This is an outdated version published on 2020-05-29. Read the most recent version.

Recordkeeping of academic degrees through an application based on Blockchain and Smart Contracts

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29166/catedra.v3i2.2200

Keywords:

academic degrees, blockchain, decentralized applications, Ethereum, smart contracts

Abstract

The implementation of new technologies in any type of institution arises from the need to generate improvements in the processes they execute in order to offer better products and services. This article analyzes the feasibility proposal of an application based on Blockchain technology and smart contracts to execute the process of assigning academic degrees to students without the need for a central entity, third parties and bureaucratic processes while taking advantage of the characteristics of these technologies such as transparency, security and immutability. Thus, two complementary smart contracts were developed, taking advantage of the features that currently exist to create structures that represent real-life objects and functions that handle these structures as parameters. These contracts were executed in a virtualized environment in which an Ethereum blockchain was simulated with the Truffle toolset. Smart contracts were evaluated by entering test data and with these records stored in the blockchain, the process of assigning academic titles to students through a function within the main smart contract was executed. To validate that the process ran successfully, the blockchain was queried, and it was verified that the title assignment records were successfully generated and stored on the blockchain. In this way, it was possible to conclude that the proposed model based on blockchain technology and smart contracts is feasible.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Alharby, M., y Moorsel, A. Van. (2017). Blockchain-Based Smart Contracts : a Systematic Mapping Study, 125–140. https://doi.org/10.5121/csit.2017.71011

Álvarez, R., Andrade, A., y Zamora, A. (2018). Optimizing a Password Hashing Function with Hardware-Accelerated Symmetric Encryption. Symmetry, 10(12), 705. https://doi.org/10.3390/sym10120705

Andoni, M., Robu, V., Flynn, D., Abram, S., Geach, D., Jenkins, D., … Peacock, A. (2019). Blockchain technology in the energy sector: A systematic review of challenges and opportunities. Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, 100(February 2018), 151. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2018.10.014

Antonopoulos, A. M. (2017). Mastering Bitcoin [Book]. (T. McGovern, Ed.) (Second Edi). O’Reilly Media. Retrieved from https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/mastering-bitcoin/9781491902639/

Antonopoulos, A. M., y Wood, G. (2018). Mastering Ethereum (First). USA: O’Reilly Media, Inc.

Arenas, R., y Fernandez, P. (2018). CredenceLedger: A Permissioned Blockchain for Verifiable Academic Credentials. 2018 IEEE International Conference on Engineering, Technology and Innovation, ICE/ITMC 2018 - Proceedings, 2. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICE.2018.8436324

Ast, F. (2018). Entendiendo el Gas en Ethereum. Retrieved April 19, 2020, from https://medium.com/la-disrupción-del-blockchain/entendiendo-el-gas-en-ethereum-e77a6f30090f

BBVA Research. (2016). TECNOLOGÍA BLOCKCHAIN. BBVA Innovation Center, 14. Retrieved from https://www.bbva.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/ebook-cibbv-tecnologia_blockchain-es.pdf

Bermingham, F. (2018). Skuchain uses blockchain and IoT for new supply chain platform. Retrieved from https://www.gtreview.com/news/fintech/skuchain-uses-blockchain-and-iot-to-launch-supply-chain-platform/

Buterin, V. (2009). A Next Generation Smart Contract y Decentralized Application Platform, (January). https://doi.org/10.5663/aps.v1i1.10138

Christidis, K., y Devetsikiotis, M. (2016). Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things. IEEE Access, 4, 7. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2016.2566339

coinPY.net. (2018). Guía básica de ETHEREUM. CoinPY.Net Crypto Hosting, 13. Retrieved from https://www.coinpy.net/assets/docs/eth-guide-es.pdf

Crosby, M., Pattanayak, P., Verma, S., y Kalyanaraman, V. (2015). Blockchain Technology Beyond Bitcoin. Sutardja Center for Entrepreneurship & Technology Technical Report. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110488951

