[ad_1]
A paper diploma can take about 8-10 weeks to arrive by mail, causing heartburn for students who want to get to work immediately after graduation. So a university with about 1,000 students from South Carolina offers its graduates the ability to receive their credentials via a mobile app, immediately and securely.
The Polytechnic Institute of the East Coast, branded as ECPI, has secondary offices in Charleston, Greenville and Columbia, as well as in North Carolina, Virginia, Florida and Texas. He started giving students the opportunity to view and send their diplomas to potential employers through the blockchain quest & # 39; summer.
Blockchain is better known for feeding the digital currency Bitcoin. Most resources describe it as a ledger that tracks transactions. It is a decentralized database: no person or entity has control or supervision over these transactions.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology developed – and was one of the first to adopt – digital diplomas in 2017. Credentials are permanent, even though MIT as an institution has never gone away, and tamper-proof, says a press release from the institute.
Graduates can download Blockcerts, a mobile phone application developed through a partnership between MIT and Massachusetts Machine. ECPI has sent invitations to all graduates since August. If the students agree, the university can send them the credentials through the app, which they could then share with potential employers.
April Price, director of academic operations for ECPI, said the university has put together detailed instructions for students on how to access their diplomas, if they wish.
"They can open it and it looks like something you can hang on the wall," Price said.
The blockchain diploma takes away the problem of people who falsify credentials, said Price, with which higher education institutions struggled too late. But he said it was not the driving force behind the ECPI decision to start offering credentials in this way. It is in line with the mission of the university to be at the forefront of technology, he said. Although many students attend online courses at the ECPI, they also have a campus on Northside Drive in North Charleston.
Comment: The College of Charleston prelate affirms that false university qualifications are a growing problem
Soon, ECPI will start offering verified digital transcripts to students too.
At least one university, the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, has adopted technology for all its programs, Forbes reports.
From the invention of the blockchain in 2008 and from the adoption of the crypto-currency bitcoins that followed, believers shared great hopes for technology that shakes the way business is done. But if blockchain is going to stop the way the institutions conduct their business, it could happen at a slower pace than some do not foresee.
"The real transformation of business and government driven by blockchain, we believe, is still a long way off", the analysis of the Harvard Business Review wrote last year. "This is because blockchain is not a" disruptive "technology, which can attack a traditional business model with a low-cost solution and quickly overcome the companies already established".
Directory Tech
The Charleston Digital Corridor has released a new directory of local companies called CharlestonPros. The digital corridor, a technology-driven economic development group, will monitor all applicants and include only those they consider suitable for working with local technology companies.
The resource is not different from Better Business BureauThe website, with the exception of the lists of the companies included, is tailor-made for the Charleston technology community.
The new website, charlestonpros.com, is still in beta. It features lists of companies in legal services, marketing, software services and more.
To reach Mary Katherine Wildeman 843-937-5594. Follow her on Twitter @mkwildeman.
[ad_2]Source link
