Blockchain used by University of St. Gallen to record diplomas

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One of the most prestigious universities in the world is looking to ensure that they keep their standard of excellence. The University of St. Gallen announced last week that they will now be using blockchain-based technology as a means of authenticating their diplomas.

This new tamperproof certificate will be available by next year and comes at a time when there is a growing concern over people who are fraudulently creating and using diplomas that they did not earn. This new platform will help to stop this kind of activity, at least at one university. People will be able to authenticate the authenticity of a diploma within a matter of a few seconds, as opposed to having to wait days or even weeks to do so prior to this.

St. Gallen CIO Harald Rotter stated, “I saw that it could be necessary and it could be a valid use case to transfer or to make easier to validate our diplomas based on a digital process on the blockchain.”

To accomplish this goal, the university will partner with Swiss blockchain startup company BlockFactory. They will provide the platform using Ethereum blockchain which will create immutable diplomas.

This University is not the only one seeing this as a huge problem. Recently, the Malaysian Ministry of Education revealed that they will be implementing the E-Skrol software program that is using NEM blockchain technology. This will be used to authenticate diplomas and to ensure that people are not claiming fake degrees, which is having a negative impact upon their higher education system of the country.

Regarding the new system, Malaysia’s Minister of Education, Dr. Maszlee Malik, remarked, “There are people who latch on to the reputation of Malaysian public universities to improve their profiles by displaying fake certificates. I believe the blockchain application can change this situation.”

Bahrain is also taking steps to ensure the authenticity of their diplomas. In January of this year, the University of Bahrain announced that they would be issuing diplomas using blockchain technology. In June, the Canadian Tech Institute also issued a statement that they would be providing diplomas to their next graduating class where blockchain technology was used. This meant that 4800 graduating students became the first to receive blockchain-based degrees.

St. Gallen is not even the first Swiss University to offer blockchain-based diplomas. In 2018, the University of Basel issued 100 students their certificates using the Ethereum main net blockchain.