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The Taiwanese startup, TuringChain offers educational institutions, students, and enterprises a new way of certification and authentication with the blockchain-powered solution TuringCerts. According to its CEO, a quarter of all data on LinkedIn is fake or exaggerated, while 27% of degrees can be bought online. TuringCerts’ creates an anti-counterfeit e-portfolio for students, and educational institutions receive a digital cache, which they can use to issue certificates.TuringCerts uses Smart Identification and protects digital certificates from manipulation.

Over 90 medical students from Inha University in Incheon, west of Seoul, were found to have cheated during remote exams. They gathered at a specific location in a group of two to nine to take tests together or to compare their answers via telephone or social media platforms. To prevent its recurrence, the university demands students to submit an oath of academic honesty, use an online proctor system, and videotape themselves taking the tests. Those who are suspected of cheating could be required to take a verbal test.

According to the International Center for Academic Integrity, about 68 % of undergraduate students and about 43 % of graduate students admit to cheating on tests or in written assignments. Several studies point to a similar problem in high school. Technology has made it easier to cheat in exams and on writing assignments, but it is also making it increasingly easier to be caught.

In order to cope with the assessment demands of rapidly growing student numbers, and rising incidents of grade tampering and cheating, many African universities are exploring the option of e-exams. While the traditional systems can go as far as bribe-taking by lecturers, invigilators and supervisors as well as examination leakages, e -exams might not be suitable for testing skills like synthesizing information, understanding evidence, critical problem-solving.

The University College London (UCL) has declared that its Centre for Blockchain technologies has recently finalized a pilot program permitting MSc graduates in Financial Risk Management to offer immediate confirmation of the academic qualification via bitcoin. London-based startup Gradbase has developed a platform in which all graduates in 2016-2017 of the above course mention can register their degree credential. The validity of this information is verified by the school and followed by the system providing a transaction approving the genuineness of these degrees through bitcoin.