Document Type

Article

Source of Publication

IEEE Access

Publication Date

1-1-2023

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.

ISSN

2169-3536

Publisher

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE)

Disciplines

Computer Sciences

Keywords

Blockchain, Blockchains, Databases, Education, Ethereum, Security, Security, Smart Contract, Smart contracts, Testing, Throughput, Traceability, Trust, University Ranking

Scopus ID

85149860146

Indexed in Scopus

yes

Open Access

yes

Open Access Type

Gold: This publication is openly available in an open access journal/series

Download

Share

COinS