A Consortium Blockchain‐Based Secure and Trusted Electronic Portfolio Management Scheme

Abstract

In recent times, electronic portfolios (e‐portfolios) are being increasingly used by students and lifelong learners as digital online multimedia résumés that showcase their skill sets and achievements. E‐portfolios require secure, reliable, and privacy‐preserving credential issuance and verification mechanisms to prove learning achievements. However, existing systems provide private institution‐wide centralized solutions that primarily rely on trusted third parties to issue and verify credentials. Furthermore, they do not enable learners to own, control, and share their e‐portfolio information across organizations, which increases the risk of forged and fraudulent credentials. Therefore, we propose a consortium blockchain‐based e‐portfolio management scheme that is decentralized, secure, and trustworthy. Smart contracts are leveraged to enable learners to completely own, publish, and manage their e‐portfolios, and also enable potential employers to verify e‐port-folio credentials and artifacts without relying on trusted third parties. Blockchain is used as an immutable distributed ledger that records all transactions and logs for tamper‐proof trusted data provenance, accountability, and traceability. This system guarantees the authenticity and integrity of user credentials and e‐portfolio data. Decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials are used for user profile identification, authentication, and authorization, whereas verifiable claims are used for e‐portfolio credential proof authentication and verification. We have designed and implemented a prototype of the proposed scheme using a Quorum consortium blockchain network. Based on the evaluations, our solution is feasible, secure, and privacy‐preserving. It offers excellent performance.