The potential of blockchain technology is immense and is currently regarded as a new technological trend with a rapid growth rate. Blockchain platforms like Bitcoin are public, open, and permission-less. They are also decentralized, immutable, and append-only ledger; those ledgers can store any type of data and are shared among all the participants of the network. These platforms provide a high degree of anonymity for their users' identity and full transparency of the activities recorded on the ledger while simultaneously ensuring data security and tamper-resistance. All nodes on the network collectively work to validate the same set of data and to achieve group consensus. Blockchain platforms like Ethereum have the ability to develop smart contracts and embed business logic. This allows the use of blockchain beyond cryptocurrency as a business management solution. Besides the issues of scalability and the expensive nature of most blockchain systems, many attributes of traditional public blockchain are not desirable in a business or enterprise context such as anonymity, full transparency, and permissionless. Permissioned blockchain platforms like Hyperledger Fabric are designed and built with enterprise and business in mind, retaining the desirable qualities of blockchain for enterprise while replacing the qualities of blockchain that are undesirable for the enterprise. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review on the Hyperledger enterprise blockchain technologies.
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Development of Online Modules for Teaching Blockchain
Blockchain technology enables the creation of a distributed and tamper-proof ledger, even in the presence of untrusted agents. While much financial resources and attention are devoted to blockchain tools, the underlying technology is not well understood by the general population. This paper presents a newly developed online tool that allows users to learn and create their own blockchain, with a graphical user interface and code. The module is freely available on nanoHUB.org and describes all components of the blockchain, including the SHA256, Proof of Work, and other features that enable the blockchain to function as a tamper-proof ledger. This tool has been utilized to instruct students without prior knowledge of blockchain technology, and the survey of students’ responses demonstrates that this tool is an effective way of teaching the general population about blockchain technology.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2000281
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10497326
- Publisher / Repository:
- Zenodo
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of advanced technological education
- Volume:
- 2
- Issue:
- 2
- ISSN:
- 2832-9635
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- 64-77
- Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
- Blockchain SHA256 Proof of Work online education collaborative research
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
-
Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.8313228
