of the people and the institutions that
they represent have not been included, in order to ensure the privacy of the participating parties.
*** Insert Table 1 Here ***
Additionally, Table 2 lists the questions asked in the interviews. The questions have varied
based on the type of interviewee (beneficiary or supplier of blockchain-in-education solution).
*** Insert Table 2 Here ***
In parallel, this paper discusses available research studies in order to offer a broader insight
into the opportunities and challenges of implementing blockchain in the education sector.
Overall, the research studies discussed in this paper focus both on the perspectives of
educational institutions (providers of knowledge) and of learners (knowledge beneficiaries).
Combined with the breadth of insights coming from interviewing technologists, entrepreneurs,
policy makers, and professors who implement blockchain-powered education solutions, this study
builds a comprehensive, substantial depiction of the opportunities and challenges that arise when
blockchain is applied in the education sector.
Why Blockchain in Education?
Before starting to explore the two research questions highlighted above, it is worth addressing
a fundamental question: should blockchain be implemented in education? In response to this, this
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study refers to Tapscott and Kaplan’s paper (2018). The authors claim that by using blockchain,
the processes of teaching and learning can be improved across key dimensions.
•
Empowerment for learners (self-sovereignty)
Through blockchain, data (e.g. credentials, skills learned, etc.) associated with students’
identity is not owed by a central administrator such as a university, but by the student. Students
get the opportunity to store their lifelong learning data (both from inside and outside of classroom),
fully own it and control who has access to it (e.g. employers). This way, learners can prove that
the credentials in their resumes are accurate and have more control over what can be accessed by
their employers.
It is worth noting that even when students benefit from blockchain “wallets” where they can
store all their learning data and share it with diverse parties (students being complete owners of
their identity-related data), they still benefit from the support of their professors, thus not being
alone in their learning journeys.
•
Security and efficiency enhancement for educational institutions, businesses, and learners
Blockchain has the potential to ensure the identity, privacy, and security of students’ data. As
shown in the “What is Blockchain?” section at the beginning of this paper, blockchain offers
security and validity by ensuring immutability through its hash chain. For instance, students cannot
alter past educational certification stored on the blockchain, while they may easily do that with
paper records. Additionally, privacy is ensured through blockchain not storing the data, but rather
a hash of the data. Optionally, the data may also be encrypted before being stored on the
blockchain.
In terms of efficiency, Thayer (2018) highlights diverse blockchain-powered efficiency
applications that include record-keeping uses such as digital credentials and intellectual property
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management, streamlining of diploma verification and fast and reliable student payments. These
applications save money and time not only for educational institutions, but also for employers and
individual learners.
•
Trust and transparency integration
Blockchain ensures that students cannot alter their grades, degrees, and certification, thus
offering employers the guarantee that the job applicants indeed have the necessary skills to succeed
in the workplace. Thus, blockchain becomes a “trust anchor of one truth for credentials” (Tapscott
and Kaplan, 2018). Additionally, this anchor also offers the opportunity to create better matches
between job seekers and employers. More broadly, as distributed ledger technologies support
learning and secure academic records, they enhance the relationships among “colleges,
universities, employers, and their relationships to society” through the integration of trust and
transparency in the skills transactions and sharing processes (2018, p. 6).
Applications of Blockchain in Education
In their systematic review of blockchain-based applications in education, Alammary et al.
(2019) highlight twelve categories of applications. While their list is comprehensive, the authors
do not go into details about each type of application. Therefore, this paper will use their list as a
framework, but discuss other researchers and entrepreneurs’ work to detail several major
applications of blockchain in education separately.
1. Certificates and identity management
Devine (2015) argues that through blockchain, students’ academic records become public and
easily shareable with employers and universities for further personal development opportunities.
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This way, “the accredited educational timeline could be used to make projections of future
potential based upon individual student learning histories” (2015, p. 5). This application benefits
students, by offering them an empowering tool to track and share their academic progress, but also
employers, who can rely on accurate, true representations of students’ potential based on academic
achievement (trusted verification).
