Blockchain Technology Enhances Sustainable Higher Education

The foundation for future education, teaching, training, learning, and performing infrastructure - The open interoperability conceptual framework approach

The proliferation of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Education, Teaching, Training, Learning, and the operational application (Performing) of acquired knowledge, skills, and competencies in contemporary social environments has directly influenced the transformation of early Networked Learning (NL) concepts into a Global Learning Infrastructure. Creating cooperative/collaborative stakeholders networks composed of learning subjects, objects, and competencies consumers, exposes the significant potential for gaining overall social progress. The main challenging obstacles of such globalization are: embedding semantics into the competence credentials carriers, trusted dissemination of verifiable competence tokens, the heterogeneous ontologies mapping, and sustainable service delivery infrastructure. The mainstream motivation of our research is the specification and development of a conceptual framework that fosters the interoperability of different stakeholders, whether individual or institutional, to declare, share and maintain the representative collections of information resources related to the particular Education, Learning, Teaching, Training, and Performing (Research, Development, Production, and Service) endeavors. In this article, we have specified an open, heterogeneous, interoperable conceptual framework capable of orchestrating past, current, and future paradigms to foster building the foundations for comparative analysis and evaluation of traditional and nontraditional competency-building processes, joined with students' portfolio creation, dissemination, and management. It is a starting specification that would serve for the future: open, heterogeneous, cooperative/collaborative, service-oriented software framework specification and development.

Barriers Affecting Higher Education Institutions’ Adoption of Blockchain Technology: A Qualitative Study

Despite the many benefits of blockchain technology in higher education, this technology is not widely adopted by Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Therefore, instead of providing additional motives for adopting blockchain technology, this research tries to understand what factors discourage HEIs from merging blockchain with their procedures. The methodology used for this research is based upon qualitative research using 14 interviews with administrative and academic staff from the European Union (EU) and Canada. Our findings based on our empirical data revealed 15 key challenges to blockchain adoption by HEIs that are classified based on the technology, organization, and environment (TOE) framework. Theoretically, this study contributes to the body of knowledge relating to blockchain technology adoption. Practically, this research is expected to aid HEIs to assess the applicability of blockchain technology and pave the way for the widespread adoption of this technology in the educational field.

Challenges of Using Blockchain in the Education Sector: A Literature Review

Blockchain is one of the latest innovations that is increasingly attracting the attention of various stakeholders in different fields, including the education sector. This is primarily due to its attractive features, such as decentralization, transparency, traceability, security, and reliability. Despite its advantages, blockchain still faces several challenges, and the acceptance rate of this technology is still low. Thus, the purpose of this study was to conduct a review of published articles that have discussed the challenges of adopting blockchain in the education sector. The review contained scientific papers published from 2017 to 2022 and, from the screened records, 32 articles were analyzed in full-text form. In this review, 14 challenges were reported and classified, based on the technology-organization-environment (TOE) framework. In addition, this review showed that organizational and environmental barriers received little attention in the literature, compared to technological barriers.

Blockchain Technologies and Digitalization in Function of Student Work Evaluation

Following COVID-19, new accreditation standards include digitization, entrepreneurship, social inclusion and the circular economy. Blockchain can help to simplify difficult accreditation processes that ensure worldwide teaching, learning, practice and business communication excellence. The paper proposes a Collaborative Learning and Student Work Evaluation (CLSWE) model based on blockchain technologies (BCTs) encompassing selected concepts from the scientific research peer-review process. BCTs are used to develop a safe platform for storing and exchanging data about students’ projects and evaluations. The CLSWE model offers the possibility of improving cooperation between higher-education institutions and companies that seek the “employable skills” of proactive students. Before implementing the CLSWE model, a questionnaire was conducted to survey lecturers about their attitudes related to the potential application of BCTs. The results of the surveys are encouraging and reveal a desire and willingness to introduce BCTs in education. A project scheme with the main functionalities of the model and a description of the roles of the prominent participants was designed. A platform with a database created in the MySQL language for the testing model was built. This research also contributes to higher education literature in terms of the sustainability of the education process and collaborative learning with BCTs.

