Blockchain in Online Learning: A Systematic Review and Bibliographic Visualization

Abstract

In the contemporary era of global and sustainable information management, blockchain has made a cutting-edge transformation in online learning. To apprehend this new trajectory, this current systematic review with bibliographic visualization aims to identify the thematic clusters of underlying aspects concerning the sustainable nexus of blockchain and online learning. Using the updated guidelines of the PRISMA flowchart, a total of 434 scholarly research papers from the mainstream research databases, i.e., Web of Science, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and ScienceDirect, were inspected to be categorized into 15 relevant publications. Bibliographic data were assembled and analyzed accordingly to construct network visualization maps, such as co-authorship, citation, co-citation, bibliographic coupling, and term co-occurrence using VOSviewer 1.6.18. Significant terms were reported and later cross-mapped with those identified by critically reviewing the applicable 15 papers. Standardized scholarship, behavior pattern, and digital badging have been found and derived as themes from the connected clusters. Therefore, current research findings reveal these three broad clutches of themes concerning the sustainable nexus of blockchain and online learning.