Towards a Learner-Managed Education Credentialing System Based on Blockchain

Abstract

Traditionally, a learner's education credentials are maintained by each educational institution. When individuals need to prove their education, they rely on their educational institutions to certify their education and learning records. This paper proposes a decentralized, learner-managed education credentialing system based on blockchain, where the learners' credentials are issued once, stored in a distributed system, and the learners have full control over how and who can access their credentials. The authors present the procedures for credential issuance, selective disclosure of an individual's credentials chosen by each learner, and credential verification by a third party. A proof-of-concept smart contract system has been developed to demonstrate the functionality of the proposed framework. The smart contracts are programmed using the Solidity programming language and tested on the Remix IDE. The authors present this simulation of smart contracts to handle entity registration, credential information storage, credential verification, and educational financial transactions.