Arizona State University initiates blockchain project with SalesForce to improve college completion rate

College degrees have become incredibly important for getting productive jobs these days and the Arizona State University intends to make sure that as many students get them as possible. One of the ways it intends to do so is through the blockchain initiative that it plans on launching. Through it, collecting data about credits earned from those transferring from a community college will be easier.

Reliable methods of collecting college credit data have been an issue for completing college courses. This is why so many students end up without even an associate’s degree after transferring to Arizona State University, the school’s publication, Inside Higher Ed reports. Through a blockchain platform, however, it would become easier to transfer credit from another school in order to complete a student’s course requirements.

Through its partnership with SalesForce, the university's central enterprise unit EdPlus is currently working to develop the network. However, EdPlus CTO Donna Kidwell stressed that data transfer is just one small part of what this project can do. As just an example, she noted how refugee qualifications can be verified by schools through the network.

“We would like to do work in that space, but it’s a really hard issue to solve,” she said and then later adding, “We have quite a lot of sophistication in our transfer credit system already -- we know what it takes to map the learning experience of one institution to another,” she said. “So we’re not starting from scratch. We already have processes in place.”

Even with all of these benefits to using blockchain, however, the path will still not be easy for the university, Cointelegraph reports. To start with, there will be plenty of questions with regards to the sustainability of such an initiative. The minute details about data sharing through just one platform will take some work to promote to other schools, as well.