Abstract
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.
Highlights
Higher educational institutions and universities play a pivotal role in creating an enabling environment and opportunities to uplift social mobility, economic turnaround, and a skilled workforce that promotes and achieves humanity’s well-being around the globe [1]
We evaluated the data authentication and privacy protection mechanisms used by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) to verify and attest to the degrees/certificates
We proposed HEDU-ledger, which is a permissioned private network architecture created between stakeholders for certificate record traceability
Summary
Higher educational institutions and universities play a pivotal role in creating an enabling environment and opportunities to uplift social mobility, economic turnaround, and a skilled workforce that promotes and achieves humanity’s well-being around the globe [1]. The certificates and degrees issued by higher educational institutes and universities significantly impact job seekers, primarily students, recruitment agencies, and various job providers, such as universities, multinational companies, government departments, and agencies [2,3]. These academic documents and degrees are undoubtedly official documents for professional credential completion proof of a higher education institution’s degree requirements. Many reports highlighted the essence of forgery and fraud in academic credential verification and attestation processes [5]. Such documented instances are widespread in developing countries like
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