Blockchain Technologies and Their Impact on Game-Based Education and Learning Assessment

Abstract

New problems emerge as digital space becomes not only a space for teaching and learning, but also for evaluating learning success and for storing and exchanging learning credentials. The paper discusses two strains of innovative education: (1) the merging of game-based learning with the game-based assessment of learning success and (2) the use of blockchain-based technologies to enable the secure storage and exchange of educational credits and learning credentials. First, different strategies of combining learning and assessment are distinguished, and the concept of “Integrated Game-based Learning/Assessment (GBL/A)” is introduced as the most promising, but also the most challenging form of game-based assessment. As moving already sensitive data like educational credits and learning credentials to digital environments heightens the need for security and trust even further, the paper takes a closer look at blockchain-based technologies and their promise to deliver secure and transparent storage of data, while at the same time giving users control over how this data is used in a specific context. The potential of blockchain-based technologies in the educational sector is discussed and put in relation to GBL/A. And finally, this potential (and probable success) of blockchain-based technologies is pointed out as a strong argument to strive, in good time, for an “Ethics of permanent storage.”