Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission
Degree attestation verification and traceability are complex one-to-one processes between the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and universities. The procedure shifted to the digitalized manner, but still, on a certain note, manual authentication is required. In the initial process, the university v...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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MDPI AG
2021-11-01
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| Series: | Applied Sciences |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/22/10917 |
| _version_ | 1797511288397496320 |
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| author | Abdullah Ayub Khan Asif Ali Laghari Aftab Ahmed Shaikh Sami Bourouis Amir Madany Mamlouk Hammam Alshazly |
| author_facet | Abdullah Ayub Khan Asif Ali Laghari Aftab Ahmed Shaikh Sami Bourouis Amir Madany Mamlouk Hammam Alshazly |
| author_sort | Abdullah Ayub Khan |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Degree attestation verification and traceability are complex one-to-one processes between the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and universities. The procedure shifted to the digitalized manner, but still, on a certain note, manual authentication is required. In the initial process, the university verified the degree and stamp seal first. Then, a physical channel of degree submission to the receiving ends is activated. After that, the degree is attested while properly examining and analyzing the tamper records related to degree credentials through e-communication with the university for verification and validation. This issue poses a serious challenge to educational information integrity and privacy. Potentially, blockchain technology could become a standardized platform to perform tasks including issuing, verifying, auditing, and tracing immutable records, which would enable the HEC, universities, and Federal Education Ministry (FEM) to quickly and easily get attested and investigate the forge proof versions of certificates. Besides, decentralized distributed data blocks in chronological order provide high security between distributed ledgers, consensus engine, digital signature, smart contracts, permissioned application, and private network node transactions that guarantee degree record validation and traceability. This paper presents an architecture (HEDU-Ledger) and detail design of blockchain-enabled hyperledger fabric applications implementation for degree attestation verification and traceable direct channel design between HEC and universities. The hyperledger fabric endorses attestation records first, and then validates (committer) the degree and maintains the secure chain of tracing between stakeholder peer nodes. Furthermore, this HEDU-Ledger architecture avoids language and administrative barriers. It also provides robustness in terms of security and privacy of records and maintains integrity with secure preservation as compared to that of the other state-of-the-art methods. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T05:43:16Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-746cad15cec7457bbaf21d9e8b5ff754 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2076-3417 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T05:43:16Z |
| publishDate | 2021-11-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Applied Sciences |
| spelling | doaj.art-746cad15cec7457bbaf21d9e8b5ff7542023-11-22T22:20:55ZengMDPI AGApplied Sciences2076-34172021-11-0111221091710.3390/app112210917Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education CommissionAbdullah Ayub Khan0Asif Ali Laghari1Aftab Ahmed Shaikh2Sami Bourouis3Amir Madany Mamlouk4Hammam Alshazly5Department of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, PakistanDepartment of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, PakistanDepartment of Computer Science, Sindh Madressatul Islam University, Karachi 74000, Sindh, PakistanDepartment of Information Technology, Collage of Computers and Information Technology, Taif University, P.O. Box 11099, Taif 21944, Saudi ArabiaInstitute for Neuro- and Bioinformatics, University of Lübeck, 23562 Lübeck, GermanyFaculty of Computers and Information, South Valley University, Qena 83523, EgyptDegree attestation verification and traceability are complex one-to-one processes between the Higher Education Commission (HEC) and universities. The procedure shifted to the digitalized manner, but still, on a certain note, manual authentication is required. In the initial process, the university verified the degree and stamp seal first. Then, a physical channel of degree submission to the receiving ends is activated. After that, the degree is attested while properly examining and analyzing the tamper records related to degree credentials through e-communication with the university for verification and validation. This issue poses a serious challenge to educational information integrity and privacy. Potentially, blockchain technology could become a standardized platform to perform tasks including issuing, verifying, auditing, and tracing immutable records, which would enable the HEC, universities, and Federal Education Ministry (FEM) to quickly and easily get attested and investigate the forge proof versions of certificates. Besides, decentralized distributed data blocks in chronological order provide high security between distributed ledgers, consensus engine, digital signature, smart contracts, permissioned application, and private network node transactions that guarantee degree record validation and traceability. This paper presents an architecture (HEDU-Ledger) and detail design of blockchain-enabled hyperledger fabric applications implementation for degree attestation verification and traceable direct channel design between HEC and universities. The hyperledger fabric endorses attestation records first, and then validates (committer) the degree and maintains the secure chain of tracing between stakeholder peer nodes. Furthermore, this HEDU-Ledger architecture avoids language and administrative barriers. It also provides robustness in terms of security and privacy of records and maintains integrity with secure preservation as compared to that of the other state-of-the-art methods.https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/22/10917blockchaindistributed cybersecurity and privacyhyperledger fabrichigher education commission (HEC)information securitysmart contracts |
| spellingShingle | Abdullah Ayub Khan Asif Ali Laghari Aftab Ahmed Shaikh Sami Bourouis Amir Madany Mamlouk Hammam Alshazly Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission Applied Sciences blockchain distributed cybersecurity and privacy hyperledger fabric higher education commission (HEC) information security smart contracts |
| title | Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission |
| title_full | Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission |
| title_fullStr | Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission |
| title_full_unstemmed | Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission |
| title_short | Educational Blockchain: A Secure Degree Attestation and Verification Traceability Architecture for Higher Education Commission |
| title_sort | educational blockchain a secure degree attestation and verification traceability architecture for higher education commission |
| topic | blockchain distributed cybersecurity and privacy hyperledger fabric higher education commission (HEC) information security smart contracts |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2076-3417/11/22/10917 |
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