A key academic initiative that aims to build an international infrastructure for digital academic
credentials is the Digital Credentials Consortium, founded in 2018 and led through a partnership
among top global universities. Their mission is to build a trusted infrastructure for academic digital
credentials. According to interview #3, which is a representative of one of the European higher
education institutions involved in the Digital Credentials Consortium, throughout the upcoming
five years, the partners hope to form a large network of global educational institutions and an ecosystem of companies (i.e. employers) that use the standard they defined. In this context, some of
the key benefits for learners on the Digital Credentials Consortium platform will be: holding a
verified, lifelong record of learning achievements to share with employers, obtaining credentials
digitally in a secure way, not having to ask or pay their universities for copies of their transcripts,
and curating credentials received from multiple universities. On the other side of the spectrum,
educational institutions benefit by managing and sharing students records in a price efficient,
secure way, removing the risks of identity fraud, and having access to a streamlined process to
issue multiple credentials to one learner source. Lastly, as mentioned before, companies would
benefit by easily accessing verified academic credentials of potential employees.
One of the educational institutions leading the Digital Credentials Consortium, MIT, has
historically developed other blockchain applications to streamline the educational accreditations
process. For instance, MIT Media Lab and Learning Machine’s Blockcerts is an open standard for
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blockchain credentials, a platform that allows educational institutions to implement blockchain
accreditations within their programs. The user journey for learners on the Blockcerts platform is
short and simple: the users download the Blockcerts app and are offered a private passphrase to
ensure ownership; afterwards, they add credentials issuers to their apps; lastly, they receive,
manage, and distribute credentials. Blockcerts is a “remarkable case as an initiative based on
[blockchain] for certification”, as claimed by Bartolomé et al. (2017). In the article, the authors
discuss blockchain solutions to the problem of formal academic qualifications failing to guarantee
an alumnus’ skills within a subject (depth) or to describe an individual’s knowledge coming from
non-formal/informal sources (breadth). Additionally, the MIT Media Lab started adding digital
certificates onto the blockchain to reward community members for their contributions to the lab’s
work (Tapscott and Kaplan, 2018).
Other examples of certificates and identity management blockchain applications implemented
by educational institutions include University of Nicosia’s offering of accredited courses through
verifiable certificates on the blockchain (Bartolomé et al., 2017) and Southern New Hampshire
University issuing its College for America students their bachelor’s or associate degrees in a digital
format on the blockchain, alongside a traditional paper format.
Additionally, the Open Source University claims to be “The World’s Academic and Career
Development Ledger”, which seeks to “provide authentication for students’ academic credentials
on a single ledger that prospective employers and other educational institutions can rely upon as
verified truth”. Open Source University claims that their matching algorithm will help businesses
seek out qualified candidates using the platform, while users’ degree credits will be leveraged to
help them view potential, suggested career options. Additionally, the platform also contains a
teaching component, and all payments to learning content providers are executed using smart
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contracts. Similarly to the Digital Credentials Consortium model, the Open Source University aims
to use blockchain to benefit all three key stakeholders in the education process: the learners,
academia, and the businesses.
It is worth highlighting that partnerships between enterprises and universities have been
formed as well – for instance, IBM and Northeastern University have partnered to allow IBM
employees, customers, and members of the public to use IBM-issued badge credentials towards
the completion of a Northeastern professional master’s degree. “This partnership recognizes that
learning can occur everywhere and that skill mastery should be transferable from work to
university” (Tapscott and Kaplan, 2018, p. 13). As the authors highlight, “if a student learns a new
skill, collaborates to finish a task, or manages others at work, then those skills and experience
could go on the learning transcript, too” (2018, p. 13). Therefore, the credentials management
blockchain applications in education go beyond academic achievement, expanding into aspects of
learning that take place outside of the classroom as well.
Beyond universities’ implementations, there are large number of privately owned start-ups
using blockchain for learning certification purposes. For instance, BCDiploma is an influential
European start-up that “dematerializes and automates the issuance of certified diplomas and
certificates”. They do that by securely storing data on the Ethereum blockchain and having an
open-source application that has forgery-proof issuer identity certified by smart contracts. Their
solution offers issuers 90 percent cost savings and has been widely used by universities around
Europe. According to Langard (2020), the decentralized service is based on the Ethereum
Blockchain Certified Data Token, using a patented one-click technology to access certified
compliant data. In the process, the graduate student receives a URL link through which to prove
the authenticity of her diplomas.
