A Blockchain-Based Conceptual Model for Curbing Institutional Academic Certificate Fraud

Abstract

There is need of certificate authentication mechanism in Africa, specifically in Kenya that will solve internal fraud activities. This is because there are many fake certificates in circulation that appear to be genuine but were obtained illegal from accredited universities. This is caused by the assumption that certificates being issued at the university are authentic. While authentication of the final academic certificate has been studied in previous research, many researchers focused on securing the final academic certificate and assumed that all certificates issued by universities are genuine thus creating a loophole for institutional certificate fraud. It’s possible for clients looking to get an academic certificate illegally to collude with university staff, who are responsible for generating the certificates, to acquire a legitimate academic certificate without going through the academic process. The purpose of this research is to develop a blockchain based model that solves the current problem of institutional certificate fraud. The research targets only Kenya public universities. Sampling will be done using simple random sampling to identify a few universities that will participate in the study. A combination of secondary data and primary data will be used in the research. Secondary data will be used to test the model while primary data will be used to construct the data mapping structure/model. Primary Data will be collected from the registry department using questionnaires and interviews while the sample will be obtained using stratified sampling. The model will be deployed using permissioned blockchain. The proposed model will have controls to ensure a student goes through the entire learning process before he is awarded an academic certificate.