SPECIAL ISSUE PAPER
Blockchain and smart contracts for higher education registry in Brazil
Lucas M. Palma,
Martín A. G. Vigil,
Fernando L. Pereira,
Jean E. Martina,
Lucas M. Palma
Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorMartín A. G. Vigil
Department of Computing, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Araranguá, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorFernando L. Pereira
Digital Certification Coordination, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Jean E. Martina
Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Correspondence
Jean E. Martina, Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorLucas M. Palma,
Martín A. G. Vigil,
Fernando L. Pereira,
Jean E. Martina,
Lucas M. Palma
Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorMartín A. G. Vigil
Department of Computing, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Araranguá, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorFernando L. Pereira
Digital Certification Coordination, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Search for more papers by this authorCorresponding Author
Jean E. Martina
Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil
Correspondence
Jean E. Martina, Computer Science Graduate Program, Federal University of Santa Catarina, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
Email: [email protected]
Search for more papers by this authorSummary
The validation of academic credits and issuance of academic degree certificates in the Brazilian education system currently occurs in a semi or completely noncomputerized way. The actual digitization of this system could make it more secure and decrease bureaucracy in terms of document validation, saving in storage and labor. Due to the recent increase in forgeries and loss of records, it is paramount that this process becomes more transparent and reliable for all involved parties. This article presents a proposal and an implementation for the digitization of degree certificates and academic credits for higher education in the Brazilian education system. A transparent model based on blockchain is proposed, in which higher education institutions register students and their academic credits in a chain of records using the Brazilian Public Key Infrastructure for identity management. This information, associated with smart contracts, enables the reliable and decentralized issuance of degree certificates through the validation of a historical database and the triggering of transactions using smart contracts. The focus of this article is the demonstration of an experiment that validates this proposal.
REFERENCES
- 1Schofer E, Meyer JW. The worldwide expansion of higher education in the twentieth century. Am Sociol Rev. 2005; 70(6): 898-920.
- 2 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. De cada 10 novos assalariados, seis são de empresas de alto crescimento. https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/2013-agencia-de-noticias/releases/14460-asi-de-cada-10-novos-ssalariados-seis-sao-de-empresas-de-alto-crescimento.html. Accessed June 8, 2018; 2011.
- 3 Instituto Brasileiro de Geografia e Estatística. Pnad contínua 2016: 51% da população com 25 anos ou mais do brasil possuíam apenas o ensino fundamental completo. https://agenciadenoticias.ibge.gov.br/agencia-noticias/2013-agencia-de-noticias/releases/18992-pnad-continua-2016-51-da-populacao-com-25-anos-ou-mais-do-brasil-possuiam-apenas-o-ensino-fundamental-completo.html. Accessed June 8, 2018; 2017.
- 4de Andrade CY. Acesso ao ensino superior no brasil: Equidade e desigualdade social. Revista Ensino Superior Unicamp. 2012; 6: 18-27.
- 5Barbon J. Pastor que liderava esquema de venda de diplomas é preso em sp. Folha de Sáo Paulo. 2018;. https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/cotidiano/2018/03/pastor-que-liderava-esquema-de-venda-de-diplomas-e-preso-em-sp.shtml. Accessed June 09, 2018; 2018.
- 6 Hoje Em Dia. Presa em bh dupla que vendia diplomas falsos anunciados pelas redes sociais. http://hojeemdia.com.br/horizontes/seguranca/presa-em-bh-dupla-que-vendia-diplomas-falsos-anunciados-pelas-redes-sociais-1.444698. Accessed March 18, 2018; 2017.
- 7 Rondoniagora. Saiba as institui{cões que entregavam diplomas falsos segundo o mp. https://www.rondoniagora.com/geral/saiba-as-instituicoes-que-entregavam-diplomas-falsos-segundo-o-mp. Accessed March 18,20182017.
