Novel blockchain-based framework to publish, verify, and store digital academic credentials of universities

Blockchain is the technology of choice to create cryptocurrency and bitcoins through the maintenance of immutable distributed ledgers in multiple nodes. Analysis indicates that less emphasis is being placed on the implementation of Blockchain in the educational sector. Most of the academic applications, apply the weak proof of work or proof of stack as their consensus mechanism. This research proposes a model based on blockchain technology that will publish, verify, and store academic credentials of university stakeholders through the trustworthy proof of authority (PoA) as its consensus mechanism. The web-based model also introduces smart contract for issuing the certificate to the blockchain network and file listing mechanism for revocation of issued digital certificate.