![The Possibilities of Badges and Blockchain [DML Central]](https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/dmlcentral-1060x650.png)
My latest post for DML Central has just been published. Entitled The Possibilities of Badges and Blockchain it’s a follow-up to a post I wrote for them last year, which stated that this kind of thing was ‘deep in the future’. Perhaps not!
Read the post
This kind of stuff fascinates me, which is why I’m delighted that a few ex-Mozilla colleagues and interested parties have come together to form Badge Chain. You can sign up on the site for (low-traffic) email updates, and/or subscribe to our Medium publication.
A few months ago I wrote a post for DMLcentral entitled Peering Deep into Future of Educational Credentialing. In it, I was looking at the possibilities of the blockchain technology that underpins Bitcoin.
More recently, I’ve been looking at Ethereum, ‘crypto-fuel’ that can create new, autonomous systems and so I asked on Twitter:
I looked further into the website Gordon suggested: A Decentralized System for Education and Assessment. It’s an interesting, if slightly technocratic and techno-solutionist, read. Here’s a flavour:
The long term goal is the foundation of a fair, just, and meritocratic society, in which individuals, regardless of personal factors, have the freedom to learn and grow with each other, judged solely on individual achievements. The society would function on a ruleset unalterable by any malicious centralized power, categorizing the skillsets of each individual and giving others the information necessary to place those individuals within society. This provides the basis for a society based on action and fact, with each individual serving their best role in the larger whole.
I emailed Jared, the guy behind the site asking how I could help (I’d already submitted a pull request to make a minor update to the site). He replied that the work “is still very preliminary” with the two big decisions currently being:
- What kind of channel to set up for primary communication
- Which platform to build on (Ethereum, Eris Stack, Forking bitcoin or tendermint?, etc)
He’s open to other ideas, too, with the best place to discuss all this on this subreddit. I’ve closed comments here to encourage you to jump into the conversation there.
Image CC BY-NC-SA Bryan Mathers
My latest post for DMLcentral is up. Entitled Peering Deep into Future of Educational Credentialing it’s a look at how the blockchain technology that underpins crytocurrencies like Bitcoin could be used with the Open Badges Infrastructure [OBI].
A sample:
If we used the blockchain for Open Badges, then we could prove beyond reasonable doubt that the person receiving badge Y is the same person who created evidence X. This would use a “proof of work” system. At the moment, the situation is still better than paper-based certificates but, such an approach would allow Open Badges to be used in extremely high-stakes situations. The blockchain would prove a connection between the evidence and the badge. More details could be unlocked if the earner chooses to share his or her key.
Click here to read the post in full
I’ve closed comments here to encourage you to add yours on the original post. Please do consider doing this as it raises awareness in the wider community.
You may also be interested to know that the xAPI (Tin Can) is now compatible with the OBI. This is less geeky and more interesting than it sounds!
