Towards Decentralized Academic Credential Management in Higher Education: Enhancing Security, Efficiency and Transparency - A Comprehensive Review

Academic credentials are representative evidence for knowledge or skills gained over a stipulated period of time by individuals. These credentials are expected to carry unique features that identify a particular individual. They should be managed and processed in such a way that they are secure and tampered proof. Traditional methods of credential management are characterized by inefficiency and vulnerability to fraud, forgery and manipulation. They also depend on intermediary centralized authorities which create bottle neck in the verification of credentials. Decentralized technologies such as blockchain and self-sovereign identity offer transformative alternatives to management and processing of academic credentials that could overcome the challenges with traditional methods. This paper presents a comprehensive review on the challenges in the traditional system of education, focusing on academic credential management and the use of decentralized technology for credential management. In this regard, existing literature that relates to three important issues (efficiency, transparency and security of data) in academic credential management is reviewed. Several studies on academic credential management that are based on blockchain technology have been reviewed and analyzed. More specifically, a comparative analysis of different credential management models in terms of efficiency, security and transparency is conducted. Based on the findings from this survey, a decentralized, efficient, transparent, immutable and secure solution for academic credential management in HEIs is possible. This survey contributes to the growing body of knowledge and can form a foundation for this important area of research. The identified research gaps are discussed, and recommendations are made as guide to future research direction in the adoption and implementation of decentralized credential management system in HEIs.