After we have introduced further blockchain concepts, we are now going to present the Blockchain for Education platform. This use case belongs to the application area proof of origin and it is about personal certificates. Learners usually receive paper documents that present the certificates. However, there are some disadvantages such as the mainly manual activity for third parties to verify the certificate or the need for certification authorities to maintain a registry or database for certificates for a long time. An alternative to paper certificates are digital certificates that are cryptographically signed. Compared to paper certificates, management and use of digital certificates is simplified. However, more effort is needed to secure the registry for certificates. In the context of education and certification, the blockchain technology supports counterfeit protection of certificates, easy verification of certificates even if the certification authority no longer exists and automation of monitoring processes for certificates with a time-limited validity. The Blockchain for Education platform supports the three user groups certification authorities, learners and employers. The certification authorities can import data and examination results from legacy systems, issue certificates and register them in the blockchain and they can register certifiers. The main feature for learners is the management of certificates in application portfolios. Employers need means to easily verify digital certificates. The BSCW, a web-based groupware system, is used to store learning courses, data about participants and examination results. The certification authorities import their data for a specific learning course, for example “Level A – Usability Engineer”. The figure shows the corresponding folder and digital certificates that have been created for the learners Jan Janssen, Jean Dupont, John Smith and Manuel Dos Santos. After importing and previewing the certificates, the certifier can sign the certificates and register them on the blockchain, which is executed in one step and carried out by the user action “Send to blockchain”. Afterwards the digital certificate is sent to the learner. The figure shows this operation for the certificate JanJanssen.cert. If the operation could be successfully executed, then the certifier is notified by a popup that the certificate has been successfully written to the blockchain. The corresponding transaction contains the fingerprint of the certificate, the issuing organization as well as start and end date of validity of the certificate. For the trusted verification of certificates, the Blockchain for Education platform offers its own verification service. Users can enter the fingerprint of the digital certificate, or more convenient just drag and drop the digital certificate onto the service, which verifies the existence of the fingerprint of the digital certificate in the blockchain. As a result not only valid or not valid is presented, but also information about the issuing organization and the values of the attributes start and end date of validity. In summary, the Blockchain for Education platform supports counterfeit protection and easy verification for digital certificates. To provide security for all entities involved in the process, smart contracts are in place to provide rules for identity management, involving adding, updating and removing certification authorities and certifiers as well as certification management, involving creating, revoking and deleting references to certificates.
