A BLOCKCHAIN-BASED MODEL FOR CURBING INSTITUTIONAL ACADEMIC CERTIFICATE FRAUD

Abstract

There is need for a certificate authentication mechanism in Africa to solve internal academic certificate fraud activities. This is because some fake certificates in circulation appear to be genuine but were obtained illegally from credible learning institutions. This is caused by an assumption that certificates being issued at the university are authentic. While authentication of the final academic certificate was studied in previous research, many researchers focused on securing the final academic certificate and assumed that all certificates issued by institutions were genuine thus creating a loophole for institutional academic certificate fraud. The purpose of this research was to develop a blockchain based model that curbs institutional academic certificate fraud. The research target population was public universities in Kenya. Sampling was done using simple random sampling to identify universities to participate in the study. Secondary data was used to validate the model while primary data was used to construct the data mapping structure. Primary data was collected from the registry department and examination using questionnaires while secondary data was collected using document review. Smart contracts were written using the GOLANG and deployed to the hypledger fabric. APIs are used to interact with the model to insert or retrieve data. The model has controls (smart contracts) to ensure a student goes through the entire learning process before he is awarded an academic certificate. To validate the model, experiments were carried using the secondary data. The results of the experiments shows that the model prevents internal fraud by making sure that only students registered in the blockchain and who completed the academic requirements can receive their academic certificates. Verification of the academic certificate is done by simply scanning a QR Code embedded on the academic certificate using a developed mobile app. The model only validates certificates whose certificate information was generated by the model. Ensuring that certificates originating from universities are authentic will retain or increase the reputation and credibility of the institution. On the other hand, employers and other interested parties will also give jobs to qualified people thus increasing the throughput and general job performance