Educational Certificate Verification System: Enhancing Security and Authenticity using Ethereum Blockchain and IPFS

Authors

  • Rafah Amer Jaafar Department of Computer Science, College of Science, Mustansiriyah University, 10052 Baghdad, IRAQ. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6871-630X
  • Saad Najim Alsaad Department of Computer Science, College of Science, Mustansiriyah University, 10052 Baghdad, IRAQ.
  • Mohammed Naji Al-Kabi Department of Information Technology, Al-Buraimi University College, OMAN.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.23851/mjs.v35i1.1461

Keywords:

Blockchain technology, Educational certificate verification, Ethereum blockchain, InterPlanetary File System (IPFS), Decentralized architecture, Certificate counterfeiting, Ropsten test network

Abstract

Educational certificate counterfeiting is a major global challenge. There is no doubt that addressing both the problem of forgery and the verification of academic certificates is a fundamental issue that deserves research, development, and support at the highest levels. This paper presents a decentralized educational certificate verification system leveraging the Ethereum blockchain and the InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) to combat counterfeiting. Ropsten is used as a real-life Ethereum test network to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed system. IPFS is used to store educational certificate files on a decentralised file system. The smart contract is built in the Solidity language, compiled, and deployed using the online Remix IDE. The verification process is supported by scanning a QR code, which retrieves the validating certificate’s information from the Ethereum network in real-time.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

S. Rasool, et al. (2020) "Docschain: Blockchain-based IoT solution for verification of degree documents," IEEE Transactions on Computational Social Systems, vol. 7, No. 3, pp. 827-837.

CrossRef

D. Kulkarni, (2021) "Leveraging Blockchain technology in the Education Sector," Turkish Journal of Computer and Mathematics Education (TURCOMAT), vol. 12, no. 10, pp. 4578-4583.

C. Turcu, C. Turcu, et al. (2019) "Blockchain and its Potential in Education," arXiv preprint arXiv:1903.09300.

W. Gräther, et al. (2018) "Blockchain for education: lifelong learning passport," in Proceedings of 1st ERCIM Blockchain workshop 2018, 2018: European Society for Socially Embedded Technologies (EUSSET).

V. Chukowry, et al. (2021) "The future of continuous learning-Digital badge and microcredential system using blockchain," Global Transitions Proceedings, vol. 2, No. 2, pp. 355-361.

CrossRef

A. Tariq, et al. (2019) "Cerberus: A blockchain-based accreditation and degree verification system," arXiv preprint arXiv:1912.06812.

D. Serranito, et al. (2020) "Blockchain ecosystem for verifiable qualifications," in 2020 2nd Conference on Blockchain Research & Applications for Innovative Networks and Services (BRAINS), 2020: IEEE, pp. 192-199.

CrossRef

B. M. Nguyen, et al.(2020) "Towards a blockchain-based certificate authentication system in Vietnam," PeerJ Computer Science, vol. 6, p. e266.

CrossRef | PubMed

R. A. Mishra, et al. (2021) "Privacy protected blockchain based architecture and implementation for sharing of students' credentials," Information Processing & Management, vol. 58, No. 3, p. 102512.

CrossRef

E. Leka, et al. (2021) "Development and Evaluation of Blockchain based Secure Application for Verification and Validation of Academic Certificates," Annals of Emerging Technologies in Computing (AETiC), vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 22-36.

CrossRef

Z. Zheng, et al. (2017) "An overview of blockchain technology: Architecture, consensus, and future trends," in 2017 IEEE international congress on big data (BigData congress), 2017: IEEE, pp. 557-564.

CrossRef

A. I. Sanka, et al.( 2021) "A survey of breakthrough in blockchain technology: Adoptions, applications, challenges and future research," Computer Communications.

CrossRef

T. M. Fernández-Carames, et al. (2020) "Towards post-quantum blockchain: A review on blockchain cryptography resistant to quantum computing attacks," IEEE access, vol. 8, pp. 21091-21116.

CrossRef

G. Zheng, et al.( 2021) Ethereum Smart Contract Development in Solidity, 1st ed., Springer.

CrossRef

F. Ma et al. (2021) "Security reinforcement for Ethereum virtual machine," Information Processing & Management, vol. 58, No. 4, p. 102565.

CrossRef

A. Vacca, et al. (2020) "A systematic literature review of blockchain and smart contract development: Techniques, tools, and open challenges," Journal of Systems and Software, p. 110891.

CrossRef

S. Bistarelli, et al. (2020) "Ethereum smart contracts: Analysis and statistics of their source code and opcodes," Internet of Things, vol. 11, p. 100198.

CrossRef

T. Osterland, et al. (2020) "Model checking smart contracts for ethereum," Pervasive and Mobile Computing, vol. 63, p. 101129.

CrossRef

R. M. A. Latif, et al. (2020) "A remix IDE: smart contract-based framework for the healthcare sector by using Blockchain technology," Multimedia Tools and Applications, pp. 1-24.

W.-M. Lee, (2019) Beginning ethereum smart contracts programming: With Examples in Python, Solidity and JavaScript, 1st ed.

CrossRef

N. Nizamuddin, et al. (2019) "Decentralized document version control using ethereum blockchain and IPFS," Computers & Electrical Engineering, vol. 76, pp. 183-197.

CrossRef

F. R. Vidal, et al. (2020) "Revocation mechanisms for academic certificates stored on a blockchain," in 2020 15th Iberian Conference on Information Systems and Technologies (CISTI), 2020: IEEE, pp. 1-6.

CrossRef

K. M. Alam, et al. (2020) "A Blockchain-based Land Title Management System for Bangladesh," Journal of King Saud University-Computer and Information Sciences.

A. Muwafaq, S. Alsaad, (2021) "Design scheme for copyright management system using Blockchain and IPFS, " International Journal of Computing and Digital Systems, 10, 613-618.

CrossRef

Downloads

Key Dates

Received

26-05-2023

Revised

05-07-2023

Accepted

16-08-2023

Published

30-03-2024

Issue

Section

Original Article

How to Cite

[1]
R. A. Jaafar, S. N. Alsaad, and M. N. . Al-Kabi, “Educational Certificate Verification System: Enhancing Security and Authenticity using Ethereum Blockchain and IPFS”, Al-Mustansiriyah J. Sci., vol. 35, no. 1, pp. 78–87, Mar. 2024, doi: 10.23851/mjs.v35i1.1461.

Similar Articles

1-10 of 211

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.

Most read articles by the same author(s)