Hyperledger Test Case from a Noob — University Degree Authenticity

My professional career has revolved around process improvement in healthcare and university administrative processes. Last October, I was introduced to the concept of blockchain and it’s foundational concepts — persistence, immutability, decentralization. While it’s oft-touted benefits are interesting, what stood out to me was the potential for making business processes faster. As a Lean Six Sigma black belt and practitioner, I instantly saw a future where blockchain technology and design would intertwine deeply with my own professional trajectory.

Eliminating waste through bypassing 3rd party remediation, validation, and regulatory reporting is an obvious target for process improvement, and while these “non-value-added” steps can be mitigated, they are rarely cut out completely because trust, compliance, adherence, and integrity (of people and data) are never a guarantee. My only problem was that I didn’t have any development, coding, or technical background of any kind to jump right in. Luckily, designing chaincode with Hyperledger Fabric via the Composer environment makes for a brisk on-ramp to those that are technically raw, but determined.

Before committing to a test-case, I built my knowledge foundation through online materials. First, with the Blockchain for Business certificate offered on the EdX MOOC’s platform, and then supplemented that with the network-build walkthroughs on YouTube created by Zach Gollwitzer. After two weeks of committed learning, it was time to learn by doing. I needed a test case, and it needed to “feel real.”

Already in the employment of a university, I looked for a process that could be improved with the creation of a Hyperledger business network.

THE PROBLEM — University degrees are highly valuable, costly, and not easily verifiable for hiring managers. Even when transcripts are requested, they can easily be falsified. According to a survey by the Statistic Brain Research Institute in 2017, 70% of college students said they would lie on a resume to get the job they want. As a result, clearinghouse solutions such as DegreeVerify exist to combat this problem.

Not only is there an expense by universities’ to bear by contracting with clearinghouse services, but students also bear the cost of this untrustworthy environment via transcript fees. When a recent grad is applying for dozens of positions, the costs quickly add up.

THE BLOCKCHAIN SOLUTION — Having an immutable, decentralized record of university graduates and their degrees achieved solves this issue in an immediate and cost-effective way. Many private, token environments exist, but there is no reason Hyperledger’s permissioned, token-less environment can’t solve this issue just as easily.

DISCLAIMER — This Hyperledger test-case is for personal use and educational purposes only. It is in no way affiliated with my work, my department, my university, or any other university.

DEMO VIDEO —

DEMO DESCRIPTION — In the demonstration on the Hyeprledger Composer playground, the blockchain solution for degree authenticity shows how the problem might be solved.

Participants - Members (Students, Employers, and an Admin)

Admins will have create access to add Student participants, as well as degree assets that are assigned to the student ID (in this case, their unique university email). Students can create Employer participants, which they can authorize (and revoke later) whole or compartmentalized access to their student information and assets. Students have update capability of their personal information as well (address), but only read access to their assets.

Assets - Degrees (Bachelors, Masters, PhDs, and Professional Certificates)
Admins can create and append assets. Students can view their assets and update authorization for read view to other members via transaction mechanisms.

Transaction - 4 transaction exist on this network
AuthorizeAccess - Students can authorize access to Employer members of their personal information (age and address)
RevokeAccess - Personal information can be revoked as well
AuthorizeDegreeAccess - Students can authorize access to Employer members to view their university degrees. They can select these degree individually, instead of granting access to all of their degree assets (imagine a scenario where they have completed a bachelors, but never finished a masters degree and don't necessarily want to share that).
RevokeDegreeAccess - Degree asset view can be revoked by the student as well.

In conclusion, I wanted to share this test case to keep in the spirit of the Hyperledger project's opensource roots. Without an incredible community of knowledge-sharers, it would have been impossible for a noob like me to learn as much as I have. If you would like to view the code, please visit the github repository here: github.com/bsollenb/degree-authenticity