Master's Thesis Dominik Gerbershagen

Within the educational sector, credentials are the most sensitive and valuable documents that one can obtain. Receiving a credential is a milestone for each person and can be of significant importance for his or her career. Contrary to current digitization efforts, credentials are still issued in printed formats. To support the paradigm of lifelong learning and equally enable people to share and store credentials safely, these credentials have to be digitized. Yet, digitization is prone to errors and counterfeit. Therefore, the domain of digital credentialing has emerged.

With the rise of the blockchain-based technology, tamper-proof and immutable storage systems have emerged. What first seemed to be a solution for currency systems parallel to the governmental ones has more and more developed into an architecture for protecting and verifying data. Thus, new business models have been created around the concept of immutability, transparency and distribution. One of these concepts is digital credentialing. This thesis investigates the current state of the art and practice in terms of research and standardization for this domain.

Prior to the investigation of the state of the art and practice, an overview of current blockchain systems and identification methods is provided. Both subjects are relevant for current digital credentialing systems. Blockchain-based systems feature verification and immutability mechanisms by design and is a widely adopted technology in the investigated sample. Identification methods are relevant to create a relationship between virtual entities and analogue counterparts.

Afterwards, specifications such as IMS OpenBadges and the Verifiable Credentials one by the World Wide Web Consortium are investigated. Based on a technical and functional analysis, a framework is established. This framework serves as a foundation to investigate the current state of the practice. Eighteen practitioners and ten research projects are investigated by applying the framework to them. The gathered data is then aggregated and analyzed to demonstrate similarities and differences within and across the peer-groups. Conclusively, the data is evaluated to form an impression of the current state of the practice.