- 8 RBS TV. Suspeitas em 53 diplomas motivam liminar que suspendeu curso da pm. http://g1.globo.com/sc/santa-catarina/noticia/2016/06/suspeitas-em-53-diplomas-motivam-liminar-que-suspendeu-curso-da-pm.html. Accessed March 18, 2018; 2016.
- 9Clifton H, Chapman M, Cox S. Staggering trade in fake degrees revealed. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-42579634. Accessed June 9, 2018; 2018.
- 10News B. Madrid university director suspended over fake degrees. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-43757895. Accessed June 9, 2018; 2018.
- 11 Ministério da Educa cão do Brasil. Portaria mec/dau n 33 de 2 de agosto de 1978. Estabelece a sistemática para o registro de diplomas de curso superior. 1978.
- 12 G1 Rio de Janeiro. Ex-alunos da gama filho têm dificuldade para retirar diploma. http://g1.globo.com/rio-de-janeiro/noticia/2014/09/ex-alunos-gama-filho-tem-dificuldade-para-retirar-diploma.html. Accessed September 20, 2018; 2014.
- 13Nakamoto S. Bitcoin: A peer-to-peer electronic cash system. www.bitcoin.org; 2008.
- 14Shae Z, Tsai JJP. On the design of a blockchain platform for clinical trial and precision medicine. In: 2017 IEEE 37th International Conference On Distributed Computing Systems (ICDCS). Atlanta, GA, USA; 2017: 1972-1980.
- 15Saravanan M, Shubha R, Marks AM, Iyer V. SMEAD: a secured mobile enabled assisting device for diabetics monitoring. In: 2017 IEEE International Conference On Advanced Networks And Telecommunications Systems (ANTS). Bhubaneswar, India; 2017 Dec: 1-6.
- 16Florea BC. Blockchain and internet of things data provider for smart applications. In: 2018 7th Mediterranean Conference On Embedded Computing (MECO). Budva, Montenegro; 2018: 1-4.
- 17Cha S, Chen J, Su C, Yeh K. A blockchain connected gateway for BLE-based devices in the Internet of Things. IEEE Access. 2018; 6: 24639-24649.
- 18Tschorsch F, Scheuermann B. Bitcoin and beyond: a technical survey on decentralized digital currencies. IEEE Commun Surv Tutorials. 2016; 18(3): 2084-2123.
- 19Underwood S. Blockchain beyond bitcoin. Commun ACM. October 2016; 59(11): 15-17.
- 20Christidis K, Devetsikiotis M. Blockchains and smart contracts for the internet of things. IEEE Access. 2016; 4: 2292-2303.
- 21Federal G. Lei n 9394 de 20 de dezembro de 1996. Estabelece as diretrizes e bases da educação nacional. Brasília (DF): Gráfica do Senado; 1996.
- 22Federal G. Decreto n 9.235, de 15 de dezembro de 2017. Dispõe sobre o exercício das fun cões de regula cão, supervis ao e avalia cão das institui cões de educa cão superior e dos cursos superiores de gradua cão e de ós-gradua cão no sistema federal de ensino. Brasília (DF): Gráfica do Senado; 2017.
- 23Hoffstein J, Pipher J, Silverman JH. An Introduction To Mathematical Cryptography. 1st ed. New York: Springer; 2008.
- 24 National Institute of Standards and Technology. Fips 180-2. https://csrc.nist.gov/csrc/media/publications/fips/180/2/archive/2002-08-01/documents/fips180-2.pdf. Accessed July 25, 2018; 2002.
- 25Guido Bertoni MichaëlPeetersGillesVanAssche Joan Daemen, Keer RV. Keccak team. https://keccak.team/index.html. Accessed July 25, 2018; 2018.
- 26Lamport L, Shostak RE, Pease MC. The byzantine generals problem. ACM Trans Program Lang Syst. 1982; 4(3): 382-401.
