Development of the Learning Management System Concept based on Blockchain Technology

Abstract

The growth in demand for the use of distance learning technology caused by the COVID-19 pandemic has led to increased use of technologies that provide a continuous learning process. Furthermore, the Russian invasion of Ukraine demonstrated that such technologies could make it possible to conduct the educational process in relatively safe conditions for the parties of the education process. One of the technologies that provides distance learning is the learning management system. While this technology facilitates the educational process, it also allows the accumulation of data, which can pose a threat to the privacy of system users in case of unauthorized access. Also, in the conditions of distance education, educational institutions may face challenges of scalability of these systems, sharing of data on qualifications obtained in such systems, and issues of trust in the acquired education among employers. In this paper, an analysis of existing learning management systems based on both blockchain technologies and traditional ones is carried out, their weaknesses and strengths are analyzed, and tasks that should be solved by a new system based on blockchain technology are formulated. Smart contract and NFT technologies are also considered in the context of their application in the field of education, i.e., smart contracts can be used to rate students’ progression and NFT can be used for certificate issuing. As a result of the conducted research, a conception of the system was proposed that uses two types of blockchain networks—hybrid and consortium, which allows solving the issues of scalability, secure data storage, and confirmation of acquired qualifications with the help of a unified blockchain network of the consortium type, which makes it possible to establish criteria for acceptance of new network participants, which allows solving the problem of low-quality suppliers, and also acts as a database to which network participants must add a unified version of the diploma in the form of NFT, which will allow interested party to quickly check the validity of the diploma or certificate. Student data in this conception is stored on the education provider’s hybrid blockchain network, which allows sensitive data to be securely stored while allowing third-party access to open data. An analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the proposed network was also carried out and possible ways of solving some of them were proposed.