Designing hyperledger indy blockchain to electronically certify students' academic credentials

Abstract

Purpose of the research paper is to investigate available blockchain technologies and identify one that can be adapted as a solution to electronically verify academic credentials of a person. The general objective is to investigate types of open-sources and Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) compatible cloud-based blockchain platforms in the market with specific research objectives to identify security features and consensus mechanism, and systems architecture of the solution, respectively. The methodology used for the research is qualitative in nature to reviewing literatures. Hyperledger Indy is found to be a good fit for the solution because it is DIDs compatible, and its inherent security features and consensus mechanism are highly secure. A high-level use case of the solution and systems architecture is created based on the security features that utilizes Zero-Knowledge Proof (ZKP) scheme and Redundant Byzantine Fault Tolerant (RBFT) consensus mechanism. This study itself is and evidence that the free resources made available by the Hyperledger Indy project enables organizations to design and develop prototypes per their requirements. Benefits of the research paper are further validating the potential use of DIDs compatible blockchain framework to electronically certify verifiable credentials, and realization of shifting the ownership of credentials from third-party entities to the users themselves through use of Self-sovereignty Identity (SSI) feature.