How Blockchain Technology is Changing the World of Academia

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Blockchain is, by definition, a disruption. An important rationale for Blockchain technology is that it disrupts previous systems and provides better alternatives. And this is exactly what blockchain researchers in academia are trying to do.

In recent years, the growth of the blockchain ecosystem has created great opportunities to change our world. Now, universities are using blockchain technology to keep records — and that’s just the beginning. In this article, we will explore how blockchain is changing the world of academia and how it can change it even more.

But first, an introduction to the relationship between blockchains and academia.

The first blockchain was created for Bitcoin and can only be used to send and receive currency. Smart contracts could not be built on them, and were primarily a payment processing tool.

But that soon changed with the building of Ethereum. The Ethereum protocol has expanded the blockchain from just payment processors to any processors. This is why the world has seen an extraordinary increase in the number of products built on blockchains.

There are now gaming apps, financial apps, NFTs, and even metaverse products — all built on the blockchain. And there is no reason why blockchain should not reach academia. There is evidence that this expansion has already begun.

in 2017, New Mexico Central Community College It became the first university to issue student-owned digital diplomas through blockchains. MIT and Georgia Institute of Technology already accept bitcoins on campus. MIT is also developed Blockcertsan application that can write, verify, generate, and issue blockchain-based certificates.

Blockchain can change how records are kept

Record keeping is the one thing distributed systems like blockchain do better than any other method. Distributed ledgers ensure redundancy throughout the system, which means that the system cannot be hacked or altered.

It is difficult to keep records in academia because these records are essentially endless. The verification process is also very tedious, academics have to spend many hours checking it to make sure everything is in order.

If the blockchain is introduced into the university’s record-keeping processes, that process will be transformed.

First, it could put the credentials under the students’ control as they would have the ability to retrieve their records themselves. They will be able to verify their identity on the system without the help of an intermediary. Therefore, even if an organization loses its records, those necessary credentials will not be lost either.

Blockchain technology can also be used for Accreditation purposes. Today, institutional accreditation is a burden in many countries, and distributed ledgers can help streamline this process. For example, regulators can easily check the quality of organizations through their records. It can also easily check the educational qualifications of the teachers working in that institution.

Perhaps the most important benefit of blockchain is that it can be useful for solving intellectual property problems. If organizations kept their records on the blockchain, it would be rather easy to check if an invention or idea was unique enough to be registered as intellectual property.

While centralized networks like Researchgate help with this, they are still not as efficient as blockchain. Aside from that, they still suffer from the inherent flaws of the centralized system.

Finally, blockchain solutions can record all educational achievements of an individual throughout their lifetime. The blockchain will act as a verifiable record for life and greatly reduce resume fraud.

Blockchain can democratize academic finance

One A big problem What researchers face in today’s world is how to obtain funding and grants. Today, researchers have to jump through several hoops to get funding for the project. The grants they use for their projects are often associated with associations that may have political interests. Hence, these associations and authorities only offer grants to researchers who are pursuing ideologically or beneficially motivated research.

This kind of approach to research is detrimental to science. This means that researchers conducting counterintuitive research will not receive grants. It also means that humanity will not be able to benefit from the mental work of some of these researchers.

This is true even outside of academia. Corporate R&D teams often focus on improving existing projects. Very few companies are willing to go out on a limb and fund disruptive technology research. This is why disruptions are the exceptions rather than the rule.

Hence, we have a situation where public and private institutions do not fund research and disruptive technology instead. Public institutions will not fund them because they may be politically unfavorable, and private institutions are usually wary of the financial risks involved.

However, blockchain technology can solve this problem quite easily. Academics can sell equity in their patents and research findings through tokens, and the public can easily buy them and fund such projects. In many ways, it’s no different than what developers and founders do today.

A scientist can create a token on the blockchain, sell these tokens to members of the public who are interested in the results, and use the funds to pursue the research in question. This would democratize the world of academic research and create a new group of scientists beholden only to the public – not to politics or profits.

Blockchain technology can make payments easier

Distributed ledgers have promising applications for Payment processing. First, they are great tools for the unbanked and are seamless ways to make cross-border payments. If applied appropriately in academia, these networks can make it easier for institutions and students to process payments.

Online schools, for example, won’t have to worry about issues surrounding cross-border payments. Payments can be processed through stablecoins. This will ensure that institutions are more inclusive and will still have more capacity for education.

Blockchain can solve human resource problems in academia

Academia, like any other field, suffers from human resource problems. For example, how do organizations ensure they are hiring the best person for the job? How do they constantly monitor performance?

These labor-intensive processes led to a Exploding administrative muscles in academic institutions around the world. This is another problem that distributed ledger systems solve, if implemented properly.

If the credentials are stored in the general ledger, HR will find it easier to find and hire the best person for the job. In the end, companies will save time and money by hiring the best candidates.

All this will make it easier for HR departments everywhere to quickly assess the professionalism and competence of certain people. It would also eliminate the human bias that often arises from a bad personal relationship with an employer, as employers will no longer be able to retroactively amend employee records.

Smart contracts can solve administrative problems

If deployed properly, smart contracts can solve a lot of administrative problems. For example, quizzes, lessons, and other similar resources can be hardcoded into smart contracts that activate when certain conditions are met.

This way, students can learn at their own pace and will only be restricted by transparent rules. Apart from that, the blockchain network can give universities more storage space.

While some organizations have enough resources to provide massive storage space, this does not apply to all of them. Organizations that cannot afford the space can use blockchain as a simple alternative.

Blockchain technology may revolutionize how we teach and academic research in the next few years. It could also change how students learn, and how people interact with academia. This could change our world, as it would help us learn and search faster and perhaps more efficiently.

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