Researching the Potential of Blockchains
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What are Blockchains?
Blockchain is most commonly known as the technology underpinning the Bitcoin cryptocurrency. But in recent years the open source code of the Bitcoin blockchain has been taken and extended by many groups to expand its capabilities. Blockchain technology, which can be thought of as a public distributed ledger, promises to revolutionise the financial world. A World Economic Forum survey in 2015 found that those polled believe that there will be a tipping point for the government use of blockchain by 2023. Governments, large banks, software vendors and companies involved in stock exchanges (especially the Nasdaq stock exchange) are investing heavily in the area. For example, the UK Government recently announced that it is investing £10M into blockchain research and Santander have identified 20-25 internal use cases for the technology and predict a reduction of banks’ infrastructure costs by up to £12.8 billion a year.
The reach of blockchain technology will go beyond the financial sector however, through the use of ‘smart contracts’ which allow business and legal agreements to be stored and executed online. For example, the startup company Tallysticks aims to use blockchain based smart contracts to automate invoicing. In October, 2015 Visa and DocuSign showcased a proof of concept demonstrating how smart contracts could be used to greatly speed up the processes involved in car rental – rental cars can be driven out of the car park without any need to fill in or sign forms. The ability to run smart contracts led Forbes to recently run an article comparing the future impact of blockchains to that of the Web and Internet.
We believe the blockchain technology and smart contracts can also be used in education in many interesting and potentially revolutionary scenarios. On this website you can see some of the ways we see the future of education developing using the blockchain and what we are doing to progress towards our vision.
Find out more about Blockchains
Related Projects
EU Blockchain Observatory
The European Union Blockchain Observatory and Forum aims to accelerate blockchain innovation and the development of the blockchain ecosystem within the EU, and so help cement Europe’s position as a global leader in this transformative new technology.
Institute of Coding
The Institute of Coding is a collaboration between the UK Government, more than 60 universities, big players in the tech industry, SMEs, industry groups, experts in non-traditional learning and professional bodies. Led by the University of Bath, the world-leading consortium aims to strengthen the UK's position globally in computing and IT, address the UK digital skills gap and create opportunities for more computer science graduates.
QualiChain
QualiChain is a H2020 project investigating decentralised qualifications on the blockchain, via the development, piloting and evaluation of a decentralised platform for storing, sharing and verifying education and employment qualifications.
Blockchain Enhanced Projects
Up2U
SlideWiki
Experiments with the Ethereum Blockchain
Ethereum is a platform for decentralised applications, built on top of a blockchain mechanism, which can be used for public data storage and computation. It acts as an immutable public ledger, which provides strong cryptographic guarantees for data integrity. One definitive feature of the Ethereum platform is the ability to execute Turing-complete Smart Contracts. A Smart Contract is a program on the blockchain. We have been investigating the possibilities that the Ethereum blockchain infrastructure affords.
Below you can see some screencasts of some of our recent experiments with Ethereum:
Education
PeerMiles – recognising and incentivising peer-reviewers IoT and RDF
Introduction to our RDF experiments Publications
- Chowdhury, N. (2019) An IoT and Blockchain-based Approach for Ensuring Transparency and Accountability in Regulatory Compliance Adjunct Proceedings of the 2019 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and the 2019 International Symposium on Wearable Computers (UbiComp/ISWC '19), London, United Kingdom
- Ferdous, M., Biswas, K., Chowdhury, M., Chowdhury, N. and Muthukkumarasamy, V. (2019) Integrated platforms for blockchain enablement, Advances in Computers, 113, Elsevier
- Domingue, J., Third, A. and Ramachandran, M. (2019) The FAIR TRADE Framework for Assessing Decentralised Data Solutions WWW2019 workshop: Linked Data on the Web and its Relationship with Distributed Ledgers (LDOW/LDDL), San Francisco, USA
- Jan, Z., Third, A., Bachler, M. and Domingue, J. (2018) Peer-reviews on the blockchain Workshop: Refresh - Reframing Research at EuroCSS Symposium, Cologne, Germany
Media
Open University in £40m campaign to create more computer scientists
The Open University in Milton Keynes is at the heart of a £40 million drive by the Government to help train more computer scientists. It is leading one of the five main themes – on university learners – being addressed at the new Institute of Coding.
Credit Business Weekly
John Domingue – The Future of Education
Professor John Domingue, Director of the OU’s Knowledge Media Institute, discusses developments in technology which he sees impacting on education in the long and short term as part of our ‘future of education’ campaign.
Credit OU News
View all related media
Links
YouTube Premiere: Blockchains, Fact and Fiction - a legal perspective
What is a Blockchain? What are the benefits and risks of Cryptocurrency? Why should we be reconsidering the perception of what our personal data actually is?
Credit The Open University Law School0xcert
Your ID, degree, artwork or house. 0xcert-ified on the blockchain. Create, own, and validate unique assets on the blockchain. 0xcert is the first open protocol built to support the future of digital assets, powered by the non-fungible tokens.
Credit 0xcertBuilding the First Blockchain University
Woolf will be the first fully accredited, borderless, blockchain-powered university. Woolf University will use blockchain technology to enforce regulatory compliance, eliminate or automate bureaucratic university processes, and manage the custodianship of sensitive financial and personal data.
Credit Woolf UniversityOxford academics launch world’s first ‘blockchain university’
A group of University of Oxford academics have launched the world’s first “blockchain university”, an Oxbridge-style institution that they describe as “Uber for students, Airbnb for academics”.