Destefanis, G., Marchesi, M., Ortu, M., Tonelli, R., Bracciali, A., y Hierons, R. (2018). Smart contracts vulnerabilities: A call for blockchain software engineering? 2018 IEEE 1st International Workshop on Blockchain Oriented Software Engineering, IWBOSE 2018 - Proceedings, 2018-Janua(March), 19–25. https://doi.org/10.1109/IWBOSE.2018.8327567

Dika, A., y Nowostawski, M. (2017). Ethereum Smart Contracts: Security Vulnerabilities and Security Tools, (December). Retrieved from https://brage.bibsys.no/xmlui/bitstream/handle/11250/2479191/18400_FULLTEXT.pdf

Ethereum. (2017). Solidity Documentation. Ethereum Foundation, 1(1). Retrieved from https://ethereum.github.io/solidity/docs/home/

Galvez, J. F., Mejuto, J. C., y Simal-Gandara, J. (2018). Future challenges on the use of blockchain for food traceability analysis. TrAC - Trends in Analytical Chemistry, 107, 222–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trac.2018.08.011

Gómez, S. C., Castro, S., Presidente, G., Malagón, J., Técnico, V., Montoya, G., … Sánchez, A. (2017). Blockchain: mirando más allá del Bitcoin. Semana Económica, 1084, 6.

Grewal-Carr, V., y Marshall, S. (2016). Blockchain Enigma. Paradox. Opportunity. Deloitte, 5. Retrieved from https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/Innovation/deloitte-uk-blockchain-full-report.pdf

Gürkaynak, G., Yılmaz, İ., Yeşilaltay, B., y Bengi, B. (2018). Intellectual property law and practice in the blockchain realm. Computer Law and Security Review, 34(4), 847–862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clsr.2018.05.027

Hammi, M. T., Hammi, B., Bellot, P., y Serhrouchni, A. (2018). Bubbles of Trust: A decentralized blockchain-based authentication system for IoT. Computers and Security, 78, 126–142. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cose.2018.06.004

Hyperledger. (2018). Hyperledger Architecture, Volume II (Smart Contracts). Hyperledger, II. Retrieved from https://www.hyperledger.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/Hyperledger_Arch_WG_Paper_2_SmartContracts.pdf

Kiffer, L., Levin, D., y Mislove, A. (2017). Stick a fork in it: Analyzing the Ethereum network partition. Proceedings of the 16th ACM Workshop on Hot Topics in Networks - HotNets-XVI, (March), 94–100. https://doi.org/10.1145/3152434.3152449

Kumar, N. M. (2018). Blockchain: Enabling wide range of services in distributed energy system. Beni-Suef University Journal of Basic and Applied Sciences, (August), 5. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bjbas.2018.08.003

Liang, G., Sommer, B., y Vaidya, N. (2012). Experimental performance comparison of byzantine fault-tolerant protocols for data centers. Proceedings - IEEE INFOCOM, 4. https://doi.org/10.1109/INFCOM.2012.6195507

Luu, L., Chu, D.-H., Olickel, H., Saxena, P., y Hobor, A. (2016). Making Smart Contracts Smarter. Proceedings of the 2016 ACM SIGSAC Conference on Computer and Communications Security - CCS’16, 256. https://doi.org/10.1145/2976749.2978309

Makhdoom, I., Abolhasan, M., Abbas, H., & Ni, W. (2018). Blockchain’s adoption in IoT: The challenges, and a way forward. Journal of Network and Computer Applications, 125(March 2018), 251–279. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.JNCA.2018.10.019

Medina, M. F. (2016). Análisis y comparación de monedas criptográficas basadas en la tecnología blockchain, 5. Retrieved from http://openaccess.uoc.edu/webapps/o2/bitstream/10609/56344/9/mmedinareyTFM0616presentación.pdf

