The first thing that springs to mind when you hear the term blockchain is probably cryptocurrency. There is no denying that cryptocurrency has played a significant role in revolutionary blockchain technology. However, the use of the blockchain platform is no longer limited to digital currency as it has gone far beyond that.
Blockchain’s remarkable benefits, such as its decentralized structure, visibility and traceability, and better security and privacy, contribute to its widespread adoption across industries. The education sector is one such business where blockchain has just started to make a mark.
How blockchain improves and influences operations in the education system and how blockchain can impact the education system. How blockchain can cut education costs– we will find detailed answers to these questions in this article.
Read about the fundamentals of Blockchain first here
But, before we go any further, let’s take a quick look at what blockchain technology is in the first place.
What Is Blockchain Technology?
Blockchain is an abbreviation for a set of distributed ledger technologies that can be configured to record and track anything of value, from financial transactions to educational records to land titles. You may be wondering that we already have institutions to manage these operations, so why do we need blockchain, or how does blockchain platform differ from Crypto.
Well, let’s take a look at why blockchain technology is far superior to all of these institutions and systems that we now have.
The first factor that distinguishes blockchain or advantages existing systems is how data is stored. The blockchain stores data in groups known as blocks linked together in chronological order to form a chain of blocks.
If someone changes the information recorded in a specific block, it is not overwritten. Instead, the modification will be saved in a new block. Overall, it’s a non-destructive method of monitoring data changes over time.
Moreover, unlike the traditional ledger approach, blockchain is intended to be decentralized and distributed across a broad network of computers. This decentralized platform considerably reduces the possibility of data tampering and fosters trust in data.
In addition to trust in data and secure storage, the absence of intermediaries is the third factor that distinguishes blockchain technology and makes it more interesting. Currently, we have financial intermediaries such as banks that help parties build trust. However, the services provided by these intermediaries are paid, which means you must pay fees in exchange for the services you receive.
However, suppose we keep information in the blockchain, whether financial, land, or educational records. In that case, we will not need to rely on any intermediaries, which means no costs or fees. In a nutshell, blockchain technology eliminates the need for intermediaries, saving you money.
So this is how top blockchain technology works and how it outperforms existing systems and collaboration methods. Now that you understand blockchain technology, it’s time to move on and learn how blockchain can benefit the education industry.
Blockchain In Education Sector
Blockchain technology can benefit the education sector in several ways. For example, you can use this technology to store securely and share data, better manage university curricula, cut education expenses, design lessons and courses, decentralize online learning, and much more. However, the most promising application of blockchain in higher education is to revolutionize the “record-keeping” of degrees, certificates, and diplomas.
In addition to these applications, blockchain technology can do better research and analysis, conduct digital examinations, issue certifications, and diplomas, and facilitate lifelong learning.
The following section will look at the top 10 ways blockchain can positively impact the education system.
10 Ways Blockchain Can Impact Education Sector
1. Certificates & Identity Management
One key blockchain application in the education landscape is certificate and identity management. Using blockchain technology, students’ academic records can be made public and easily shared with employers and universities for additional personal development opportunities.
Moreover, this application assists students by providing an empowering tool for tracking and sharing their academic progress. Employers can rely on reliable, authentic representations of students’ potential based on academic success.
This will prevent data forgery or fake certifications, and it will also make data sharing more efficient and automated. Overall, blockchain technology will enable higher education institutions to expedite the certification process.
2. Enhancing Lifelong Learning
Another significant advantage of blockchain in education is that it makes teaching and learning more exciting and fun. Since many students and teachers find the current educational technology irritating and uninteresting, there is an urgent need to overhaul the current teaching tools by developing more engaging technology tools. Fortunately, blockchain technology can meet this demand.
Blockchain’s OpenSource framework could be a useful tool for improving or enhancing the present online teaching and learning experience. Moreover, several private initiatives seek to use blockchain to make learning and teaching processes more effective and exciting for learners and content producers by leveraging educational tokens as rewards and eliminating unnecessary intermediaries and regulations.
3. Improve Record-Keeping
Another well-known and widespread application of blockchain technology is in record storage. Since record management is a time-consuming yet critical process, advanced technology must perform it. Using blockchain, you may eliminate most of the overhead involved with this process and simplify verification procedures. This will also save educators and administrators time transferring students across schools or states.