An Empirical Study on Website Interactivity Impact among a Student Group, Beneficent for Companies, and Other Users

The connection with customers is a key task of companies, which can be achieved through diverse communication channels, among which one profitable way includes interactive websites. This paper first presents a synthetic review of previous studies on the topic of websites’ interactivity. So far, we observe interactivity through individual models of interactivity. In this paper, four modelling variables are used, which make this paper more complex in the understanding of interactivity. Further, a new research development is exposed, with emphasis on experiment structuring, modelling variables configuration, results achievement, and data analysis and interpretation. It has been ascertained that the model based on four variables creates a broader research framework, enabling an effective analysis of their overall correlations, as well of correlations between each of its components. The applicative part of the research was unrolled with effective participation of a group of 350 students, who were homogeneous in their profiles and activities. Based on the results of an initial test, 240 students were selected and participated in the main test, who all had a particular interest in searching for a job, practice, or training course on the Internet. The research reveals a higher positive impact of interactive websites vs. non-interactive websites, and compares computer use to mobile devices. It also reveals how user perception and behaviour can be positively impacted by making website searches easier, and allowing users to comment on advertisements, share the content on social media, use e-mail marketing, etc.

Blockchain Hyperledger with Non-Linear Machine Learning: A Novel and Secure Educational Accreditation Registration and Distributed Ledger Preservation Architecture

This paper proposes a novel and secure blockchain hyperledger sawtooth-enabled consortium analytical model for smart educational accreditation credential evaluation. Indeed, candidate academic credentials are generated, verified, and validated by the universities and transmitted to the Higher Education Department (HED). The objective is to enable the procedure of credential verification and analyze tamper-proof forged records before validation. For this reason, we designed and created an accreditation analytical model to investigate individual collected credentials from universities and examine candidates’ records of credibility using machine learning techniques and maintain all these aspects of analysis and addresses in the distributed storage with a secure hash-encryption (SHA-256) blockchain consortium network, which runs on a peer-to-peer (P2P) structure. In this proposed analytical model, we deployed a blockchain distributed mechanism to investigate the examiner and analyst processes of accreditation credential protection and storage criteria, which are referred to as chaincodes or smart contracts. These chaincodes automate the distributed credential schedule, generation, verification, validation, and monitoring of the overall model nodes’ transactions. The chaincodes include candidate registration with the associated university (candidateReg()), certificate-related accreditation credentials update (CIssuanceTrans()), and every node’s transactions preservation in the immutable storage (ULedgerAV()) for further investigations. This model simulates the educational benchmark dataset. The result shows the merit of our model. Through extensive simulations, the blockchain-enabled analytical model provides robust performance in terms of credential management and accreditation credibility problems.

Predicting User Behaviour Based on the Level of Interactivity Implemented in Blockchain Technologies in Websites and Used Devices

Today’s business development processes force companies to find ways to increase the level of interactivity of their products with consumers. One of the ways that companies communicate interactively with users is communication via websites; another way is using a channel that makes the customer more loyal to the company. The aim of this paper is to point out the differences between the effects that interactive and non-interactive blockchain technologies have on users and their behavior, as well as to determine whether the same degree of interactivity is achieved with users who use the same site via computers or mobile phones. For this purpose, three models by Song, Liu, and Wu were compared, which gives this paper a superior precision and depth of research regarding the above-mentioned problem. Furthermore, the contributions of the paper are reflected in a comprehensive and detailed review of previous research on the topic of interactivity and the importance of using a website, showing the specific effects expected from users after the introduction of interactive website features, as well as indicating a difference in customer perception and behavior after using a different site search device.

The Role of Blockchain Technologies in the Sustainable Development of Students’ Learning Process

Technological evolution has contributed to considerable changes in the learning methods used today. If a few years ago, before the technological boom, students relied only on their memory capacity, on notes on sheets of paper and written materials (in the form of course materials, books, or textbooks), today the process of learning is significantly facilitated by the means and techniques involved in the use of technology, such as artificial intelligence, smartphones, and tablets, which are rapidly replacing bulky desktop computers and outdated textbooks used in the learning process. Moreover, blockchain technology can also be used as a motivational factor for developing learning abilities by implementing a system that can bring students credit points convertible into cryptocurrencies or online badges. Studies conducted in the field show that students’ motivation for learning and creativity is significantly improved with the help of this reward system. In this article, two specialized studies were conducted (in Romania), one on the perception of teachers in the university environment towards the use of new technologies in the learning process (artificial intelligence, smartphones, and tablets), and the other on the perception of students on the technological integration of blockchain (by implementing a system that can bring students credit points convertible into cryptocurrencies or online badges to certify their knowledge) in the learning process and measuring their satisfaction.