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Overall, there are numerous universities, large enterprises, and start-ups that aim to enhance
and facilitate the process of providing learners with lifelong digital credentials to recognize and
ensure the authenticity of achievements both inside the classroom (e.g. academic degrees) and
outside (e.g. MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses), other online courses etc.), through
blockchain technologies.
2. Enhancing and motivating lifelong learning
Blcockchain also has multiple applications within the educational process – making teaching
and learning more engaging and fun.
In this context, Devine (2015) claims that students and teachers show “frustration with many
of the standard online learning tools”, which fail to effectively engage learners (2015, p. 2).
Therefore, he explores blockchain’s OpenSource framework as a potential tool that may “provide
improvements or enhancements to the existing online teaching and learning experience” (2015, p.
2). Inspired by Melanie Swan’s Blockchain – Blueprint for a New Economy, the author defines
Blockchain Learning as decentralized learning contracts/exchanges focused on students’ personal
development.
In parallel, Thayer and Yanckello (2019) claim that nowadays, most administrative systems
within educational institutions perform poorly on the key metric of engagement not only within
the learning process, but also across multiple levels: recruitment, enrollment, retention, and alumni
advancement. Thus, they recommend CRM technologies combined with analytics and blockchain,
to offer personalized services to students throughout the entire educational cycle.
In this context, multiple start-ups aim to enhance the learning process through blockchain
instances, mostly focused on out-of-classroom education (e.g. lifelong personal development). For
instance, BitDegree is a gamified online education platform that provides users learning incentives
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such as tokenized scholarships for completing tech courses or reaching learning milestones on
BitDegree. The BitDegree team claims that the BDG token will track educational achievement
data and will reward the parties engaged within the platform (e.g. learners, course providers,
community contributors). In this context, the BitDegree Studio helps course creators build
gamified, engaging, data-driven course experiences, which are subsequently offered to learners
through the BitDegree Marketplace.
Another influential start-up in the learner engagement area is ODEM.io. Within the platform,
by using the ODEM token (ODE), students interact with academic professionals who offer
personalized learning experiences. The ODEM Trust Network offers solutions for
students/professionals, educators, employers and educational organizations, connecting these
parties by taking out any intermediaries. More specifically, students can find work on the ODEM
Employment Network, discover education opportunities tailored to their skills and interests, or
store their credentials securely. Educators create programs, teach, and are rewarded through ODE
tokens on the ODEM Marketplace, which is administered through smart contracts secured on the
blockchain. Employers can verify candidates’ credentials (e.g. skills, previous employers and
educators) in an easy and reliable way. Lastly, educational organizations can manage and deliver
accreditations for their students by using the ODEM platform. Overall, ODEM.io makes learning,
teaching, and employing more engaging and effective by using blockchain.
In conclusion, many private initiatives aim to make the learning and teaching processes for
learners and content providers more effective and engaging through blockchain (e.g. using
educational tokens as rewards, eliminating unnecessary middlemen and bureaucracy, etc.), as
summarized in Table 3. This shows that blockchain-powered tokens offer the opportunity to
substantially enhance the motivation and engagement of learners within non-formal and informal
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educational platforms such as online courses and MOOCs. However, it is worth noticing that very
few projects (if any) highlight the efforts made by universities to enhance and motivate formal
education through blockchain. This is a relevant insight that is explored in the upcoming section –
what are the challenges that stop universities from using blockchain to make learning and teaching
more effective?
*** Insert Table 3 Here ***
The Challenges of Applying Blockchain in the Education Sector
This section will explore some of the key impediments faced by organizations and institutions
that aim to integrate blockchain within the educational process. In this context, two types of
challenges will be discussed – those faced by start-ups/organizations that implement and distribute
educational blockchain solutions and those faced by universities/institutions that aim to adopt such
solutions. Thus, this section will discuss the challenges faced by both blockchain-in-education
solutions suppliers and clients.
