Blockchain Will Revolutionize Higher Education
right now
there’s a technological revolution
unfolding that the majority of people
don’t realize is happening even though
this technology is relatively unknown
it will change our lives in the near
future i’m talking about blockchain
and its promise to power the future of
our online society
today i want to help you understand what
blockchain is
and then take you through a story to
show how blockchain will be used
directly in our lives as college
students
so the dictionary definition of a
blockchain is a distributed ledger
technology
but this sounds like a lot of tech mumbo
jumbo so let’s see if there’s a better
way to figure out what this means
whenever you make a transaction using
your debit card your bank is the sole
entity in charge of making sure you have
enough money in your account to make
that transaction
in fact they have the final say over
everything you do related to money
since they control the account after all
if you make a purchase that your bank
doesn’t agree with
they have the power to censor your
transaction
in theory venmo could ban your account
after you send money to a friend with a
memo
thanks for the coke you may be
referencing a sugary brown drink
but venmo may think you’re referencing a
powdery white substance
and can permanently ban you from their
platform and though this sounds like a
silly example
it has real world implications imagine
if your payment provider
only lets you donate to their preferred
political party or shop at the grocery
store that paid them the most this type
of censorship is unacceptable in our
modern society
especially with the growing prevalence
of digital transactions
and blockchain offers the solution
unlike paypal
visa or any other payment system you use
today blockchain is decentralized
which means there’s no central authority
controlling the network
each person who uses the blockchain
network has a say in how it is governed
and helps ensure that transactions are
completed this may be hard to understand
on its own
so let’s use an example to help clear it
up let’s say three children have a chore
sheet in their house
each of the kids bob alice and sue have
chores they need to complete
once they’re complete they’re crossed
off the list mom checks the list
and each kid receives their allowance
one problem
who do we trust to hold this list we
can’t trust any of the kids
because they could claim they did their
chores when they really didn’t and mom
is a busy lady
so she doesn’t have time to check that
the chores are complete what do we do
how about this instead of keeping only
one list
let’s keep a master list on the fridge
that mom checks every night
and will give each child a copy of this
list that they update whenever they
finish one of their chores
so when bob finishes cleaning his room
he’ll cross off his list
but the other three lists won’t
automatically update
at the end of the day the kids will come
together and compare lists
when alice and sue see that bob claims
he cleaned his room they’ll both go
check
and if they’re satisfied that he did
they will cross it off their lists as
well
and since everyone agrees that bob’s
room is cleaned it gets crossed off the
fridge list
and bob gets paid for a hard day’s work
sue
tried to be sneaky and claimed she also
cleaned her room when she really didn’t
but in order for her to get paid she has
to get bob and alice to agree first
when they both go check it still looks
like a big stye
so they refuse to cross it off their
lists and without a majority
it can’t be crossed off the fridge list
so sue’s claim is invalidated
at the end of the day once the fridge
list is finalized it can’t be changed
again
so this means that if sue’s feeling
particularly devious she can’t claim she
cleaned a room on tuesday
if it’s next thursday this concept is
called
immutability and ensures that data on
the blockchain is final
and can never be changed so this is an
example of a simple blockchain
where each member of the network in this
case the children
are in charge of verifying the
legitimacy of each other’s transactions
up until now the most prominent use case
for blockchain has been in payments
in fact this can be seen in the
cryptocurrency bitcoin which was
actually the first
blockchain however there are nearly
infinite possibilities
anything with data or that represents
value can be stored on a blockchain
healthcare information so that hospitals
are able to access patient records
without having to go through tons of
complicated steps
sure what about property titles which
would remove the need for title
companies
and save both home buyers and sellers
time and money why not
now that we know a bit about how
blockchain works let’s transition to
focusing in on a few examples of how
blockchain will be used in higher
education
and in what better way than with a story
about the student of the future
cornelius now i know he doesn’t look
like a college student but he skipped a
couple grades
trust me so cornelius is a member of
vanderbilt’s class of 2030.
he’s eager to start the semester
including the one thing that modern
students hate the most
buying textbooks every college student’s
best friend is copy and paste
however it’s every college publisher’s
worst nightmare it allows for students
to illegally download and share
textbooks
in response publishers have begun moving
to a subscription-based model
which is incredibly student unfriendly
these subscriptions can cost the same
price as a regular textbook
but only last a semester as opposed to
forever
blockchain offers a solution to satisfy
both parties
since books represent something of value
they can be stored on the blockchain
so when cornelius buys his textbooks he
receives a blockchain based copy
when it’s in his account he can read it
just like any other ebook
however at the end of the semester he
could resell it to another student
and send it to their blockchain account
this makes digital textbooks
offer the same ownership and resale
value as physical with all the
flexibility of a digital medium
it allows students like cornelius to
truly own their digital property
and let textbook publishers rest assured
that their textbooks aren’t circulating
illegally
so with all of his textbooks on his
laptop cornelius is ready to start the
semester
except for one thing he needs to
register and get an identity within the
vanderbilt system
so we can get into buildings and access
online accounts
right now we use a system of a physical
card and a centralized online platform
though this seems like an elegant
solution there are plenty of flaws in
this design
first there’s one centralized point of
failure
if the service that vanderbilt uses goes
down or experience an
outage cornelius will be unable to enter
buildings using his phone
or access his online accounts similarly
if a hacker gets into that database they
get every single username and password
associated with vanderbilt
including cornelius’s blockchain solves
this problem by being distributed
so there’s no way for you not to have
access to your information
second centralized systems can be
expensive how much do you think it costs
on average to reset a forgotten password
a couple pennies
maybe a dollar try seventy dollars
this means that if a mere two thousand
students forget their password and want
to reset it
it costs the university on average a
hundred and forty thousand dollars
an identity system based on the
blockchain could be linked to a user’s
phone
and eliminate the need for these costly
password changes
well we’ve made it to the end of the
semester cornelius has worked hard
and he’s ready to start applying for
internships each place that he’s applied
to
asks him for a copy of his transcript
typically
this process can take seven to ten days
by mail and cost upwards of ten dollars
per transcript depending on the
university
blockchain solves this problem in an
incredibly simple and intuitive manner
just like textbooks transcripts
represent something of value
and thus can be stored on the blockchain
if universities issued transcripts on
the blockchain
students would be able to quickly and
easily send them to prospective
employers
without there being any worry of forgery
just like transcripts
diplomas can also be issued on the
blockchain
in fact this has been trial run at mit
and is being used at nearly 100
universities around the world
and it offers numerous benefits over the
traditional method of going through the
registrar and paying a fee
first the diploma is always valid even
if the university shuts down and you can
no longer order a traditional diploma
you still have your blockchain diploma
and it is provably legitimate
due to the immutability of the
blockchain second they’re tamper-proof
while a typical pdf of a diploma could
be doctored the blockchain version
cannot
once again due to its immutability if it
was tampered with
an employer would be able to see this
change compared to the original and know
to definitely not
hire this prospective employee
fake diplomas are a billion dollar
industry and they could be affecting you
directly
your doctor or nurse may have never gone
to school or the architect constructed
your home
may be winging it blockchain solves this
problem and both increases efficiency
and prevents fraud altogether to wrap
things up
through fallen coordinators through his
college experience we’ve seen how
blockchain will revolutionize higher
education
the best part about this fictional story
is that it will one day be fact
for millions of college students and
billions of people around the world will
be using blockchain in their everyday
lives
it will strengthen our society solve
complex problems
and create a better digital world for
all of us thank you