EnlightenEd

CEO Blog: Blockchains in Education

by | Apr 24, 2018

CEO Blog: Blockchains in Education

by Kiran Kodithala

As educational institutions start thinking of new models of learning and affordable education, one of the common threads for this transformation is enabling a student to enroll in a course at any institution and apply this course towards his degree progression. This interoperability and interconnectivity between educational institutions is so vital that some state legislatures have passed laws to mandate institutions within the state to allow students to cross-enroll. While this is a very noble effort it is often very difficult to implement because of the disparity between each educational institution and lack of common standards for sharing data. Such interoperability is difficult and may require contracts between institutions to respect the disparities between course catalogs, student grades, and other administrative data.

Thanks to Blockchain technology, such issues can easily be resolved by exposing institutional data thorough standardized APIs. N2N’s Integration Platform, Illuminate, can enable Blockchain
APIs at participating institutions. These Blockchain APIs can be used real-time or ad-hoc to support the development of a secure online database that stores the rules and contracts between participating institutions.

Real-world examples of  Blockchains in education use-cases include:
1. Participating institutions upload course catalogs to the Blockchain system and map institution’s course catalog to the Blockchain master catalog

2. Participating institutions upload grading policies to the Blockchain system and map institution’s grading scale to Blockchain master grading scale

3. Participating institutions upload transfer policies to the Blockchain system and map institution’s transfer policies to Blockchain master transfer policies

4. Students search for available courses on the Blockchain course shopping cart

5. Students register for a course of their choice from an institution of their preference through Blockchain registration module

6. Students can upload their unstructured learning portfolio to Blockchain Personal Value Ledger (PVL)

7. Students can submit their PVL to participating institutions for earning course credits towards their degree progression

8. Students can submit their PVL to participating employers to apply for a job.

Blockchain technology has the potential to disrupt how we learn, graduate and earn in ways we can only dream of. The Illuminate Platform’s turnkey SIS APIs, Blockchain Support and Integration API catalogs can enable a seamless transition to this bright future.

 


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