7 ways how blockchain can help the education industry

Duomly - Jun 30 '20 - - Dev Community

This article was originally published at:
https://www.blog.duomly.com/blockchain-use-cases-in-education/


Intro to blockchain use cases in education

Today we will talk about blockchain use cases in education.

Education, especially the public, is one of the industries that still don't go so fast into the very modern world.

There is a lot of paperwork. Students in many schools need to apply in a slow way, and a lot of people work required to handle that.

It's about the performance, usage of resources, and energy, but more issues need to be fixed ASAP.

One of the biggest problems is the security, identity, and records tracking.

Would you believe blockchain can be used to fix all of these issues, and give even more benefits to the edu industry?

In this article, I'll explain to you how.

Let's start!

And if you prefer video, here is our youtube episode:

1. Record tracking

One of the main benefits of a public blockchain is the immutability of blocks and the precise history of the whole blockchain.

That means, if we add any record into the blockchain, the history cannot be changed.

Of course, we can update records, but all of the changes will be saved in the blockchain as the new blocks.

It has the most significant impact on trust, especially on the data that has to be clearly tracked.

What is more critical, with a decentralized platform, is almost impossible to change all the blockchain history. Every change will be immediately visible to all of the network members.

2. Identity

There is a massive field for improvements and innovation with identity verification or management.

With blockchain, immutability, security, and clear history, it can be significantly improved.

Identity management on the blockchain can be much more comfortable, especially with decentralized user accounts, and its own keys.

All of the data added to the blocks into the blockchain can be assigned to the owner's account.

That can help us track all information about the user in a while, it can be beneficial when users would like to share all, precise info about himself.

Somebody who review that data can be 100% sure data is trustful and is signed by authorized person.

3. Copyright protection and publishing

The immutability of blockchain that we've talked about is the main point of why copyright protection can benefit from the blockchain.

By using blockchain, we can secure our intellectual property, and show we are the first and real owner of the copyright.

It can be handy, especially with digital items, but not only.

Data stored on an authorized blockchain can be 100% of our ownership, that we do not need to care about paper as we need to do now, for example, with a patent.

4. Trusted certification and credentials

The issue of fake reviews, certifications, credentials, and even referrals is enormously big.

With blockchain, we can avoid most of the problems, and fake certification won't have a place.

Immutability, and the possibility of making blockchain fully decentralized and public give us unlimited opportunities to build certified registers with authorized signers of data. 

We can use that to build trustful and global register, which we could use to verify the information anybody sent us.

Almost lighting-speed of blockchain, and it's public access, can give us the possibility to save tons of time, energy, and work of people, that we still need now.

5. Security

The security of the blockchain is one of the most significant benefits, and it makes that technology famous.

Many technologies care about security, from decentralization or clear history, through advanced cryptography up to ideas like proof of authority.

The education industry is the one where security is critical and has to be at the highest level. There is no place for frauds or vulnerabilities.

When blockchain comes into the game, edu-industry can calm down. 
All of the credentials, history, and even sensitive data should be secure.

Many blockchains are public, but it's unnecessary, and even if blockchain is open, we can encrypt data that shouldn't be visible to everybody.

6. Smart contracts

Smart contracts are one of my most favorite features of blockchain.

It can be used in almost every industry, and I can say that each of them will strongly benefit.

Because of the possibility of coding smart-contracts in many ways, we can save tons of time, energy, and work by using them.

Recruitment and onboarding process can be done by tech, payments can be made instantly, all of the certificates can be created, and even grading students can be made without our work.

Smart contracts are the real future, and I can imagine even full smart-contract based big ideas like tax system or elections.

7. Reduce energy and resources

Energy consumption is enormous now, and the world spends a lot of time and resources to reduce that.

Blockchain is one of the ways how we can reduce energy consumption in many industries.

In the education industry, a lot of paperwork, bureaucracy, and unnecessary work can be done autonomously.

Implementing blockchain in the industry, we can avoid most of that, and save a lot.

For example, by sharing resources with blockchain that can be done 100% autonomously, we can save people's work, paper, and money.

The next example is that we can save a lot of energy and people's work by identity or credentials verification that can be done by a few clicks.

These are only two examples, but blockchain can save a lot of work, energy, space, money, water, and even reduce dangers.

Conclusion of blockchain use cases in education

I've pointed out the most minor issues and problems of the edu industry, which can surely be fixed with blockchain.

I hope I gave you some overview of the blockchain and how implementing new technologies can solve the main problems of the industry.

In the next episodes, I'll put some lights on other industries that can benefit from implementing blockchain or decentralization.

If you have some topics that would like to research the most, let me know in the comments.
I hope I'll be able to help you.

If you're interested in learning about blockchain I'm happy to invite you to our Blockchain course that you can find here:

https://www.duomly.com/course/blockchain-course/

Programming courses online

Thanks for reading,
Radek from Duomly

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