1. The Legal Challenge – The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the
California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA)
According to the European Parliament’s study on the compliance of blockchain with the GDPR
law, “the GDPR's objective is essentially two-fold. On the one hand, it seeks to facilitate the free
movement of personal data between the EU's various Member States. On the other hand, it
establishes a framework of fundamental rights protection, based on the right to data protection in
Article 8 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights. The legal framework creates a number of
obligations resting on data controllers, which are the entities determining the means and purposes
13
of data processing. It also allocates a number of rights to data subjects – the natural persons to
whom personal data relates – that can be enforced via-à-vis data controllers” (Finck, 2019). The
study, which looks into blockchain and data developments done up until March 2019, mentions
two key GDPR assumptions that are relevant when discussing blockchain technologies. The first
one claims that “in relation to each personal data point there is at least one natural or legal person
– the data controller – whom data subjects can address to enforce their rights under EU data
protection law. These data controllers must comply with the GDPR's obligations.” (2019, p. 3).
However, the authors claim that blockchain aims to achieve decentralization, which may
complicate how “controllership out to be defined” and “hampers the allocation of responsibility
and accountability” when it comes to GDPR obligations (2019, p. 3). Thus, it seems that the EU
regulatory body perceives blockchain as a potential threat to citizens’ data ownership rights and
responsibilities. The second assumption behind GDPR is that “data can be modified or erased
where necessary to comply with legal requirements such as Articles 16 [personal data must be
amended in specific circumstances] and 17 GDPR [personal data must be erased in specific
circumstances]” (2019, p. 2). In this case, the tension comes as a result of blockchain hardly
allowing any data modifications in order to ensure data integrity and trust.
These key tensions that arise when assessing blockchain’s compliance with the GDPR lead to
multiple debates, one of them being whether the data on a distributed ledger (e.g. encrypted, hashed
data) qualifies as personal data or not (Finck, 2019, p. 2). The authors of the paper claim that such
data most probably qualifies as personal data thus European data protection law must apply in such
cases. Another similar debate is whether data can be sufficiently anonymized to meet the GDPR
“threshold of anonymization” (2019, p. 2).
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Given the multitude of challenges and complications, the author reaches two conclusions. First,
he claims that blockchain applications’ technical implications and governance design may make it
hard to ensure compliance with the GDPR. Thus, “blockchain architects need to be aware of this
from the outset and make sure that they design their respective use cases in a manner that allows
compliance with European data protection law” (2019, p. 2). Second, the cause of the relative
absence of legal certainty on how blockchain can be designed such that it complies with GDPR
requirements goes beyond just blockchain – there are multiple concepts and “conceptual
uncertainties” of the GDPR law itself that complicate the current matter (2019, p. 3).
Going beyond the EU data protection regulations, the US also has multiple data privacy laws
(though no federal data protection framework) such as the California Consumer Privacy Act of
2018 (CCPA). In their Practical Law article, Shah et al. (2019) claim that “California enacted the
most comprehensive and stringent state-level data protection law in the US to date with the CCPA.
The new protections for California residents begin January 1, 2020” (3). In this context, the authors
highlight tensions that arise when ensuring that blockchain solutions will comply with the CCPA.
Similarly to the GDPR challenges, the distributed network architecture and the data immutability
may be at odds with CCPA’s “traditional notion of centralized controller-based data processing”
(2019, p. 3). This makes it hard to identify and hold accountable data controllers and processors
within the blockchain. Additionally, the CCPA “takes a broad view of personal information that
includes: “online identifiers,” without specific definition, and unique identifiers that encompass
“persistent or probabilistic identifiers that can be used to identify a particular consumer or device”
(Cal. Civ. Code § 1798.140(x))” (2019, p.4). As shown before when discussing the GDPR law,
the broad, poorly defined legislation also contributes to the tensions and challenges of ensuring
blockchain complies with the CCPA.
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Overall, it can be seen that blockchain-in-education suppliers (e.g. start-ups, organizations)
face multiple challenges when it comes to ensuring that their products comply with data protection
laws such as the GDPR and the CCPA. Some of these challenges are out of the control of such
suppliers (e.g. vague legislation, legislators’ traditional perception of centralized data systems and
inconsideration of decentralized innovative systems), which makes it even harder for them to
overcome these legal issues. However, there are some ways in which start-ups and organization
can enhance the probability of developing data protection law-compliant blockchain solutions. For
instance, they can limit or even avoid storing personal data on the blockchain, carefully evaluate
whether blockchain is indeed necessary to fulfill the business or social need, or use permissioned
blockchains with stricter usage rules (Shah et al., 2019, p.7).
