blockchains and new educational models v 2.0

Blockchains and New

Educational Models

Prof. John Domingue (@johndmk)

Director, Knowledge Media Institute &

Patrina Law, Head of Free Learning

The Open University, UKkmi.open.ac.ukblockchain.open.ac.uk

http://kmi.open.ac.uk/

http://blockchain.open.ac.uk/

Open University

Context

The Open University

• Established in 1969

• The UK’s largest university

• No qualification barrier to entry

• Over 170,000 students registered last year– 22,000 have a disability

• More than 2 million students have studied its courses since its foundation.

• 117 postgraduate and 325 undergraduate courses

• Over 21,000 academic awards annually

• 5,000 associate lectures

• Role model for many other institutions worldwide

© Simon Buckingham Shum

3

1970s Home Experiment Kits

Home Chemistry Kit Home Geology Kit

Sa

mp

le

E117 Introduction to Sport and

Fitness

Major Blockchain

and Education

Initiatives

Characteristics of Blockchain

DApps• Shared database

• Multiple writers

• Absence of trust

• Disintermediation

• Transaction interaction

• Set rules

• Validators

• Asset backing

http://www.multichain.com/blog/2015/11/avoiding-pointless-blockchain-project/

MSc Certificates on

Blockchainhttp://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/certificates

10

Learning Machine

For example, after taking an examination

to demonstrate his or her academic

proficiency level, an individual could direct

the testing organization to share the test

results with one or more third-party

evaluating organizations. With this diversification and the changes it

brings about, different evaluating

organizations may come to utilize

individuals' test results in different ways,

each in accordance with its own evaluation

methods.

http://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201602/16-0222E/index.html

Blockchain and

Education at the

OU

Student Controlled

Education

openbadges.org

OpenLearn Badges on the

blockchain

Smart Contract Badge

Services• Job Hunting

• Promotion

• Mandatory CPD training

• Networking

• Reconfiguration

• Course recommendations

Demos of movies available at: http://blockchain.open.ac.uk/

Peer Reputation and Badging

Reputation Contract

Functions:

Storage:

sendReputation

getPersonBalance()

getReputationAttribute

attribs[address = > Attrib]Attrib { uint balanceOf;

mapping(string => uint);string[] attribStrings

}

Reputation Attribute

token Balances

Reputation Smart Contract

Tokens left to assign

My Reputation

Peer Reputation Page

Kevin’s Reputation View

Communication: 14

Collaboration: 06

Organisation: 12

Ethics: 05

Problem Solving: 10

Engagement: 04

your Ethereum address

password to private key

Signing this transaction will transfer stated Reputation Tokens + ETH gas payment from your account. Estimated gas cost is 0.02 ETH. Maximum gas cost is set to 0.05 ETH

Transfer

Reputation Tokens Left: 57

number of tokens to transfer

Assign Reputation

My Reputation

Peer Reputation Page

Michelle’s Reputation View

Communication: 06

Collaboration: 02

Organisation: 10

Ethics: 12

Problem Solving: 08

Engagement: 16

your Ethereum address

password to private key

Signing this transaction will transfer stated Reputation Tokens + ETH gas payment from your account. Estimated gas cost is 0.02 ETH. Maximum gas cost is set to 0.05 ETH

Transfer

Reputation Tokens Left: 68

number of tokens to transfer

Assign Reputation

Signed TX

Reputation Attribute

token Balances

Tokens left to assign

Michelle transfers 4 Reputation tokens for ‘Organisation’ to Kevin

Block no: 45566778


Student ePortfolio Explorer

Rise of the Uber University

Uber-style Education (1/2)

Uber-style Education (2/2)

Collaborations

Copyright http://dilbert.com/

Startups in the CV/Accreditation

Space

Global Higher and Further

Education Blockchain

Future/Other Work

and Summary

Copyright http://dilbert.com/

Linking to Linked Open Data

Semantic Indexing of

Blockchains• Related data spread across blocks

• No high-level semantics for contracts

• Need

– An index onto blockchain

– To connect blockchain data to Linked Data

– To allow richer contract semantics

• Linked Data index for blockchain

BLONDiE

ContractEthereum

Transaction

BitcoinTransaction

Output

BitcoinTransaction

Input

BitcoinTransaction

hasBitcoinTransaction

Output

hasBitcoinTransaction

Input

Message CallEthereum

Transaction

ContractCreation

EthereumTransaction

EthereumTransaction

hasEthereum

Transaction

hasEthereumPayload

hasOmmer EthereumOmmer

hasEthereum

Blockheader

hasPayload

EthereumBlockheader

NormalEthereum

Transaction

hasBitcoin

Blockheader

hasBitcoinPayload

hasTransactionhas

Blockheader

BitcoinBlockheader

https://github.com/hedugaro/Blondie

Learning Analytics: OU Analyse

(1/3)


(2/3)


(3/3)

Open Anonymised Learning

Analytics Dataset

Learning Analytics on the

Blockchain

• Learner-controlled learning analytics data

– Provenance assured by blockchain

– Access permitted/denied by

audience/purpose

• Zero-knowledge proofs over data

– Ask questions without accessing data

– Provably correct answers

Scientific Knowledge on DLsBlockchain April 2017

Figure 1: Research Publications in Blockchain

Evaluation

Evaluation of the system prototype would require a dataset of authors, their publications and their contribu-

tions according to the datamodel defined by system. Database would continue to get enriched with authors,

their individual contributions and keeping the history of evidences. It should not allow any plagiarized and

repeated publications to be part of the Blockchain. The proposed system can be evaluated by answering

these questions.

• Is system implemented and functional?

• Is system able to reject plagiarized contributions?

• Does system provide services for readers to learn verified knowledge concepts and their contributors?

• Does system provide a transparent & agreed process of publications verification?

& Academic Knowledge Page6

Summary: Blockchain Benefits

• Inbuilt identity management• Data controlled/owned by students rather than

any single institution• Increases transparency• Reduces risk of fraud• Enables collaboration/interoperability • Permits disintermediation

– Badge issuing based on badge collection• Lowering of process costs

– Lowers entry barriers to education market – ‘university of one’

Acknowledgements

• KMi@OU Implementation Team

– Michelle Bachler

– Kevin Quick

– Allan Third

– Chris Valentine

– Umar Mir

blockchain.open.ac.uk

blockchains and new educational models v 2.0

Technology