The Utility of Blockchain Technology in the Electronic Commerce of Tourism Services: An Exploratory Study on Romanian Consumers

Blockchain technology is considered one of the most revolutionary innovations that has much to offer the tourism industry, having a positive impact among consumers with the help of interactive applications but also easy to use. Tourist services must constantly evolve in a society where the consumer has everything a click away and his requirements are demanding when it comes to quality leisure. Blockchain technology has the power to change the course of the travel experience, offering the customer more autonomy, but the applications developed by the providers can offer transparency and trust to the customers from the moment T0, when the desire to go on a trip is born, until the end at which it should provide feedback. So far, digital and tourism specialists have not agreed on the development of blockchain-based applications, although the benefits are great for both consumers and tourism service providers, as in this publication we can see a series of advantages that blockchain technology can offer the tourism field. This paper also investigates the satisfaction that the Romanian consumer has after purchasing tourist services through e-commerce applications, a satisfaction that can be an additional motivation for specialists to implement blockchain technology. Following the research in this paper, it can be seen how important it is to develop a series of easy-to-use applications, because if the consumer does not manage to use the applications, this affects the degree of satisfaction and the intention to continue using the online applications for the purchase of tourism services.

The Potential of Blockchain Technology in Higher Education as Perceived by Students in Serbia, Romania, and Portugal

Lifelong learning approaches that include digital, transversal, and practical skills (i.e., critical thinking, communication, collaboration, information literacy, analytical, metacognitive, reflection, and other research skills) are required in order to be equitable and inclusive and stimulate personal development. Realtime interaction between teachers and students and the ability for students to choose courses from curricula are guaranteed by decentralized online learning. Moreover, through blockchain, it is possible to acquire skills regarding the structure and content while also implementing learning tools. Additionally, documentation validation should be equally crucial to speeding up the process and reducing costs and paperwork. Finally, blockchains are open and inclusive processes that include people and cultures from all walks of life. Learning in Higher Education Institutions (HEI) is facilitated by new technologies, connecting blockchain to sustainability, which helps understand the relationship between technologies and sustainability. Besides serving as a secure transaction system, blockchain technology can help decentralize, provide security and integrity, and offer anonymity and encryption, therefore, promoting a transaction rate increase. This study investigates an alternative in which HEI include a blockchain network to provide the best sustainable education system. Students’ opinions were analyzed, and they considered that blockchain technology had a very positive influence on learning performance.

Challenging Novelties within the Circular Economy Concept under the Digital Transformation of Society

The study makes, under a new configuration of the circular economy, a cross-country analysis based on the Competitiveness and Innovation Indicators in the E.U., i.e., two sub-criteria: private investments, jobs, and gross value added; and patents related to recycling and secondary raw materials as a proxy for innovation. The analysis proved that investments influence the number of patents, and participate in societal transformation. A further cluster analysis classified countries on the level of innovation. The cluster analysis in SPSS centres on significant potential, weaknesses, impact, and waste management control through blockchain technology. It is found that the factors that influence innovation, according to the Global Competitiveness Report, link the business dynamism and innovation capability with the capacity to sustain resilient ideas, such as competitive intelligence and social entrepreneurship. The discussions aim to prove that the efforts to rethink the circular economy principles contribute to its conceptual and societal transformation role through the implementation of innovative processes, inventive solutions, and blockchain technologies, and their social consequences to solve environmental problems. Once understood and accepted, CE will drive sustainable behaviour.

Blockchain-Based IoT Devices in Supply Chain Management: A Systematic Literature Review

Through recent progress, the forms of modern supply chains have evolved into complex networks. The supply chain management systems face a variety of challenges. These include lack of visibility of the upstream party (Provider) to the downstream party (Client); lack of flexibility in the face of sudden variations in demand and control of operating costs; lack of reliance on safety stakeholders; ineffective management of supply chain risks. Blockchain (BC) is used in the supply chain to overcome the growing demands for items. The Internet of Things (IoT) is a profoundly encouraging innovation that can help companies observe, track, and monitor products, activities, and processes within their respective value chain networks. Research establishments and logical gatherings are ceaselessly attempting to answer IoT gadgets in supply chain management. This paper presents orderly writing on and reviewing of Blockchain-based IoT advances and their current usage. We discuss the smart devices used in this system and which device is the most appropriate in the supply chain. This paper also looks at future examination themes in blockchain-based IoT, referred to as the executive’s framework production network. The essential deliberate writing audit has been consolidated by surveying research articles circulated in highly reputable publications between 2016 and 2021. Lastly, current issues and challenges are present to provide researchers with promising future directions in IoT supply chain management systems.