Role Of Blockchain In The Education Industry.

Blockchain technology offers several benefits to this process, comprising data security, credential portability, data privacy, and simplified workflows.

Fremont, CA: Students' educational achievements, including academic transcripts, work history, and skill credentialing, are often scattered across several institutions and disparate IT systems. Frequently self-reported via a resume or LinkedIn, these credentials can be challenging to authenticate.

Advantages of blockchain for portable digital credentials

Blockchain technology offers several benefits to this process, comprising data security, credential portability, data privacy, and simplified workflows. They are:

1. The credentials are secure: Issuer with any credential issued can cryptographically be verified as having been generated.

2. The credentials are portative; the credential holder determines which parties he or she wishes to share it with and which fields to disclose.

3. As the credential holder selectively discloses data instead of being stored in central silos, data remains private, and the attack vector is considerably reduced. Each party is only secret to the specific information they require.

4. These simplified workflows reduce bureaucracy and communications overhead.

By allowing portable and verifiable digital credentials, blockchain enables individuals to easily share their credentials with multiple parties while maintaining privacy.

How sharing digital credentials with blockchain works

Three essential roles are exercised by different entities in a system of portable credentials. Each of these roles has its decentralized identifier (DID). Sometimes, entities have a separate DID for each entity with whom they have a connection, referred to as a pairwise DID. Using separate DIDs for each connection prevents the correlation of data that has been shared with exceeding one party. The three roles are:

- Issuer: An entity that issues credentials to holders. This entity has a public DID anchor in a blockchain for other entities to reference at will. Issuer metadata may also be saved in public registries, which makes it easier for other entities to find them.

- Holder: An entity (generally an end user or consumer) to whom credentials are issued. Holders keep credentials in private wallets and reveal them to third parties upon request. During disclosure, it is likely to reveal only some fields from a credential or only some aspects of individual fields. This is noted as selective disclosure.

- Verifier: Any third party that wishes to endorse a credential establishes a connection with the credential holder through its DID and sends it a proof request. The credential holder then selects whether or not to disclose the requested credential.

In this atmosphere, the Issuer, Holder, and Verifier are each sovereign participants in a blockchain network that benefits from the common characteristics of blockchain protocols to allow portable digital credentials.

Blockchain networks natively depend on cryptographic mechanisms for non-repudiation, authentication, transactions, and signed proofs, which enable critical processes in executing Issuer, Holder, and Validator roles in a digital credential ecosystem. Moreover, a blockchain provides a single shared system of record on which cryptographic primitives are deeply rooted, creating a reliable, trustless, and open network on which credentials can be issued, used and verified using a common set of standards for all users in the network to conform to.

Each of these roles has the advantages of portable digital credentials using blockchain. Issuers eradicate the need for costly documentation or authentication of previously issued credentials. They no longer need to support electronic requests for credential verification since the issuer has already given permission to the holder for select recipients.

Holders gain greater data privacy, credential portability, and the ability to decide when and how much information to share. Verifiers obtain rapid credential authentication, more accurate information, enhanced trust, and lower risk and severity of data breaches because the scope of stored data tends to be narrower and is usually encrypted with pairwise credentials.