2. The Scalability Challenge
In their study, Alammary et al. (2019) define the scalability challenge as the “slow speed
blockchain transactions” challenge. Educational systems have large amounts of data collected on
many students, which leads the blocks sizes to increase. As the number of blocks becomes larger,
transactions on the blockchain become time consuming given that each transaction requires peerto-peer verification (e.g. Bitcoin technology can only handle three to seven transactions per
second) (2019, p. 13). Thus, scalability may be a significant impediment when blockchain-ineducation solutions are explored and potentially adopted on a wide scale.
Qin and Gervais (n.d.) argue in their study that scaling permissioned blockchains, which are
“closed and typically governed by consortia blockchains”, are cheaper and easier to scale than
permissionless blockchains, which are “freely accessible blockchain where anyone with sufficient
capital can choose to join and become a writer of the ledger” (p. 2). However, they also highlight
that 70 percent of the current blockchain market share is held by permissionless blockchains run
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by PoW (Proof of Work defined as allowing “someone with sufficient capital to solve a
computationally hard problem in order to validate blockchain transactions and write them to the
blockchain”) (p. 2). This highlights that a key factor that defines the value of blockchain on the
current market is the open, transparent, and overall permissionless nature of it. However, according
to the authors, permissionless blockchains can only execute approx. 10 transactions per second,
while permissioned blockchains are much faster, because “existing consensus protocols for closed
sets are naturally much faster, than an open and permissionless network” (p. 4).
In this context, Qin and Gervais (n.d.) introduce “The Scaling Trilemma”, which claims that
“blockchains can have at most two of the three properties: (i) decentralization, (ii) scalability and
(iii) security (no single point of control)” (4). The reasoning behind the Scalability Trilemma is
the following: scalability is significantly influenced by “block time interval and the block size”
and reducing the time may enhance performance but may reduce security by increasing the chance
of blockchain forks (“a fork refers to the point that a blockchain is split into different versions”)
occurring (p. 4). Additionally, a larger block size may lead to more transaction carried but to slower
network propagation and reduced security (p. 4). Thus, the authors claim that “blind modification
of the said parameters might make the whole system vulnerable to a variety of attacks, such as
selfish mining and double spending” (p. 4). Their results were powered by an open-source
blockchain simulator that tested how diverse network parameters affect the blockchain system and
by a mathematical model that evaluated security (p. 4). However, as solutions are being considered
to this scalability challenge, the authors discovered that “by appropriately adjusting some
parameters, a scalability factor of 10 can be achieved, without sacrificing security. Namely, Bitcoin
could increase the current transaction throughput by ten-fold, with one simple parameter change,
and without sacrificing security” (p. 4). While Bitcoin is just one of the instances of blockchain
17
that has not been covered in this paper, the same solution (enhancing transaction throughput
without decreasing security) can be applied to blockchain instances within the education sector.
Another potential challenge that may arise with scalability is that Proof of Work (PoW), the
popular consensus protocol, wastes significant amounts of electricity energy, as highlighted by
Zheng et al. (2017). For instance, it is widely known that within one year, the Bitcoin PoW takes
the amount of electricity needed to power a country like Switzerland.
It is worth highlighting that a key, first step that must be taken when analyzing the challenge
of blockchain scalability within education is deeply understanding the nature (e.g. technical
implications, market adoption aspects) of each blockchain-in-education solution. Once this is
accomplished, suppliers of such solutions may decide whether scalability is indeed an issue or not,
based on the type of educational application they develop. For instance, for credentialing, the
volume of transactions on the blockchain may be low and thus scaling may be a minor issue in
such a context. However, in the context of transacting educational tokens to motivate lifelong
learning or paying for tuition fees on the blockchain, scalability may be more of an issue, given
the relatively low number of transactions per second that is currently enabled.
3. Data Privacy and Security
Chowdhury et al. (2018) highlight in their critical analysis of blockchain versus databases the
popular misconception that the data on the blockchain is encrypted (5). While the data is digitally
signed by the transacting parties, it is not encrypted by default. As the authors claim, “it is an open
ledger system, where anybody can join and verify any transaction in the network”, while the
privacy of the parties involved is ensured through public key cryptography (2018: 4). Educational
institutions may need to implement stronger privacy measures by using private or permissioned
blockchains, or using protocols such as the Zero Knowledge proof.
