Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been leaning on the Blockcerts platform for issuing diplomas. This Bitcoin Blockchain-based application provides an immutable and tamper-resistant ledger which aids in the distribution of academic credentials.
Blockcerts was developed through a collaboration of Learning Machine along with MIT Registrar’s Office in 2016 for creating an open infrastructure for graduates to access and verify their diplomas in a hassle free manner. “Blockcerts provides a decentralized credentialing system. The Bitcoin Blockchain acts as the provider of trust, and credentials are tamper-resistant and verifiable. Blockcerts can be used in the context of academic, professional, and workforce credentialing” explained the Blockcerts development team.
(Click here to read the difference between Public Blockchain Vs Private Blockchain)
Large scale corporations and conglomerates such as Genentech and Pfizer, which are pharmaceutical giants having a combined market capitalisation of a whopping $300 Billion are employing centralized or permissioned Blockchains for ushering in flexibility and settling numerous data points per second. However the public and immutable Bitcoin Blockchain Technology can be put to use for processing diplomas and academic credentials since it does not require high data counts and flexibility for processing. The diplomas and academic credentials created at MIT are embedded into Bitcoin transactions which are finally transferred onto the public Blockchain. Both MIT and the Blockcerts application can allow companies and students to verify the reliability of such credentials in the future.
Dean Mary Callahan, a Senior Associate and MIT Registrar stated that:
“From the beginning, one of our primary motivations has been to empower students to be the curators of their own credentials. This pilot makes it possible for them to have ownership of their records and be able to share them in a secure way, with whomever they choose.”
Learning Machine CEO and co-founder Chris Jagers emphasized upon the point that platforms such as Blockcerts have a significant role to play as the organizations and students can verify their credentials on the unalterable Bitcoin Blockchain even after the issuer of credentials decide to terminate their operations.
“MIT has issued official records in a format that can exist even if the institution goes away, even if we go away as a vendor. People can own and use their official records, which is a fundamental shift.”
Centralized and permissioned Blockchains are not mandatory for processing data of small size especially when security plays the calling card for clients. Blockcerts has proven the commercial applicability of Bitcoin Blockchain as an application infrastructure. The immutability and security of Bitcoin has always been the top priority at MIT because diplomas and academic credentials are information of paramount importance for professionals and students alike.
Using public Blockchain network aids the application to operate like an open-source software. The Blockchain experts pointed out that:
“At its core, Blockcerts is open. The software is open source and anyone is welcome to join the developer community. Only an open standard allows individuals to remain fully in control of their own academic history. That is important, because academic certificates are markers of our lives. They can be tickets to a better job or education, and we can use them to tell a story about who we are and how we have become that person.”
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