Supporting Higher Education 4.0 with Blockchain: Critical Analyses of Automation, Data, Digital Currency, and Other Disruptive Applications

This book explores the current and future impacts of blockchain technologies, such as cryptocurrency, on the education system. Blockchain is a disruptive technology based on a shared, distributed ledger, where transactions are registered by consensus in a network of peers, using cryptographic mechanisms that render the records virtually immutable and, ideally, enable transparency, auditability, and resilience. What role, then, could it play in fostering transformative approaches such as student-centred teaching and learning, distributed learning environments, and lifelong learning? This book provides essential perspectives into blockchain applications and challenges within education and offers a broader view of blockchain technology against existing information and communication technologies used in education. Spanning the effects on institutions, students, and the labor market, these chapters offer critical reviews and analyses of current research, practical first-hand applications of blockchain in education, and original conceptual models.