You can, for example, create elaborate smart contracts that include every detail about students, such as attendance, courses taken, and even the results of certain tests or papers. Other schools or employers can check how they performed on particular examinations by accessing these smart contracts.
4. Student Records Storage
Blockchain technology can also help institutions securely store critical student records such as degrees, curriculum, and certifications. As we all know, preserving all of these documents–digital curricula, records, degrees, and other student information–will undoubtedly necessitate a large amount of storage space. Furthermore, storing these documents on hard drives will make the data centralized and opaque.
Also, if the hard drive gets damaged or corrupted, you will lose all of the crucial data saved on it. Buying cloud storage is one solution to this problem. However, cloud storage might be a far more expensive option for many institutions. This is where blockchain technology can come in handy, and you can use the technology to store vital records on blockchain-based cloud storage services.
5. Creating Lessons & Courses
One of the previous benefits of blockchain in education was that blockchain makes the educational process more interesting for students and teachers. The technology makes teaching more entertaining, and it also allows you to design lessons and courses for your students.
For example, utilizing the smart-contract enabled blockchain, you may program lessons and courses to execute or unlock when a learner meets particular conditions, such as completing the prior course or obtaining specified scores. Once the task is completed, the smart contracts will verify it, and the next task will be unlocked.
6. Decentralizing Online Learning
Blockchain technology can act as a trustworthy and transparent intermediary between two parties involved in the learning process. The technology can both digitize and decentralize information, including documents and courses. Institutions can leverage this technology to share information about online courses. Students can share ratings of online offerings, helping other students find accredited programs that will help them advance their education.
In this way, students will access and learn worldwide online courses without any barriers. Also, various decentralized social networks reward students with cryptocurrency when they complete a course or a lesson.
7. Issuance of Certificates & Diplomas
The next significant benefit of blockchain in education, or how blockchain can improve the education system, is that it can issue certificates and diplomas to students instead of traditional paper documents. In addition to data security and ease of transfer, digital documents have multiple advantages over conventional paper documents, including:
They use fewer resources and are less vulnerable to physical damage.
You can generate digital certificates in a relatively smooth and straightforward manner.
Digital certificates have the potential to reduce forgeries and fraudulent certificates significantly.
Unlike traditional paper-based certifications, blockchain-based papers are secure and straightforward to share.
Blockchain technology can further improve the education system by providing all of these benefits in issuing certificates and diplomas.
8. Digital Examination
Aside from the benefits above of blockchain in the education industry, the technology also allows you to conduct digital examinations. Because of the COVID-19 epidemic, the world has been subjected to frequent lockdowns and restrictions, such as the closure of educational institutions and the disruption of international connectivity, among other things.
For this reason, it is time for academic institutions to look beyond the classroom and explore the digital world or technologies.
By utilizing smart contracts, educational institutes can conduct virtual exams highly safely. They will use technology to design exam papers, conduct tests, and evaluate the answer keys. This will ensure that students’ education is not disrupted repeatedly and that their performance is evaluated adequately through examinations.
9. Better Research and Analysis
It is a well-known fact that academics, researchers, and students continually work on new research and materials. However, making those materials available to the wider community is challenging via traditional technologies or methods. Nevertheless, thanks to the blockchain platform, scholars can easily share their materials and findings with their fellow fraternity members.
Eventually, other researchers or students can enhance their papers using these studies and learning materials. This is a continuous process. The technology also provides a platform for new writers or researchers who have been unable to submit their papers due to various barriers. In a nutshell, publishing papers on a blockchain can help new writers, scholars, and others break into the industry.
10. Lowering Educational Institutions Costs
All of these advantages will eventually reduce education costs. For example, educational institutions can use blockchain technology to store securely, and exchange documents, conduct assessment and performance analysis, develop courses and lessons, and decentralize vital information. However, most of these activities are time-consuming and labor-intensive if carried out in their present form.
However, blockchain technology will automate, streamline, and simplify these processes, saving institutions’ resources and expenses. In addition, institutions can redirect these savings to students who may not need to spend years repaying loans. Overall, it’s a win-win situation for everyone — institutions and students alike.
These are the ten ways blockchain technology could disrupt the education field. We are convinced that this technology is here to stay and can transform the education system, among other things. We are also confident that, given the benefits of blockchain technology, institutions worldwide will begin to use this technology in the not-too-distant future. They can use the alternative of blockchain technology too.