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As Alammary et al. (2019) highlight, ensuring privacy while providing security on the
blockchain is very difficult to achieve, yet it is crucial especially when a student’s career may be
at risk (educational credentials and certificates) (p. 13). Beyond the challenge of guaranteeing
transactional privacy through public and private keys, the problem of having transactions visible
to everyone who has access to the blockchain should also be considered, since this data may be
collected and made public elsewhere. However, in order to overcome such issues, data may be
kept on the blockchain in encrypted form; another option would be to keep the data off the
blockchain and only store a hash of that data on the blockchain.
4. The Market Adoption Challenge
This section will discuss the market adoption of blockchain-in-education solutions by
exploring the view of potential beneficiaries (e.g. governance stakeholders in schools,
governments, etc.) towards such applications (e.g. fears, concerns, etc.) and the key parties that
may influence such adoption. The insights presented are gathered not only from available research,
but also from multiple interviews led with higher education institutions and blockchain education
start-ups from the United States and Europe.
Multiple educational institutions remain reluctant towards adopting blockchain technologies.
Some of the reasons behind this lack of trust may consist of the lack of necessary knowledge and
skills on how to manage students’ data on a blockchain platform. For instance, the interview
participant #4 from a public university in North America claimed that the reason for joining the
Digital Credentials Consortium is to enhance the university governance and staff’s limited
knowledge on how to integrate and manage such an innovative technology successfully, for the
long term. This shows that the first step in successfully integrating blockchain solutions within
educational institutions may be educating the school administration on how to apply and maintain
19
such applications internally. The importance of this step should not be underestimated, as
highlighted by interview respondent #9, a supplier (start-up founder) of blockchain-in-education
solutions that aims to democratize higher education. He claims that the key party that ultimately
decides whether a university adopts a blockchain solution is the school’s administration, and not
its professors, students, researchers, or business partners (e.g. key employers of the school’s
graduates). Thus, raising awareness and educating schools’ governance bodies about the benefits,
implementation, and maintenance of blockchain-in-education solutions is a key first step in
generating market adoption in the higher education space globally (e.g. the United States, Europe,
etc.). More of the interviewees have complained about this process, claiming that often times
governance stakeholders in universities recognize the benefits of blockchain-in-education
solutions, but do not have any incentives to implement such solutions (e.g. they are more concerned
about daily academic performance of the student body and competing with regional education
institutions).
It is important to notice that another key party that may significantly influence the market
adoption of blockchain within the education sector is the government. As interviewee #9
highlighted, in counties such as India, approx. 20+ million people at university enrollment level
are annually excluded from joining school because the classical higher education system cannot
support such high demand. Thus, open education online is a key affordable opportunity for those
who are excluded, but a big challenge with online education is the formal recognition of skills by
businesses. Employers in developing economies value traditional degrees at the expense of online
and more informal educational methods. In such a context, blockchain credentialing can infuse
more trust for the parties involved, by ensuring the validity (i.e. issuance, existence) of the
credentials gained through non-traditional education methods. According to interviewee #9, a key
20
partner that may help blockchain credentials suppliers to provide a viable solution for such a
massive problem would be the government. Thus, it is worth noting that the adoption of
blockchain-in-education solutions at scale may be more easily ensured through partnerships and
collaborations with government and university governance stakeholders.
As interviewee #1 highlights, another threat for the public adoption of key blockchain-ineducation applications such as digital credentialing is real demand coming from employers. In
order for institutions to be incentivized to adopt such a solution, more demand must come from
businesses. While employers recognize the importance of skills and credentials validation through
blockchain, they often lack the necessary expertise, infrastructure, and funding to alter their
recruitment practices to integrate new applications.
Overall, the issues highlighted above prove that multiple parties (e.g. governments, academia,
businesses) must collaborate and overcome multiple challenges (e.g. lack of incentives, funding,
expertize) in order to ensure a successful and sustainable integration of blockchain-in-education
solutions around the world.
5. The Innovation Challenge
In her study, Thayer (2018) claims that the blockchain technology is immature and rapidly
changing, which often causes blockchain projects to be “prone to failure and abandonment with
upward of 90 percent never coming to fruition” (p. 13). One of the implications of this aspect is
that “the realization of these benefits and disruptions is likely to take a longer time than the current
hype would suggest” (2018, p. 13). Because of that, researchers often claim that the mentality
when approaching blockchain-in-education solutions should be one of a pilot mindset; all the
parties involved in the blockchain education process should carry careful risk analysis on an
ongoing basis.
