MIT Case Study with Chris Jagers, Learning Machine CEO, and Mary Callahan, Senior Associate Dean and Registrar

1. Verifiable Digital Records and the Blockchain
#EDUCAUSE2018
Featured Speakers
Mary Callahan, MIT Senior Associate Dean and Registrar
Chris Jagers, CEO Learning Machine

3. Social currency is now digital.

4. Traditional formats losing currency.
50% of all
PhDs fake
2M bogus medical
practitioners
Diploma mills
$1B industry

5. Give people social currency.

6. Global Verification Network
#blockchain

7. New Records
Digital
Recipient Owned
Vendor Independent
Tamper Proof
Easily Shareable
Cost Effective
Full Interoperable
Instant Verification
Data Rich
Human Readable
Machine Readable
Data Analytics
Social currency
must be useful.
Old Records
Physical
Slow
Expensive
Easy to Fake

8. Blockchain
secured.
www.learningmachine.com

9. The Digital Diploma at MIT:
A Case Study

10. Why would a Registrar be
interested in the blockchain?

12. Because we want to…
• Empower students to own their records
• Reduce fraud
• Increase immediacy of information
• Help students build a lifelong portfolio of credentials

13. Empower students to own their records

15. Reduce fraud
Some fake diplomas
are easy to spot.

16. Some are a
little trickier.

17. Verification

18. Increase immediacy of information
Registrar’s Office
National Student Clearinghouse
State government (Apostille process)

20. Build a lifelong portfolio of credentials

21. Why MIT?
• MIT as innovator
• Blockcerts developed at MIT
• Learning Machine’s partnership
• Forward-thinking students

22. The Timeline
2015
2016
Fall 2016
June 2017
June 2018
• Philipp Schmidt and Media Lab
• Blockcerts developed
• Mary and Chris connect
• Pilot begins
• Full-scale implementation

23. Preparing for the pilot
• Understand the technology
• Work with MIT IS&T
• Develop implementation timeline
• Choose pilot cohort
• Masters of Finance
• Masters of Science in Media Arts and Sciences
• Develop communication plan

24. Our digital diploma process
• Student receives invitation to
download Blockcerts Wallet app
• When downloaded, Blockcerts
app generates private key
• Student adds MIT as an issuer

25. Process
Create JSON File. Anchor signed hash on blockchain. Send to graduates.

26. Visual Depiction
In the Blockcerts app

27. {"recipient": {"recipientProfile": {"publicKey": "ecdsa-
koblitz-pubkey:1JZTTpyuZ1ZSNq9UsHTr7TpQLDEeAVjfTZ",
"type": ["RecipientProfile", "Extension"], "name": "Brian
Canavan"}, "type": "email", "hashed": false, "identity":
"bcanavan@mit.edu"}, "universalIdentifier":
"3db1171c-2c2b-5ad9-9e03-4df037369acf", "@context":
["https://openbadgespec.org/v2/context.json", "https://
www.blockcerts.org/schema/2.0-alpha/context.json",
{"displayHtml": {"@type": "https://
schemas.learningmachine.com/2017/types/text/html",
"@id": "https://schemas.learningmachine.com/2017/
blockcerts/displayHtml"}, "metadataJson": {"@type":
"https://schemas.learningmachine.com/2017/types/text/
json", "@id": data:image/
A JSON file of the
diploma is emailed to
the student

28. Issuances
• Pilot Phase I: June 2017
▪ 45 out of 111 eligible students receive digital diplomas
• Pilot Phase II: September 2017 & February 2018
▪ 271 out of 628 eligible students receive digital diplomas
• Full Implementation: June 2018
▪ First opportunity for all graduating MIT students to participate
▪ 794 out of 2,661 receive digital diplomas

29. In the past year…

30. What did we learn?
• Students had to figure out how to interact with the app.
• Learning Machine needed to further develop its dashboard, data reporting, and
direct data exchange.
• Our internal process must be iterative and reactive to students’ needs.
• There are financial considerations for institutions.
• Although interest in digital credentials is evident, the definition of success from
MIT’s use case is still to be determined.

31. What’s next?
• Increase number of students receiving digital diplomas
• Align process with Commencement
• Collaborate with other institutions and entities to encourage use of
digital credentials
• Continue to serve and empower the student and lifelong learner
• Facilitate trust

32. credential (n.)
from the Latin credere: “to believe, trust”

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