- 27Douceur JR. The sybil attack. In: P Druschel, F Kaashoek, A Rowstron, eds. Peer-to-peer systems. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer Berlin Heidelberg; 2002: 251-260.
- 28Castro M, Liskov B. Practical byzantine fault tolerance. Proceedings of the third symposium on operating systems design and implementation, OSDI '99. Berkeley, CA, USA: USENIX Association; 1999: 173-186.
- 29Eyal I, Sirer EG. How to disincentivize large bitcoin mining pools. http://hackingdistributed.com/2014/06/18/how-to-disincentivize-large-bitcoin-mining-pools. Accessed July 25, 2018; 2014.
- 30bitcoinwiki. The finney attack. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Weaknesses\#The_Finney_attack. Accessed July 25, 2018; 2013.
- 31Eyal I, Sirer EG. Majority is not enough: bitcoin mining is vulnerable. Commun ACM. 2018; 61(7): 95-102.
- 32Decker C, Wattenhofer R. Bitcoin transaction malleability and MtGox. In: M Kutyłowski, J Vaidya, eds. Computer security - esorics 2014. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2014: 313-326.
10.1007/978-3-319-11212-1_18 Google Scholar
- 33King S, Nadal S. Ppcoin: Peer-to-peer crypto-currency with proof-of-stake. self-published paper; 2012.
- 34Bentov I, Lee C, Mizrahi A, Rosenfeld M. Proof of activity: extending bitcoin's proof of work via proof of stake [extended abstract]y. SIGMETRICS Perform Eval Rev. December 2014; 42(3): 34-37.
10.1145/2695533.2695545 Google Scholar
- 35Wood G. Ethereum: A secure decentralised generalised transaction ledger. Ethereum Project Yellow Paper 151 (2014); 2014.
- 36 The Linux Foundation. Hyperledger fabric. https://www.hyperledger.org/projects/fabric. Accessed August 04, 2018; 2018.
- 37 The world's only enterprise blockchain solution for global payments. https://ripple.com/
- 38Szabo N. Formalizing and securing relationships on public networks. First Monday. 1997; 2(9).
10.5210/fm.v2i9.548 Google Scholar
- 39Dannen C. Introducing Ethereum And Solidity: Foundations Of Cryptocurrency And Blockchain Programming For Beginners: A press; 2017: 185.
- 40Fröwis M, Böhme R. In code we trust?—Measuring the control flow immutability of all smart contracts deployed on ethereum. In: Data Privacy Management, Cryptocurrencies And Blockchain Technology - ESORICS 2017 International Workshops, DPM 2017 and CBT 2017; 2017; Oslo, Norway: 357-372.
- 41 University of Nicosia. Academic certificates on the blockchain (up to mar 2017). https://digitalcurrency.unic.ac.cy/free-introductory-mooc/self-verifiable-certificates-on-the-bitcoin-blockchain/academic-certificates-on-the-blockchain/. Accessed January 25, 2018; 2017.
- 42 Blockchain Luxembourg S.A.. Bitcoin transaction a3adb00533a27a1993faa539beb5a5e64f1d56a4893b43169682ce68∖615001d. https://www.blockchain.com/btc/tx/a3adb00533a27a1993faa539beb5a5e64f1d56a4893b43169682ce68b615d. Accessed August 2, 2018; 2018.
- 43Durant E, Trachy A. Digital Diploma Debuts At MIT. http://news.mit.edu/2017/mit-debuts-secure-digital-diploma-using-bitcoin-blockchain-technology-1017. Accessed January 29, 2018; 2017.
- 44 University To Open. Open blockchain. http://blockchain.open.ac.uk. Accessed January 30, 2018.
- 45 Protocol Labs. IPFS is the distributed web. https://ipfs.io/. Accessed August 02, 2018; 2018.
- 46Mikroyannidis A, Domingue J, Bachler M, Quick K. A learner-centred approach for lifelong learning powered by the blockchain. In: T Bastiaens, J Van Braak, M Brown, et al., eds. Proceedings of edmedia + innovate learning 2018. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE); 2018: 1388-1393.