21
Similarly, Kandaswami and Furlonger’s (2018) report discusses the current scope of
blockchain transformation and its evolution and impact within diverse industries. In this context,
the authors claim that today’s blockchain technology offerings (e.g. trust mechanisms, digital
assets) are attractive yet immature innovations, leading to a high likelihood a failure (2018, p. 2).
As a result, there are a few successful blockchain applications, which shows that focusing on the
business problem and desired outcome rather than the (blockchain) technology solution is a key
lesson that blockchain-in-education beneficiaries (e.g. university governance, employers) should
learn. Thus, a key first question that potential beneficiaries should ask themselves is – “could
blockchain solve this problem or is there any other solution that may be quicker/safer/more
affordable?” Interestingly, Kandaswami and Furlonger (2018) argue that currently, blockchain’s
potential is overestimated as the result of irrational exuberance (2018 - 2021), which will be
continued by a second phase of targeted large investments and multiple successful business models
powered by blockchain (2022 – 2026), followed by a global value-add ($3 trillion +) led by
blockchain technologies (2027 – 2030). Within the second phase (2022 – 2026), the authors claim
that the effect of blockchain will expand beyond its impact in the financial services, into supply
chain, education, healthcare and government (2018, p. 7). These are relevant insights for potential
blockchain-in-education beneficiaries and suppliers who are exploring the right timing to scale or
adopt such solutions.
Overall, the market adoption challenge is essential to overcome in order to ensure that
blockchain-in-education solutions scale worldwide and sustainably. This requires governments,
educational institutions, and innovators to come together and promote blockchain-in-education
solutions (e.g. passing policies and legislature that support such innovations, offering funding to
22
enhance research and development in the field, raising awareness about the benefits of blockchainin-education solutions, etc.).
*** Insert Table 4 Here ***
A Vision for the Future
It is hard to predict how and whether blockchain will have a significant, sustainable impact in
education. Some of the blockchain-in-education beneficiaries interviewed for the purpose of this
paper (e.g. interview respondent #3) claim that in five years’ time, academic digital credentials
may become extinct unless large multinationals and/or governments start to use and value digital
credentials in the near future. Others (e.g. interview respondent #4) claim that the concept of
lifelong education, or continuously learning new skills and updating old knowledge, will drive the
need for a trusted, immutable record of learning accreditations. Thus, given that lifelong education
is becoming increasingly necessary in a world led by fast-paced technological progress, the need
for blockchain-backed credentialing may increase as well.
On the other side, suppliers of blockchain-in-education solutions such as the Digital
Credentials Partnership aim to build eco-systems of educational institutions that use the standards
they define. However, they are also aware of the necessity yet difficulty of building sustainable
business models and market adoption strategies in order to ensure that their vision comes to life.
Overall, during the last few years, the world has transitioned from perceiving blockchain as
the key technology behind cryptocurrencies to a technology that has so much potential when
applied in new industries such as healthcare and education. While the technology has seen some
successes in fields such as supply chain (Tribis et al., 2018), it is still being in an incipient,
“prototyping” phase in the education industry (Alammary et al., 2019). In order for blockchain-in23
education solutions to generate beneficial impact at scale, the private sector (e.g. multinational
employers) and the public sector (e.g. educational institutions, the government) must unite and
ideally coordinate their efforts to test, research, develop, implement, and fund such innovations.
Additionally, it is worth noticing that blockchain should not be perceived as a threat or
replacement for educational institutions, but rather as an innovative technology that can provide
value across a wide range of educational processes – making learning more engaging and effective,
cutting down costs, improving trust, providing enhanced security and privacy, etc.
Conclusion
This study aims to respond two key research questions. First, how can blockchain technology
improve the performance of educational institutions and their students’ learning? Second, what are
the impediments of blockchain implementation within the education sector? In this context, the
paper discusses key benefits of applying blockchain in education, such as empowering learners
(self-sovereignty), enhancing security and efficiency for educational institutions, businesses, and
students, and generally integrating more trust and transparency within transactions in our society.
