# Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of Blockchain-Based Trusted Achievement Record System for Students in Higher Education

**Authors:** Bakri Awaji, Ellis Solaiman  
**arXiv:** [2204.12547](https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12547)  
**Date:** 2022-04-26  
**Summary page:** https://www.summarizepaper.com/en/paper/2204.12547v1/

## Key points

- The paper introduces a blockchain-based achievement record system for students in higher education
- The system aims to simplify and expedite certificate authentication and validation process
- Blockchain technology, specifically public Ethereum Blockchain and smart contracts, can produce a verifiable record of achievements
- The proposed system's design, implementation, components, and tools are presented
- The authors evaluate the system's usability, effectiveness, performance, and cost through several studies
- OpenBadge is discussed as an alternative solution that provides an open standard for digital badges to recognize learning achievements across different contexts
- Section 3 discusses the proposed system's design and implementation in detail including architecture, data model, smart contract code structure, user interface design principles, security considerations, privacy protection mechanisms.
- Section 4 presents an evaluation of the proposed system's usability using SUS tests as well as its effectiveness in terms of certificate issuance time reduction compared to traditional methods.
- The authors also evaluate its performance regarding transaction throughput under different loads using JMeter testing tool.
- Future research directions for improving the proposed system further are discussed in section 5.

## Summary

This paper introduces a blockchain-based achievement record system that aims to simplify and expedite the certificate authentication and validation process for students in higher education. With a growing number of institutions involved in the global education market, it has become increasingly challenging to verify the authenticity of academic achievements such as CVs and diplomas. Blockchain technology, specifically public Ethereum Blockchain and smart contracts, can play a key role in solving this problem by producing a verifiable record of achievements. The proposed system's design and implementation are presented, along with its components and tools. The authors evaluate the system's usability, effectiveness, performance, and cost through several studies. A System Usability Scale (SUS) test gave a scale of 77.1, demonstrating that this system is more user-friendly than legacy systems while being more efficient. The authors also conducted a detailed cost analysis and discussed the positives and limitations of alternative blockchain solutions. Section 2 presents related work on solutions suggested and implemented in response to the highlighted issues. OpenBadge is one such solution that provides an open standard for digital badges that can be used to recognize learning achievements across different contexts. In section 3, the authors discuss their proposed system's design and implementation in detail, including its architecture, data model, smart contract code structure, user interface design principles, security considerations, privacy protection mechanisms. Section 4 presents an evaluation of the proposed system's usability using SUS tests as well as its effectiveness in terms of certificate issuance time reduction compared to traditional methods. The authors also evaluate its performance regarding transaction throughput under different loads using JMeter testing tool. Finally, section 5 concludes with a discussion on future research directions for improving the proposed system further. Overall this study demonstrates how blockchain technology can be leveraged to create secure and reliable achievement records for students in higher education while simplifying the authentication process for employers or other interested parties seeking verification of academic credentials.