Mendoza-Tello, J. C., Mora, H., Pujol-López, F. A., y Lytras, M. D. (2018). Social Commerce as a Driver to Enhance Trust and Intention to Use Cryptocurrencies for Electronic Payments. IEEE Access, 6(September), 6. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2018.2869359

Microsoft. (2018). How blockchain will transform the modern supply chain. Microsoft, 5. Retrieved from https://azure.microsoft.com/mediahandler/files/resourcefiles/how-blockchain-will-transform-modern-supply-chain/how-blockchain-will-transform-modern-supply-chain.pdf

Min, H. (2018). Blockchain technology for enhancing supply chain resilience. Business Horizons, 3. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2018.08.012

Mylrea, M., y Gourisetti, S. N. G. (2017). Blockchain for smart grid resilience: Exchanging distributed energy at speed, scale and security. Proceedings - 2017 Resilience Week, RWS 2017, 18–23. https://doi.org/10.1109/RWEEK.2017.8088642

Pérez, G. (2004). Modelos de investigación cualitativa en educación social y animación sociocultural. Aplicaciones prácticas. (F. Rubio, Ed.) (4ta ed.). Madrid. Retrieved from https://books.google.com.ec/books?id=iiaMN5VQBnwC&printsec=frontcover&hl=es#v=onepage&q&f=false

Quecedo, R., y Castaño, C. (2002). Introducción a la metodología de investigación cualitativa. Revista de Psicodidáctica. Retrieved from https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/175/17501402.pdf

Reyna, A., Martín, C., Chen, J., Soler, E., y Díaz, M. (2018). On blockchain and its integration with IoT. Challenges and opportunities. Future Generation Computer Systems, 88, 173–190. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.future.2018.05.046

Rodríguez Gómez, D., y Valldeorialo Roquet, J. (2014). Metodología de la investigación. Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, 82. Retrieved from https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/175/17501402.pdf

Rosero Correa, L. E. (2019). Propuesta de una aplicación basada en la tecnología blockchain para el registro de títulos académicos (Bachelor’s thesis, Quito: UCE)

Singh, M., y Kim, S. (2018). Branch based blockchain technology in intelligent vehicle. Computer Networks, 145, 219–231. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2018.08.016

Toyoda, K., Takis Mathiopoulos, P., Sasase, I., y Ohtsuki, T. (2017). A Novel Blockchain-Based Product Ownership Management System (POMS) for Anti-Counterfeits in the Post Supply Chain. IEEE Access, 5(XXX), 17465–17477. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2017.2720760

Vujičić, D., Jagodić, D., y Randić, S. (2018). Blockchain technology, bitcoin, and Ethereum: A brief overview. 2018 17th International Symposium on INFOTEH-JAHORINA, INFOTEH 2018 - Proceedings, 2018-Janua(August), 1–6. https://doi.org/10.1109/INFOTEH.2018.8345547

Xu, X., Pautasso, C., Gramoli, V., Ponomarev, A., y Chen, S. (2016). The blockchain as a software connector. Retrieved from http://web.b.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?vid=0&sid=11a67777-b990-48ef-a0f8-e1668042182a%40sessionmgr103&bdata=Jmxhbmc9ZnImc2l0ZT1laG9zdC1saXZl#AN=20113397930&db=lah

Zheng, Z., Xie, S., Dai, H., Chen, X., y Wang, H. (2017). An Overview of Blockchain Technology: Architecture, Consensus, and Future Trends. Proceedings - 2017 IEEE 6th International Congress on Big Data, BigData Congress 2017, (October), 557–564. https://doi.org/10.1109/BigDataCongress.2017.85

Published

2020-05-29

Versions

How to Cite

Morales-Morales, M., Rosero-Correa, L., & Morales-Cardoso, S. (2020). Recordkeeping of academic degrees through an application based on Blockchain and Smart Contracts. Cátedra, 3(2), 73–98. https://doi.org/10.29166/catedra.v3i2.2200

Issue

Section

Education-Computing