While analyzing applications of blockchain in education, the study focuses on certification and
identity management initiatives (e.g. the Digital Credentials Consortium, Open Source University,
BCDiploma etc.) and applications that motivate lifelong learning (e.g. BitDegree, Odem.io, etc.).
In parallel, challenges were discussed across a wide range of areas: legal, scalability, data privacy
and security, market adoption, and innovation.
While analyzing the topics highlighted above, the paper highlights two key parties involved in
the blockchain-in-education eco-system: beneficiaries (e.g. universities) and providers (e.g. startups, organizations) of such solutions. Furthermore, two research approaches are used, in order to
24
offer a comprehensive and diverse analysis: case-based and research-based. As part of the first
approach, the author interviews and researches private and public higher education institutions that
are implementing blockchain solutions; as part of the second approach, the study presents research
studies written by education, legal, and technology experts.
The goal of this paper is to compile useful insights that may guide those who try to respond
the following essential question: can blockchain help me improve the educational process? This is
a broad, tough, and often intimidating question to answer, but the current analysis aims to facilitate
that process.
Acknowledgments
I am grateful for Prof. Steven Gordon’s ongoing support and advice while writing this paper
and for all the valuable insights offered by the education experts interviewed for this study.
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29
Tables
Table 1 – Study Subjects (interviews)
Participant #
Institution
Area of focus
Beneficiary or
supplier?
1
Private University
Learning Innovation
Both
Teaching
Beneficiary
IT Systems and Services
Beneficiary
Registrar Systems
Beneficiary
Continuing Education
Beneficiary
Public University
Digital Learning
Beneficiary
(North America)
Technologies
7
Start-up
Learners’ Credentials
Supplier
8
Start-up
Blockchain Solutions
Supplier
(North America)
2
Public University
(Europe)
3
Public University
(Europe)
4
Public University
(North America)
5
Public University
(North America)
6
Incubator
9
Start-up
Democratization of
Supplier
Higher Education
30
Table 2 – Interviews questions
Beneficiaries
Suppliers
1. Why did your school decide to join this
blockchain solution?
What inspired you to build this blockchain
solution?
2. What is the progress that you have had
since you implemented this blockchain
What is the role of blockchain within your
organization?
solution?
3. What are the key challenges faced so
far while implementing and scaling this
What is the traction that you have had so
far with your organization?
blockchain solution?
4. What are some impediments faced by
What are some of the key challenges that
universities and other educational
you have faced so far as a blockchain-in-
organizations
education entrepreneur?
when
they
explore
implementing blockchain solutions?
5. What are some market trends that you
envision for blockchain in education?
What is the vision of your organization for
the short term and long term?
Table 3 - Summary of blockchain-in-education applications
Value proposition
1. Certificates and identity management
Examples discussed (e.g. organizations)
Digital Credentials Consortium
Blockcerts
Open Source University
31
BCDiploma
2. Enhancing and motivating lifelong BitDegree
learning
ODEM.io
Table 4 - Summary of challenges faced while implementing blockchain-in-education solutions
Challenge
Description
Legal
EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and
California’s Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA) may impose
limitations on how personal data is transacted on the blockchain.
Definitions of “personal data” also remain vague in legislation.
Scalability
The relatively slow speed of blockchain transactions may impose
bottlenecks when it comes to scaling blockchain-in-education
solutions worldwide.
Data Privacy and Security
Ensuring privacy while providing security on the blockchain
may be very difficult to achieve.
Market Adoption
Lack of trust in the technology and lack of knowledge on how to
harness the potential of blockchain-in-education solutions may
lead to a slow market adoption of such innovations.
Innovation
The relative immaturity of blockchain technologies may
influence the success rate of blockchain-in-education solutions.
32
Author’s Biography
Mara-Florina Steiu is a Class of 2020 Suma Cum Laude graduate from Babson College, where she
studied Business Analytics and Information Technology, and an incoming Program Manager at
Microsoft. Mara is the recipient of the Babson College Global Scholarship, a prestigious
scholarship offered to approx. 10 international students each year, and is one of the Babson Class
of 2020 Honors students, due to her academic performance. Mara is passionate about ways in
which technology can revolutionize education systems around the world; therefore, as part of her
Class of 2020 Honors Thesis, she researched how blockchain technologies can positively influence
the education sector (i.e. teaching, learning, and educational institutions’ administration).
33
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