Working Group Title – “EdTech”

Introduction

A recent article for Educause Review by noted Blockchain expert Don Tapscott highlighted some of the ways Blockchain technology has the potential to improve if not outright transform the education industry. While open source technologies and platforms such as Linux have demonstrated the inherent technical capability to enable change, it is often critical that the community create a unified and open forum to take ownership and stewardship in order to foster innovation, advance adoption while mitigating risk and cost to ensure schools, community colleges and universities can realize the full potential of Hyperledger Fabric and Blockchain technology to improve outcomes for lifelong learners, workforce development and culture. (Source: The Blockchain Revolution and Higher Education, Educause Review, 2017)

Education is an increasingly digital and personalized experience sourced from an increasingly democratized set of providers, models and accreditations. Hyperledger’s ability for Integrating, extending and enhancing Campus and Consortia system IT applications and systems is critical to bringing students, faculty and administrators existing workflows and processes into the digital eco-system. Educational technology has a legacy infrastructure of learning management systems (LMS), Student Information Systems (SIS), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Integrated Library Systems (ILS), discipline-specific tools now migrating to Cloud Computing and increasingly immersive mobile experiences powered by Artificial Intelligence and rich social and digital media including Augmented/Virtual Reality to engage learners and drive better outcomes.

Goals of the Hyperledger Working Group for Education Architecture/Lifelong Learning:

• Explore and Showcase use cases and design patterns
• Foster inter-insititutional and vendor co-operation and collaboration
• Lower barriers to entry and adoption with shareable assets and artifacts
• Contribute to and promote interoperability standards
• Enabling supplemental technologies: Mobile, Iot, AI, AR/VR
• Democratize educational access and opportunity
• Foster social welfare
• Express interdisciplinary applications
• Advise educational practitioners on strategic approaches to applying blockchain technology
• Support open APIs and Protocols for inter-operability including Blockcerts
• Include a broad portfolio of Hyperledger projects and frameworks including Indy and tools such as Composer, Cello and Explorer.

Please provide an introduction that addresses why the working group is required and what are the main goals and objectives of the group.

• No current hyperledger-based community of interest (SIG)
• Fast moving technology
• Jobs, states and social welfare
• Help schools make smart decisions
• No clear standards yet to promote interoperability

Scope

Please provide the scope and audience of the working group. Also, include items that are not within scope of this working group.  It’s as important to define the boundaries, to ensure a well-focused working group.

All skill levels and representation from researchers, students, entrepreneurs, investors, vendors, academia, practitioners, artists, librarians.

The alliance will;

• lead efforts to spur innovation driven by blockchain technology;
• endorse cross discipline collaboration;
• spur ideation that can occur at the intersections of diverse academia studies
• play an active role in blockchain technology research. The working group will act as a conduit and bring relevant thinkers, tinkerers, thought leaders, and investors together to promote team formation towards successful idea execution.

- Educational IT Use Cases: Lifelong Learning
    - Electronic Learning Records/Learning Passports
    - Pedagogy and Learning
    - Smart Contracts : G2B, B2C and B2B Education Use Cases

- Purpose
    - Enhancing and extending enterprise campus IT systems
    - Promote and demonstrate interoperability through industry standards
    - Promote standards for Students and Lifelong Learners to prove their certifications/credentials

- Not within:
    - Classroom Technology
    - Curriculum Development
    - Professional Development

Work Products

• Identify and document Use cases
• Deep dive into selected use cases to provide reference architectures and/or standard smart contracts
• Success stories and case studies
• Face-to-face events and meet-ups

Collaborators (other groups)

This Working Group will collaborate with other Hyperledger working groups, the TSC, Linux Foundation staff, and the project maintainers.

Please provide any specific working groups or projects that this working group will immediately collaborate with.

Interested Parties

The following individuals have already expressed an interest in joining this working group, and we hope they will become contributors over the first year:
List of interested parties listed with their consent, including name, association, and optionally email addresses.

• David Lotz – Accenture
• Richard Brownstein - Aurablocks
• Kiran Murty – Aurablocks
• Natalie Smolensky – Learning Machines
• Brian Rogers - Columbia University Blockchain Alliance
• Bill Carter, CIO, Houston Community College
• Feng Hou, Central New Mexico Community College
• Blockchain@Berkeley – Ronen Kirsch, Director, Consultant Services
• Mathew Pinnock - Cryptocate (South Australia)
• Dinesh Kumar – Blockchain Developer, Oracle

Proposed Chair

The following individual has volunteered to serve as the initial Chair for the working group: David Haimes, Senior Director of Product Development, Oracle Corporation