What is the OBEC Project?

The OBEC Project (One Block for Educational Credentials) is a KA2 Strategic Partnership which is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The OBEC consortium consists of five partners from Belgium (EURADA – Association Europeenne Des Agences Developpement), Croatia (SIMORA – Regional Development Agency of Sisak-Moslavina County), Italy LAI-MOMO Società Cooperativa Sociale & Università degli studi di Urbino Carlo Bo) and is coordinated by SwIdeas (Sweden).

The OBEC Project aims to explore the potential of Blockchain technology to promote the recognition of competencies and educational qualifications with an inclusion approach using the cutting-edge Blockchain technology. The initiative seeks to encourage the professional and academic integration of migrants, exchange students, and individuals with informal learning backgrounds. Project partners evaluated the ECTA platform which was utilized in the testing phase by awarding certifications to graduates of training sessions completed earlier this year.

The project’s first intellectual output (IO1: Naming the Barriers) described the difficulties the project’s target audience faces while attempting to obtain access to the labour and/or academic market in a country other than their own. It also described the perceptions of educational institutions as well as Erasmus offices regarding the introduction of the blockchain technology to promote the recognition of certifications.  Finally, it explored the perspectives of companies that work with the technology and of experts that could shed light into the opportunities for it to be included in the educational context.

The target audience indicated that obtaining recognition of competencies and/or certification is extremely difficult. This is accompanied by a significant gap between the available tools and those that users are more familiar with, according to OBEC research. Additionally, it appears that those who require EU-developed tools the most are given the least amount of information about them. This raises the question of how the gap between the issuers and receivers of educational credentials can be met, and to what extent Blockchain technology can be instrumental in doing so.

Concerning the European status of Blockchain technology, two issues have been reported. Firstly, it is frequently linked to cryptocurrencies and thus perceived as unstable and insecure, while the very opposite applies to the technology. Secondly, having an all-encompassing system of school certificates for all topics is another potential issue with blockchain technology. It is difficult to certify some disciplines across multiple institutions since they do not lend themselves readily to proper objective evaluations (and countries). This raises the question of how Blockchain’s challenges could be overcome to create an all-encompassing system. Read more about such considerations in the final report of intellectual output 1.

Inspiring Revolutionary Educational Credentials

The project's consortium conducted a mapping exercise among the existing platforms during the timeline of intellectual output 2 (Inspiring Revolutionary Credentials - IO2) to explore existing platforms and be able to identify the badge system technicalities that was then utilized to test the applicability and possibilities of the use of blockchain in the educational sector. This effort also fulfils the consortium's identification of needs taking into consideration the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) general strategy. The project's consortium conducted a mapping exercise among the existing platforms during the time-line of IO2 to define the feasible technicalities on existing platforms to be able to identify the badge system technicalities which was utilised in the testing phase that also fulfils the consortium's identification of needs taking into consideration the European Blockchain Services Infrastructure (EBSI) general strategy.

The OBEC project brought into practice the findings of IO1 and the mapping efforts of the initial phase of IO2  by testing the cutting-edge ECTA platform, which uses blockchain to issue and store educational certificates, through a small-scale testing effort. This was carried out by organising training sessions after which participants had their skills, competences, and credentials verified and recognized through ECTA. Each partner organised training courses according to their experience and expertise. The resulting course contents are divided into four chapters. The first chapter entails the training sessions held about the Circular Economy and Entrepreneurship. Chapter two is comprised of the course materials related to Tailoring. Chapter three is centred on Gaming, Coding and Technology. Finally, chapter four is about Logic and Critical Thinking.

Lessons learned

In May 2022, the project partners came together at the University of Urbino’s premises in Italy to discuss the results of the testing effort and the lessons learned. The project partners concluded that the ECTA platform has big potential for future use. Concerns were raised about ECTA’s brand awareness among individuals, the issuers of educational credentials, and the final employers. Furthermore, the wish to be able to connect the platform with channels such as LinkedIn came forward. This raised the question of how the platform can gain visibility toward its target audience.  

Furthermore, project partners exchanged experiences in their participants’ use of the programme. It was agreed upon that when the programme registration was done collectively during the training courses, participation was significantly higher.

Though participants, especially from outside of the EU, mentioned having experienced difficulties getting their educational credentials recognised, some participants did not fully grasp the necessity and the use of the platform and sometimes preferred a PDF format of their certification. This shows that the current culture around educational certifications still prevails. This culture, while focusing on paper and PDF certifications, lacks easy, trusted, and transparent means for verification, with negative consequences especially for people moving across countries.

During these meetings, the partners thus agreed that, for people to understand the benefits associated with certifying people through blockchain and how this can be an improvement compared to the usual certification methods, participants must comprehend the technology. Therefore, partners concluded that it is recommended that training sessions include a brief description of Blockchain technology. To increase the usage of the platform and similar alternatives, it is also vital that this recognition method gains recognition from authorities and companies. Finally, enabling the wider usage of blockchain in the educational sector will further require support from authorities towards changing the current culture around educational certifications in order to emphasize the benefits of blockchain-verified certifications and promote a shift from paper diplomas and certifications.

Therefore, the project’s endeavours contributed to expanding the knowledge and understanding of the potentials the Blockchain technology has for the educational sector.  Improved understanding of this potential can be adopted by the educational policies that impact the recognition of educational credentials. An important consideration for future projects is finding out whether the adult education and VET sectors have complementary innovative initiatives to build on what OBEC project started in upskilling the educators and in other educational thematic areas.

Next steps

The project’s Final event will take place on 22 September in Brussels where all these questions and the results of the project’s lessons will be presented to the audience. Speakers coming from all around Europe will discuss the use of Blockchain technology and its application in training and education for the Recognition of skills and certifications.

Please visit this link to register for the event. For any further queries, please do not hesitate to contact Erasmus+ Junior Project Officer Jip Lenssen.