IBM launch blockchain credentials to close skills gap

A consortium of academic and professional organisations have launched a solution for learning credentials running on the IBM Blockchain Platform.

Blockchain - Where's the Evidence of Value Add

MERL Tech are carrying a guest post by John Burg (Policy, Planning and Learning Fellow at USAID), Christine Murphy (Monitoring, Evaluation and Learning Capacity-Building Specialist at Social Solutions International) and Jean Paul Pétraud (Monitoring and Evaluation Fellow at USAID), which summarises their research based around the question of blockchain technology having important benefits for data collection, management, and use.

To cut a short story even shorter, the simple answer to their question is - of the 43 use-cases studied, "we found no documentation or evidence of the results blockchain was purported to have achieved in these claims."

OK, it's only 43 projects, and they may have got unlucky in the ones they researched, but it does sort of suggest that blockchain companies are good on their sales pitches, but not so hot on their delivery.

Read the article from MERL Tech here.

Video: Ethereum 2.0

Vitalik Buterin’s keynote at Devcon 4 in Prague on October 31, 2018.

Talks about moving from Ethereum 1.0 to Ethereum 2.0, including what is Ethereum 2.0, why do we need it and how we got here.

Blockchain Technology Overview

A 68 page pdf from Dylan Yaga, Peter Mell, Nik Roby and Karen Scarfone from the National Institute of Standards and Technology at US Department of Commerce which aims to provide high-level overview of blockchain technology, so readers can understand how the technology works giving us some idea of the methods behind the "magic".

Blockchain in Learning & Career Development

Slide presentation from Hristian Daskalov (Co-Founder of OS.UNIVERSITY) made at Ada. National College for Digital Skills outlining aspects of the development of a distributed blockchain application (dApp) at OS.UNIVERSITY.

The presentation shows that they're looking at using blockchain to manage things such as certificate verification and resource distribution.

Blockchain for Education and Professional Development from Open Source University

Four Generations of DLT

Video from Hedera Hashgraph which gives a quick outline of how DLTs are evolving to give us four differing, but linked, generations.

4 Ways Blockchain Can Transform Education

Article from Paul Ratner on BigThink.com asking if blockchain can transform education like it has the financial sector.

The piece is based on the research paper from European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) that looked at case studies from across European Universities which allowed them to identify how blockchain might impact education.

Blockchain In Online Education: Impact And Benefits

In a piece for eLearning Industry, founder & CEO of LiveEdu.tv, Dr. Michael Jurgen Garbade, explains how the use of blockchain, and more specifically, tokens, can help us overcome the issues of low completion rates as well as providing the incentive to build courses that are beyond "beginner" level.

Blockchain in Education

136 page publication from Alexander Grech and Anthony F. Camilleri published via the Joint Research Centre (JRC), the European Commission’s science and knowledge service, who's aim is to provide evidence-based scientific support to the European policymaking process.

American Express announce blockchain-enabled business-to-business cross-border payments system

In announcing a partnership involving Santander in the UK, American Express will provide real-time payment processing, instantly connecting U.S. customers to the UK, via blockchain enabled tech.

Digital Diploma debuts at MIT

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is have announced that following a pilot progam 111 of their graduates have been given the option to receive their diplomas on their smartphones via an app, in addition to the traditional format.

Blockchain predictions: Rethinking Trust and Intermediaries

Blockchain technology will be as revolutionary as the internet, or maybe even the steam engine, predicts Andreas Freund, Ph.D., a senior manager for Tata Consultancy Services' blockchain advisory.

Blockchain in academia: Training for students and educators

As interest in blockchain grows, so does demand for a skilled technical workforce that can use the technology to bring networks into production.

Bitcoin's Academic Pedigree

Article from Arvind Narayanan and Jeremy Clark which challenges the view that bitcoin is built on new ideas by showing that nearly all of the technical components of bitcoin originated in the academic literature of the 1980s and '90s.

Resources: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies

Bitcoin and Cryptocurrency Technologies provides a comprehensive introduction to the revolutionary yet often misunderstood new technologies of digital currency.

New Tech Taps Blockchain to Secure Student Data

Sony Corporation and Sony Global Education have finished developing a cloud-based platform built on IBM Blockchain that allows a secure exchange of educational data.

What Advisors Need to Know About Cryptocurrencies

You may have heard about bitcoin, the cryptocurrency whose mysterious creator, the pseudonymous Satoshi Nakamoto, has been nominated for a Nobel Prize – even though his, her or their true identity remains stubbornly unknown.

Realizing the Potential of Blockchain

Whitepaper from the World Economic Forum subtitled:A Multistakeholder Approach to the Stewardship of Blockchain and Cryptocurrencies.

Blockchain-Based Music Sharing Platform Aims At Putting Musicians At Helm

Blockchain technology continues to find inroads into different areas of business and society, especially through the token crowdsale model. The latest company to announce a token sale is Musiconomi (MCI), the Blockchain-based music ecosystem.

The Blockchain Revolution and Higher Education

From Don and Alex Tapscott: The blockchain provides a rich, secure, and transparent platform on which to create a global network for higher learning. This Internet of value can help to reinvent higher education in a way the Internet of information alone could not.

Read via Educause.