Credit The Times Higher EducationEU Blockchain Observatory & Forum
The Blockchain Observatory and Forum will highlight key developments of the blockchain technology, promote European actors and reinforce European engagement with multiple stakeholders involved in blockchain activities.
Credit EU Blockchain - An initiative of the European Commission View all related linksTalks
Blockchain: Hope or Hype? - John Domingue & Sajida Zouarhi
How does blockchain work and has its usefulness been over or under estimated? John Domingue and Sajida Zouarhi show how blockchain is being implemented in a real-world setting. Blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, has an almost unlimited number of applications beyond finance. From digital identities to kidney transplants, blockchain technology solves the problem of intermediary trust between parties without a central authority.
This event took place on the Monday 24th September 2018
Towards the decentralisation of personal data through blockchains and linked data
A talk at the University of Bonn Computer Science Colloquium. It covers how distributed ledgers (blockchains) combined with decentralised linked data technologies such as Solid can support the management of personal data avoiding the issues highlighted in the media around for example, Facebook and Cambridge Analytica.
This event took place on the Wednesday 21st November 2018
View all talks
Events
Blockchain Hackathon 2019
9th February 2019, Tokyo, Japan
METI has been holding discussions on the applicability of the technologies to the domains of academic degrees, courses and career certifications as well as management of research data, taking advantage of its project titled “FY2018 Industrial Technology Survey”(Research for Applicability of Blockchain Technologies to Universities and Research Institutes to Promote Mobility of Domestic and Overseas Human Resources and Secure Reliability of Research Results as well as Research for Winning of Standards therefor). In light of the discussion results, METI will organize a Blockchain Hackathon, aiming to further promote social implementation of the technologies.
Blockchain Expo Global 2019
25th April 2019, Olympia Grand, London
The World’s largest Blockchain Conference and Exhibition focuses on the future of enterprise technology. The event showcases two days of top-level content from leading brands, embracing and developing cutting edge blockchain technologies. Arriving at Olympia Grand London on April 25-26, the Blockchain event is co-located with the IoT Tech Expo, AI & Big Data Expo and Cyber Security & Cloud Expo so you can explore the convergence of these technologies in one place.
Blockchain International Scientific Conference (ISC 2019)
12th March 2019, London
World's First 'Scholars in Blockchain' Conference. International Recognition of your work by Blockchain Scientific Community.
Courses
Our department is a research department, so we do not offer any blockchain courses at present. We have collated a list of some of the online courses currently out there. Please contact us if you know of other courses you feel we should be listing.
Online Courses
UK Blockchain Research
The UCL Centre for Blockchain Technologies
IOHK and University of Edinburgh Blockchain Technology Laboratory
Further Educational Links
Team
John Domingue
KMi Director (Project Champion)
I’m KMi’s Director and I’m interested in how blockchains can be used within higher education and corporate training and also the relationship between semantics, big data and blockchains. Within the learning area I see a number of scenarios where radical improvements may occur including: embedding micro certification within blockchains; the development of educational currencies to support the crowdsourced accreditation of ‘soft skills’ such as collaboration, communication and leadership by peers; and new disruptive models for teaching and learning where intermediary layers are removed resulting in dramatically reduced costs and increased openness. Interoperability between blockchains and the automation of a number of tasks associated with the development of blockchain applications (DApps) through semantic technologies is a second focus.
Consultancy
How can we help you?
The OpenBlockchain team have a wealth of knowledge and experience and a testbed architecture to support investigations in the use of blockchain in almost any scenario imaginable. We provide Research Consultancy Services that are tailored to your individual needs and can support anything from improving your understanding of the potential of blockchain, to in depth technical discussion and testing of scenarios at prototype stage. We are keen to build research relationships with commercial and academic partners and to identify sources of research funding that we can leverage to fund longer term relationships. We have already submitted a number of bids to research grant funds in the UK, working with commercial partners in domains including energy management, professional development, teaching and recruitment.
Pricing
Our Research Consultancy starts from as little as £1000 per day and we will always enter into initial conversations without any fee.
Contact Us
If you have an idea you would like to discuss, just use the contact form and tell us a little about it – we will be happy to start a conversation and work out how we can help you.
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Blockchain Feeds
Cryptocurrency – Stock Market Advice | Investment Newsletters – Profit Confidential
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Latest Experiment
Latest Media
Open University in £40m campaign to create more computer scientists
The Open University in Milton Keynes is at the heart of a £40 million drive by the Government to help train more computer scientists. It is leading one of the five main themes – on university learners – being addressed at the new Institute of Coding.
Recent Talk
Blockchain: Hope or Hype? - John Domingue & Sajida Zouarhi
How does blockchain work and has its usefulness been over or under estimated? John Domingue and Sajida Zouarhi show how blockchain is being implemented in a real-world setting. Blockchain, the technology that underpins cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin, has an almost unlimited number of applications beyond finance. From digital identities to kidney transplants, blockchain technology solves the problem of intermediary trust between parties without a central authority.
This event took place on the Monday 24th September 2018
Upcoming Event
Blockchain Hackathon 2019
9th February 2019, Tokyo, Japan
METI has been holding discussions on the applicability of the technologies to the domains of academic degrees, courses and career certifications as well as management of research data, taking advantage of its project titled “FY2018 Industrial Technology Survey”(Research for Applicability of Blockchain Technologies to Universities and Research Institutes to Promote Mobility of Domestic and Overseas Human Resources and Secure Reliability of Research Results as well as Research for Winning of Standards therefor). In light of the discussion results, METI will organize a Blockchain Hackathon, aiming to further promote social implementation of the technologies.
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