APPLICATIONS OF

BLOCKCHAIN IN
EDUCATION
ASYSTEMS
Project II Defense Presentation
Supervision:

Prof. Dr. Ayman Adel Abdel-Hamid

Dr. Yasmine Nagi

Project Team:

Assem Makhyon Department CS

Ahmed Amgad Abdelrazek Department IS
Mohamed Nasser Department GM
Muhammed Khaled Imam Department CS
Lama Aly Anwar Department CS
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Introduction Literature
Problem Statement - Project Idea Review
01 Motivation 02 Objectives - Contributions 03 Previous Work

Analysis and
Design Proof of Concept Conclusion
04 Requirements – Diagrams 05 Project Implementation and06
Demo
Future Work
0 Introducti
on
Problem statement

1
Motivation
 Problem Statement

Education technology moves fast, and it goes beyond smart

boards and remote learning.

When talking about the traditional educational system,

problems such as the upkeep of student records, controlling
the dispersal of copyrighted materials, and forged
certificates arise.

Our proposed system is aimed to answering the question of

how blockchain technology can help solve the problems faced
by educational facilities today.
 Motivation
Mutabili Administrati
0 Transferring 0 ty 0 on
1 students 2 3 Overhead
• Central servers Efforts of employees
Cost are vulnerable are usually wasted on
Time to hacking mundane paperwork and
Translation • system errors signatures
Grading scheme may lead to
Shipping Employer
credibility
inaccurate
results
0 access to
• Identity theft 4 student info
issues Privacy
credibility
 Transferring students
 Most of the schools do not share their students’ transcripts for
privacy reasons
 If the language in the transcript is a foreign language, costly
legit translation is needed
 Grading system in current university may not be consistent with
the grading system used in the other university
 There is no guarantee of integrity check for the printed
transcripts
 From a dollar-and-cent point of view, a student may have to spend
$275 on average for a transcript evaluation which includes
translation, evaluation, and shipping cost in the US.
 In Egypt there are roughly 7047 international students each year
284 of them are in AAST alone
 The process of evaluating a paper-based transcript is complicated
and time consuming
 Mutability

• Someone might steal professor’s password

to alter his own grade (network attack,
shoulder surfing, social engineering )
• Transcripts are not tamper-proof thus they
have to be printed then stamped which can
be easily forged
• hard to provide proof of identity for
students
 Motivation
According to the official statistical organization in Egypt the following was observed:

Total Egyptian Universities’

Graduates AAST’s Graduates
284
7047

4586
406369

international students
egyptian students
international students egyptian students
 Motivation
In February 2020, the Council of Higher Education
in Egypt expelled 177 students who had been
admitted to private universities with forged
local, Arab and international certificates, and
the Council decided to refer these students to the
Public Prosecution to take the necessary legal
measures as a punishment for the crime they
committed in providing forged certificates to
obtain seats they did not deserve at a number of
private universities.

Picture from articles published on Masrawy and Youm7 news website.

https://www.masrawy.com/news/news_egypt/details/2020/7/15/1832546/%d8%b4%d8%af%d9%8a%d8%af-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ad%d8%b1%d8%a7%d8%b1%d8%a9-%d9%88%d8%b4%d8%a8%d9%88%d8%b1%d8%a9-%d8%a7%d
9%84%d8%a3%d8%b1%d8%b5%d8%a7%d8%af-%d8%aa%d9%83%d8%b4%d9%81-%d8%aa%d9%81%d8%a7%d8%b5%d9%8a%d9%84-%d8%b7%d9%82%d8%b3-%d8%a7%d9%84%d8%ae%d9%85%d9%8a%d8%b3#interestingInf
initeLoad
 Motivation
• At the University of Connecticut,
student Social Security numbers and
credit card data were taken.
Washington State University and
Johns Hopkins University were also
the target of attacks.

• In penn state Overall, about 18,000

students and faculty, plus around
500 research partners, were
possibly affected by a breach that
might have started as far back as
two years ago.

In 2014, 10 percent of reported security breaches

involved the education sector
 Employer Access
According to a national survey by HR.com and National
Association of Professional Background Screeners (NAPBS)
2017, nearly all the employers surveyed—96 percent—stated
their organization conducts one or more types of employment
background screening. And among them, 75% did education Educational background check
verification. Employers can find out if applicants
exaggerate or lie on their educational qualifications by
contacting their school or use Global Verification Network
and other third party agencies.

• It was found that Almeda University is affiliated

with Axact's international diploma mill scheme, one
located in Islamabad, Pakistan with more than 800
people across Canada having purchased fake degrees
from there.

• a fake university monitor for UK degrees did over chechked unchecked

160,000 verification checks from 2008 when it was
first set up to 2016 and shut down 30 fake
universities in 2015.
0 Project
Idea
Objectives

2
Expected contributions
 Objectives
 Minimize or eliminate academic paper work
that might get lost or damaged.
 Protect transcripts from tamper attempts
either from a malicious user or a hacker
 Save employees and students time required
to process printed documents
 Save money spent on translation and
shipping
 Expected Contributions
 Unofficial and official transcripts
are recorded on a distributed ledger,
so participants (school and employer)
can access it globally in the internet

 Transcripts stored on a distributed

ledger is tamper-proof; a malefactor
cannot alone alter a transcript
because it is impossible to change
transcript data in multiple nodes at
the same time

 Saves time and money while the

academic records are totally reliable
and accessible in the internet
0 Literature
review
Related Work

