Using Blockchain for Enabling Transparent, Traceable, and Trusted University Ranking Systems

Abstract

Ranking systems have proven to improve the quality of education and help build the reputation of academic institutions. Each of the current academic ranking systems is based on different methodologies, criteria, and standards of measurement. Academic and employer reputations are subjective indicators of some rankings determined through surveying that is neither transparent nor traceable. The current academic ranking systems fall short of providing transparency and traceability features for both subjective and objective indicators that are used to calculate the ranking. Also, the ranking systems are managed and controlled in a centralized manner by specific entities. This raises concerns about fairness and trust. In this paper, we propose a blockchain-based solution to enable transparent, traceable, trusted, and decentralized academic ranking systems. We develop smart contracts to automatically govern entity interactions according to set policies. We leverage decentralized storage, oracles, and threshold encryption to securely fetch, store, and share institutions’ ranking data. We present algorithms along with their implementation and testing details, as well as validate smart contracts. The proposed solution is evaluated in terms of cost, throughput and latency, and security to show its affordability, resiliency against attacks, and superiority. All developed smart contract codes are made publicly available on GitHub.

Keywords

• University ranking
• blockchain
• Ethereum
• smart contract
• trust
• security