Blockchain Ecosystem for Verifiable Qualifications

Abstract

Human resource contracting processes depend on trustworthy qualifications (diplomas or certificates) that may be counterfeit or falsified and are hard to verify manually. This paper leverages blockchain technology and smart contracts, to enforce a decentralized verification solution for higher education certificates, e.g., university diplomas. The solution allows Higher-Education Institutions (HEI) to register the certificates they issue in the blockchain, and recruiting organizations to check the authenticity and integrity of these certificates. The solution is implemented through five major components: i) the consortium smart contract, ii) the HEI smart contract, iii) the HEI client, iv) the recruiter app, and v) the consortium app. A prototype of the implementation is tested in a real blockchain (a testnet) and the challenges raised with the experiment are identified and discussed with a main focus on the decentralization mechanism performance.