3
 Existing Projects
Several blockchain-based
projects for education
already exist. We consider
four of these in detail:
Blockcerts, Sony Global
Education (GED) Blockchain,
APPII and ODEM.
 Existing Projects

APPII
Blockcerts
APPII uses blockchain to
verify credentials. The
An open standard company combines
application
Sony which
Global Education, blockchain, smart
verifies
Inc., &
introduces issues
a new ODEM contracts and machine
blockchain-based
service for records
managing learning to verify the
including civic records,
transcripts and scores academic
ODEM is acredentials of
decentralized
academic the
through credentials,
digital prospective students and
marketplace for
and
platform professional
of Blockchain professors.
educational products and
licenses. Sony SGE services. Using
Blockchain blockchain, the company
connects educators,
students and
professionals to
relevant courses and
resources.
 Existing Projects

Features:
 Saving reliable data for learning history
Features:
in a digital form
 Vendor independent  Allows one to store an individual’s
 Ownership learning history, such as CBT (Computer
 Portability Based Test) and online studying, on a
highly secured platform.
 Privacy  Trusted data storage
 Transparency  Prevent tampering with learning history
 Interoperability  Safe and secure for sharing learning
history data
 Multi-chain support  Data sharing with multiple organizations
 Flexible access and control
 Existing Projects

Features:
 Easy access for employers
 Ultratrustworthy blockchain
verification
 Verified Profile Details
 Multiple CVs
 Secure biometric verification
 Personal QR Code
 100s of leading employers and
institutions
Existing Projects
 Research Papers
1. BLOCKCHAIN IN EDUCATION: INTRODUCTION AND CRITICAL REVIEW OF THE
STATE OF THE ART

2. Ethereum: Platform Review Opportunities and Challenges for Private

and Consortium Blockchains

3. Blockchain-Based Applications in Education: A Systematic Review

4. A Reference Architecture for Blockchain-based Resource-intensive

Computations managed by Smart Contracts

5. IBM Blockchain Platform Technical Overview

6. An Overview of Blockchain for Higher Education

7. A Review of Blockchain based Educational Projects

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/324331472
http://www.smallake.kr/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/314477721-Ethereum-Platform-Review-Opportunities-and-Challenges-for-Private-and-Consortium-Blockchains.pdf
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/9/12/2400
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328342750
https://www.ibm.com/eg-en/cloud/blockchain-platform
https://www.insticc.org/Primoris/Resources/PaperPdf.ashx?idPaper=83439
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338829034_A_Review_of_Blockchain_based_Educational_Projects
0 Analysis and
design
Scenario

4
Requirements
diagrams
Frontend
Abstract Project Overview
Student Academic Staff External Entity

Backe Blockch
nd ain
 Functional Requirements:
System Requirements
• Enrol new students
• Academic Staff should be able
to submit grades of students
• Academic staff should be able
to register students
• Students can view their
information
• Student should be able to
self-register
• Admin Register Academic Staff
 Functional Requirements:
• Registration Staff should be
System Requirements
able to add/update courses
• Implementing rubric rules when
it comes to registering
students
• Each branch Implements a
different CA
• Network shouldn’t have a
single point of failure
 Non-Functional Requirements:
System Requirements
• 20 tps throughput
• System scalability
• Immutability
• Inter-operability
Abstract System Overview
The diagram shows three scenarios
where a student can login into the
Diagram
system, view their information and
approve the request to view their
information.

Academic Staff logs into the system,

enrol students, views student
information and updates the marks
according to assessments.

Registration Staff are responsible

for adding courses and adjusting
academic plan.

Finally external entities such as

job companies can request to view
student information.
Contracts
Management
Contracts
Education
Diagram
Student Enrolment
0 Proof of
Concept
Prototype

5
Implemented Architecture
Diagram
 Implemented Architecture
Diagram

Education
Channel

Education
Channel Management
Channel

Management
Channel
Education
Channel

Management
Channel
Implemented Architecture
Diagram
Implementation
Technologies
 Features

External entity can

Academic Advisor request access to
Academic Staff Academic staff
register for Course creation student transcript
Employment withdraw course
students

01 02 03 04 05
 Features
Student accept or
Student self- decline external
Student Enrolment registration if Student can view entity request to
permitted his transcript view his transcript

01 02 03 04
Application
Prototype
Student Enrolment
Submitting Grades
Course Registration
View Transcript
External Entity
Request
Demo
0 Conclusion
Future Work

6
 Future Work

● The process of transferring from one college to

another within the same university or to a new
university altogether.

● Multiple Blockchain Support

THANK
YOU
 References
 Hyperledger Fabric Documentation
https://hyperledger-fabric.readthedocs.io/en/release-1.4/devel
opapps/application.html
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/328342750_A_Reference
_Architecture_for_Blockchain-based_Resource-intensive_Computat
ions_managed_by_Smart_Contracts
 https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/etd_projects/656/
 Blockchain in Education Report By Alexander Grech
and Anthony F. Camilleri
 An Overview of Blockchain for Higher Education Research Paper
By Timothy Arndt
 [6]https://www.capmas.gov.eg/Pages/StatisticsOracle.aspx?
Oracle_id=1778&page_id=5104&YearID=23316
 [7]
https://www.capmas.gov.eg/Pages/StatisticsOracle.aspx?Oracle_i
d=1778&page_id=5104&YearID=23316
 References
 [8]https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/universities-be
come-targets-hackers-n429821
 [9] Business Data Processing Occupational Performance
Survey: Interim Report