I have been reading about Blockchain and its impact to the different sectors in society and came across your service. I have a few questions regarding your implementation:
How are universities able to join the blockchain network? Do they also need a copy of the entire blockchain network or do they need a lot of computing power or does the certificate-issuing software you provide already do that for them?
Do Universities/Organizations/Interested third parties have to follow a certain template/format in your certificate-issuing software? As I’ve read, certificates can range from transcripts to a high level certification of a BA or BS degree. I have only seen samples of the Certificate of Membership or “diploma” in the sites
Since you provide created the platform to enable the service to be enjoyed by students and universities, do both parties pay the miners in the blockchain network the transaction fee or is it only the student who needs a verified certificate who pays? Does the university also get paid for providing the records/information?
Currently, this open-source toolkit is configured to anchor records to the Bitcoin Blockchain, which comes with all the computing power and security needed. This means that universities don’t have to mine or create any infrastructure themselves. If a network of universities wanted to form their own private network/chain, Blockcerts could certainly be expanded to facilitate that use case. Of course, that would require much more involvement/resources/mining from the universities to setup their own network. It’s unclear if that approach has any advantages?
The new version of the issuer has been expanded to allow freeform design on the display layer. And technically, any type of document could be hashed and registered on the blockchain.
In Blockcerts, only the Issuers/schools pay for mining, costing about $1 per batch (which may contain thousands of certificates). Everything is free for recipients.
Hello Nic, can you clarify the point 3?, we are a university in Guatemala and we are interest to use Blockcerts but I don’t understand this point. Thank you.
The only people who pay are Issuers/Schools, about $1 USD per issuance, which may contain thousands of certificates. Students/Recipients do not pay anything; they can use the free mobile app.
No new private blockchain network has to be created/setup by schools, because the public blockchain already provides a secure network. Schools do not need to act as miners or provide any other type of infrastructure.
Hi Quechup,
Well based from my research, when miners validate a transaction it takes them effort, time and money. To compensate for that they are usually paid by a certain fee. So question 3 was just me asking who will be responsible for this in Blockcerts.
Chris has already answered this question well by saying that the schools issuing the certificates to be validated will be the one to pay the miners a $1 USD per issuance.
Hello Chris and Nic, thank for your quickly response. I have clear the point 3.
Now I have one more question, how can we join to Blockcerts and begin to give our certificates like a university?
Blockcerts isn’t a membership, it is a set of open-source libraries that are freely available to anyone. You can direct your IT department to follow the quick-start guide here: http://www.blockcerts.org/guide/quick-start.html
If you don’t have the resources to work with code, then you should contact one of the commercial vendors that have product with an interface for easy issuance, using Blockcerts. My own company www.learningmachine.com is one of those vendors.
Hello everyone, I have just a small question. To my understand, all the required material (code) for issuing and verifying certificate is available in open source. What is the role of IT team or company?
Hello Chris, can the certificate issuance be done in retrospect? Considering that Universities i am selling the idea to are very old with lots of alumni that should be on board this digital certificate albeit maybe by digitizing old certificates and on boarding same or is it only gonna start at the point when a University enrols on this tech now?
Thank you for your response Chris. if i need to anchor you services here in Africa, what processes are their in your company for me to follow, this is because, i doubt if the various Uni IT chaps can modify the open source, hence i tot patronizing established vendor like your coy will be ideal.
We would be happy to talk with you. You can learn more about our commercial product for issuing records on our website here: https://www.learningmachine.com/