A trust model in open and ubiquitous higher education based on Blockchain technology

Abstract

Bitcoin has revolutionised digital transactions and the global economy. It advocates a decentralised model of confidence for transactions based on a crypto currency. Thousands of followers defend its decentralisation, independence, security and versatility. Its detractors call it a specula­tive bubble, a way to encourage cybercrime or pseudo pyramid schemes, as well as being built around a non-scalable and inefficient technology. But what if it were possible to take advantage of the benefits of the technology underlying Bitcoin, Blockchain, to revolutionise higher education and its adaptation to today's working world? What if rather than economic transactions it were used to manage transactions of content, teaching and competencies, assessed by consensus by students, trainers and employers, in order to eliminate once and for all the gap between the academic world and the working world? This paper presents a model based on Blockchain to address the current challenges of an increasingly dispersed, open and ubiquitous higher edu­cation. The proposed model can be implemented in any training institution to adapt its teaching to the specific needs of professional profiles validated by employers in the sector. This model has been validated by means of a prototype with more than acceptable results.