The use of blockchain technology for education certificate management to ensure authenticity, verification and quality

Abstract

The goal of this work was to find out where fraud happens with certificates and how blockchain technology can help to prevent cheating with education certificates. Therefore, a concept was created based on blockchain technology for an education certificate system. The aim was to ensure authenticity and validation of the certificates. In addition, the concept should also ensure that the quality of a degree can be assessed. For this purpose, it was first necessary to find out, where fraud is happening today (RQ 1.1) and how blockchain technology can help to prevent this (RQ 1.2). The concept was designed in such a way that the quality of a degree can also be ensured (RQ 1.3) and added value can be created through this solution. Interviews with HR managers from companies and universities have highlighted the challenges involved in dealing with certificates. In addition to fraud with forged or manipulated certificates, which occur less frequently than assumed, verification is generally a challenge. In the case of South Africa this is usually done by third‐party companies, in Switzerland it is done by each company or university itself. While in Switzerland this only happens on one's own discretion, in South Africa a background check is carried out on practically every candidate in consideration. This is not only time‐consuming, but also costly. Blockchain technology can help here. By categorizing the challenges, it could be shown that Blockchain can provide added value in the different areas. These are efficiency, authenticity, security and availability. The blockchain technology offers features that address exactly these areas. This is also supported by the work of Gerch and Camilleri (2017)....