- 47Sharples M, Domingue J. The blockchain and kudos: a distributed system for educational record, reputation and reward. In: K Verbert, M Sharples, Tomaž Klobučar, eds. Adaptive and adaptable learning. Cham: Springer International Publishing; 2016: 490-496.
10.1007/978-3-319-45153-4_48 Google Scholar
- 48Costa R, Faustino D, Lemos G, et al. Uso não financeiro de blockchain: Um estudo de caso sobre o registro, autenticação e preservação de documentos digitais acadêmicos. In: Workshop em Blockchain: Teoria, Tecnologias e Aplicações (WBlockchain SBRC), Campos do Jordao/Brazil; Vol. 1; 2018. http://ojs.sbc.org.br/index.php/wblockchain/article/view/2356. Accessed July 25, 2018.
- 49Kuvshinov K, Mostovoy J, Nikiforov I. Disciplina: a blockchain for education. https://disciplina.io/yellowpaper.pdf. Accessed March 03, 2018; 2017.
- 50 Corporation Sony. Sony global education develops technology using blockchain for open sharing of academic proficiency and progress records. https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press/201602/16-0222E/index.html. Accessed January 26, 2018; 2016.
- 51Zhang Z. US patent application no. 2017043667a1. http://www.freepatentsonline.com/20170346637.pdf. Accessed January 26, 2018; 2017.
- 52 bitcoinwiki. Op_return. https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/OP_RETURN. Accessed August 02, 2018; 2018.
- 53 Ethereum Foundation. Remix. https://github.com/ethereum/remix. Accessed March 9, 2018; 2018.
- 54 ethereum. go-ethereum/consensus.go. https://github.com/ethereum/go-ethereum/blob/6286c255f16a914b39ffd3389cba154a53e66a13/consensus/ethash/consensus.go#L69. Accessed August 02,2018; 2018.
- 55 Etherscan. Ethereum blocktime history. https://etherscan.io/chart/blocktime. Accessed August 03, 2018; 2018.
- 56 INEP. Censo da educação Superior 2016. : Ministério da Educa cão do Brasil. http://download.inep.gov.br/educacao_superior/censo_superior/documentos/2016/notas_sobre_o_censo_da_educacao_superior_2016.pdf. Accessed September 25, 2018; 2017.
- 57 CNE. ResoluA̧Ão n 2, de 18 de junho de 2007. Ministério da Educa cão do Brasil; 2017. http://portal.mec.gov.br/cne/arquivos/pdf/2007/rces002_07.pdf. Accessed September 25, 2018; 2007.
- 58 MPOG. Painel de preA̧õs. http://paineldeprecos.planejamento.gov.br/. Accessed September 27, 2018; 2018.
- 59 Controladoria-Geral da União. Parecer referência 23480.012035/2014-45. http://buscaprecedentes.cgu.gov.br/busca/dados/Precedente/23480012035201445_CGU.pdf#search=23480%2E012035%2F2014-45. Accessed August 04, 2018; 2013.
- 60 Governo Federal. Lei n 12.527, de 18 de novembro de 2011. Lei de Acesso a Informa cão. 2011. http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/_ato2011-2014/2011/lei/l12527.htm. Accessed August 04, 2018.
- 61 Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina. Egressos da UFSC. https://egressos.sistemas.ufsc.br/listaEgressos.xhtml. Accessed August 04, 2018; 2018.
- 62Garone E. Can't land a job because you're overqualified. http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20150227-dirty-words-youre-overqualified. Accessed August 04, 2018; 2015.
- 63Sayuri J. Com crise e cortes na ciência, jovens doutores encaram o desemprego: 'Título não paga aluguel'. https://www.bbc.com/portuguese/brasil-44696697. Accessed August 04, 2018; 2018.
