POV by @Stela Hoxha, R&D Funding Officer in Amaris Consulting.
In 2017 the European Commission published a report on its study on the possible applications of Blockchain in education. The “Blockchain in Education” report stressed out how the potential of blockchain technology may disrupt institutional norms and empower learners. At the same time, it also highlighted the high level of unawareness of stakeholders within the education system of the social advantages and potentials of blockchain technology. According to the EC, some of the main advantages related to the use of blockchain technology, from a social perspective can allow for: Self-sovereignty of users that can identify themselves and at the same time maintain control over the storage and management of their personal data; Trust for a technical infrastructure that can give users enough confidence to carry out transactions; Transparency for users to conduct transactions in knowledge that each party has the capacity to enter into the transaction; Immutability for records to be written and stored permanently without the possibility of modification; Disintermediation as the removal of the need for a central controlling authority that manages and keeps records; Collaboration as the ability of parties to transact directly with each other without the need for mediating third parties.
In the report the EC proposed eight possible scenarios for the application of Blockchain tech in an education context from a short-term to a mid/long-term perspective. According to the EC, in a short-term perspective, blockchain technology can be used to permanently secure certificates, to receive payments from students, and to verify multi-step accreditation. In a mid-term perspective, blockchain in HEIs can be used for automatic recognition and transfer of credits, as a lifelong learning passport, for tracking intellectual property and for student identification using Verified Sovereign Identities. Finally, in a long-term perspective it can be used for providing student funding via blockchain, in terms of vouchers.
In Europe there is still little awareness on the potential use of blockchain technology and blockchain applications for education are still in their infancy.
We, at Amaris Consulting, took this challenge very seriously! In the past two years, Amaris Consulting in collaboration with other European partners have worked on the development of user-friendly tools which can support the uptake of blockchain technology within European Higher Education Institutions (HEI). TRUE project ambition was to bring closer the concept and use of blockchain technology to students, professors and HEIs staff and propose accessible tools for understanding such complex topics and at the same time meet the needs of the EC report by raising awareness between stakeholders and HEI staff.
To this end, we developed Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) aimed to HEI staff members, stakeholders and external parties in order to introduce and educate the appropriate audience about blockchain technology, its potentials and challenges. The courses are free and open to anyone and are structured in seven modules and eight languages (Register: HERE).
Theoretical approach also needs the practical approach in order to ease the understating of complex and technical concepts like blockchain technology. To this end, Amaris Consulting developed the Serious Game. The main purpose was to introduce a fun and interactive tool that helps users understand how blockchain and mining works. The game material can be easily printed from the project website and the game manual is available in eight languages. The game will help the learner understand basic concepts such as mining, ledger, decentralized topology, trust and consensus mechanisms etc. You can have fun and learn at the same time!
This way, TRUE project journey reached a key milestone: we have now a collection of educational materials that are highly valuable to raise awareness and to communicate blockchain to the general public. We are sure that this is only the beginning and a sound basis to proceed our work ahead!!
In Amaris we are committed to contribute to mighty initiatives that can positively impact our society through technology. Check out our EU projects (here) and if you are looking for a partner, contact me: shoxha@amaris.com
