DOI: 10.11118/978-80-7509-990-7-0201

ENHANCING MICRO-CREDENTIALS WITH BLOCKCHAIN

Martin Záklasník¹, Veronika Konečná¹, Oldřich Faldík¹, Oldřich Trenz¹, Andrej Gono¹

¹ Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Business and Economics, Mendel University in Brno, Zemědělská 1, 613 00 Brno, Czech Republic

The article addresses the problem of using micro-credentials in the educational process and explores the possibilities of their deployment through blockchain technology. The topic of micro-credentials as the first step in the process of digitalization of the educational process is presented along with the setting of its trustworthiness. A variety of advantages can be associated with micro-credentials, including the confirmation of individual transactions at the level of the educational process. One of the main problems in the centralized storage of micro-credentials is the risk of unauthorized access and the possibility of leakage of sensitive information. This paper proposes the implementation of blockchain technology as a way to decentralize data storage. This would eliminate the threat of unauthorized access and provide a higher level of data security and integrity. Challenges associated with a centralized certificate authority such as scalability issues and outages are also discussed. It can be evaluated that blockchain can provide a robust and reliable framework for digitizing certificates in the education sector. The conclusions of the paper highlight the benefits of decentralization through blockchain and the need to open up the certification network for corporate certificates. Overall, the paper discusses the importance and benefits of using blockchain technology to enhance the security and efficiency of digital certificates in the education sector.

Keywords: blockchain, digitalization, micro-credentials

pages: 201-210, online: 2024