A Preliminary Review of Blockchain-Based Solutions in Higher Education

Blockchain technology is showing its potential to disrupt established business processes. Four types of blockchain initiatives have been identified: Record keeper, efficiency play, digital asset market, and blockchain disruptor. Many different applications have also been emerging within the educational domain, following a student or institution-centric approach. Student-centric solutions simplify the validation process of received credentials, while institution-centric solutions facilitate mainly operational activities of educational institutions. In this paper, we present several use cases addressing different aspects within the educational domain, such as streamlining the process of diploma verification, virtual lifetime learning passport, securing the issued certificates permanently, verifying the accreditation process, automatic recognition of credits, etc. A preliminary review and analysis of identified projects and initiatives show that most of them follow a student-centric approach while facilitating record-keeping.