Master Thesis Defense - August 13, 2018: Modelling and Simulation of Blockchain Based Education System

Navneet Kaur Bajwa

Monday, August 13, 2018 at 3:00 p.m.
Room EV003.309

You are invited to attend the following M.A.Sc. (Quality Systems Engineering) thesis examination.

Examining Committee

Dr. A. Hammad, Chair
Dr. A. Awasthi, Supervisor
Dr. J. Yan, CIISE Examiner
Dr. C. Lai, External Examiner (ECE)

Abstract

Since Bitcoin’s launch in early 2009, the industrial and academic interest in Blockchain and other cryptocurrencies have grown rapidly. Blockchains have already been applied in many areas outside of finance such as healthcare, commerce and judiciary. This technology facilitates the formation of a decentralized environment where transactions and data are not under the control of any third-party organization. Blockchain is a fundamentally new technology that could revolutionize the future of transaction-based exchanges like in the early days of the Internet, new networking protocols allowed for the growth of systems like the World Wide Web and today’s media streaming services. Many researches are being done in order to implement this technology various sectors. The advancements in Blockchain will financially impact a majority of underdeveloped and developed nations and are already doing so. Blockchain technology comes with an edge of inbuilt trust, auditability and transfer of value which also makes it irresistible.

This work explores a Blockchain-based Education System through mathematical modeling and simulation tools. An agent-based model is constructed to explore how Blockchain technology can be used to verify credit score of students, identify the occurrence and prevention of attacks. Along with technical characteristics of Bitcoin and Blockchain; cost, time and behavioural considerations of the system are also made. This is followed by analyzing of the number of transactions, size of blockchain, network efficiency, cost analysis of the system along with the network efficiency. The proposed model shifts the degree verification and credit rewarding system from the analog and physical world into a globally efficient, transparent and universal version. Potential employers can benefit from the proposed system. The work contributes a solid ground for advancing current understanding of blockchain systems and further development of simulation models of blockchain-based systems.