Mecanismo de consenso em uma rede ponto a ponto distribuída para validação e registros de diplomas universitários

Abstract

The way Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) issues, records and manage academic credentials is still a manual, bureaucratic process that is susceptible to errors and fraud. Fraud in university degrees is a worldwide problem. In Brazil, for example, in a single case 65,000 illegal degrees were registered. Under the Brazilian federal education system, 84% of active HEIs do not have the prerogative to register their higher education diplomas, so these HEIs contract the service of a university HEI. In this context, illegal settlements and abuse of power can occur, requiring reorganization and standardization of the process of issuing, validating and registering diplomas. This dissertation analyzed how to organize HEIs to form a collaborative peer-to-peer network for the issuance and registration of diplomas, in compliance with the current legislation. For this, we defined a taxonomy of terms of diploma fraud, we analyzed the current legislation, and we reviewed the MEC technical literature for diploma fraud, as well as the literature on the use of blockchain applied to this problem. Finally, we proposed a conceptual model of a consensus mechanism, defining the requirements, characteristics, and their specific functionalities for the issuance, validation and degree registration. The proposed taxonomy pointed us to four main types of university degree fraud in Brazil, and we noted that the current legislation is not capable of combating them all. By analyzing the use of blockchain for the issuance and registration of diplomas, we concluded that this technology is very broad and that not all blockchain types are suitable for this purpose and it is necessary to use consensus mechanisms specific to the reality of our federal system. Teaching that will guarantee competitive advantages to the participating HEIs