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
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
The increasing centralization of the Web, he says, has “ended up producing—with no deliberate action of the people who designed the platform—a large-scale emergent phenomenon which is anti-human.”
As highlighted by the Web’s inventor and by recent stories around the Facebook and Cambridge Analytica the over centralisation of, often personal, data generates significant problems for ordinary users. A related problem is that ‘data poor’ citizens can suffer through the denial of credit and more. Recently in the UK over 60 citizens were erroneously deported because of a lack of citizenship data.
At the OU we have been working on a semantic blockchain platform, LinkChain, which supports the decentralisation of personal data by through a combination of blockchain and Linked Data technologies. In the presentation I will give an overview of our platform and show some initial uses within the higher education space.
This event took place on the Tuesday 18th September 2018
In this webinar, Alexander Mikroyannidis and Allan Third present the applications of Blockchain in education and the importance of the Semantic Blockchain. They also present their work in the H2020 SlideWiki project, which supports the collaborative authoring of open courseware.
This event took place on the Tuesday 14th August 2018
This in depth tutorial, presented at the 2018 International Semantic Web Research Summer School (ISWS), looks at the possibilities for a decentralised semantic web focusing primarily on the relationship between blockchains and linked data. The first part of the talk is an extensive explanation of what blockchains are and how they are used. This is followed by links to ongoing decentralised linked data research including Tim Berners-Lee's SOLID and Ruben Verborgh's Linked Data Fragments.
This event took place on the Tuesday 17th July 2018
Allan Third @thirda talking about Blockchains, Education and the Semantic Web #SlideWiki in #SemWeb offsite meeting at Wijk aan Zee pic.twitter.com/FsnuVmByZQ
— SlideWiki (@SlideWiki) March 16, 2018
This event took place on the Friday 16th March 2018
A joint venture between the Open University and the Knowledge Media Institute.
This event took place on the Tuesday 5th December 2017
The Blockchain-in-Education Conference aims to provide a unique opportunity to learn about why and how Blockchain will usher in the Hyperconnected Future of Education, bring about Distributed Learning Environments, and provide more trusted and secured Student Services and Student Data.
This event took place on the Tuesday 5th September 2017
Describes how we have used Linked Data to index Ethereum blockchains
This event took place on the Tuesday 4th April 2017
The latest on the OU blockchain experiments and thoughts on the application of this technology in the Higher Educational space. In particular for accreditation, ePortfolios and Uber style educational disaggregation.
This event took place on the Wednesday 12th October 2016
Presentation given at an Invited talk at Leicester University. Covers work we are doing at the Open University on applying blockchains/distributed ledgers in the adult educational space
This event took place on the Sunday 9th October 2016
Keynote at the SALAD Workshop at ESWC 2016. Gives an overview of blockchains
This event took place on the Sunday 29th May 2016
Hugh Halford-Thompson of BTL gave an introduction to blockchain technologies before talking in more detail about various use cases across different sectors including payments and settlement, reconciliation, and traceability. He also discussed how…
This event took place on the Tuesday 24th May 2016
Blockchain technology has been in the news recently, mainly because it aims to provide an alternative model of network computing platform that is decentralised and trustless, the underlying properties that made Bitcoin popular...
This event took place on the Wednesday 24th February 2016
MyCovidCredentials
YouTube Premiere: Blockchains, Fact and Fiction - a legal perspective
This video was filmed in July 2019 as part of The Open University Business and Law Festival, during The Open University's 50th Anniversary celebrations. #OU50 Following the announcement from Facebook that they will launch their own cryptocurrency (Libra) in 2020 interest in blockchains and claims about their potential continue to grow. Karen Foley interviews John Domingue and Dr Robert Herian, who will very briefly explain what this technology is and then explore its implications for the legal arena. Their shared viewpoint is based on experiences in implementing and deploying blockchains in a variety of contexts and working with and advising a wide variety of players including startups and large companies and the European Commission.
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
The Role of Web 3.0 and Blockchain in the Future of Education
11th October 2022, University of Patras, Greece
Alexander Mikroyannidis gave a keynote talk at the 7th panhellenic scientific conference “Integration and Use of ICT in Education”, organised by the University of Patras in Greece. The event was very well attended by researchers and educators from higher and secondary education. Participants exchanged best practices on the effective use of ICT in different stages of the teaching and learning process. Alexander’s keynote talk was entitled: “The Role of Web 3.0 and Blockchain in the Future of Education”. In his talk, Alexander discussed the potential impact that emerging decentralisation technologies, such as Web 3.0 and Blockchain, can have on the future of education. In particular, Alexander presented the pilot that he has led in the context of the European project QualiChain. Within this pilot, Alexander has investigated the use of decentralisation technologies towards providing lifelong learners with transparent and immutable educational accreditation. A key output of this pilot is the Badged Open Course (BOC): “Decentralising Education Using Blockchain Technology”, which introduces Blockchain technology and its potential for decentralising and transforming education. The course is available on the Open University’s OpenLearn Create platform and is licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0, which allows the reuse and adaptation of the course materials for non-commercial purposes. Upon completion of the course, learners earn a free statement of participation.
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