A Blockchain-based system for course submissions
Who we are
We are Elias Anderlohr, Jonas Grill and Gina Weber. We are / were master students in business informatics at the University of Mannheim. We chose "A Blockchain-based system for course submissions" by Prof. Dr. Markus Strohmaier (Chair of Data Science in the Economic and Social Sciences) and Dr. Stefano Balietti as our Master Team Project. We started the project in fall semester 2022. The project was first launched in spring semester 2023.
What we did
The basic idea of Prof. Strohmaier was to teach blockchain by using a blockchain based learning system. Therefore, basic concepts such as block numbers and smart contracts are understood through using the system. We implemented a frontend with Next.js together with React. The faucet for first Eth distribution was implemented via a Node.js backend. All other logical operations are running directly on-chain. Only for the submission of student ID and wallet addresses, an off-chain system such as ILIAS is used to comply to data privacy rules. But ILIAS is not directly connected to the Knowledge base.
The chain is running on six raspberry Pi´s in the University of Mannheim which are working via a proof of authority consensus algorithm. The Pi´s fulfill different roles in the system. So we need ones that are able to mine blocks, RPC nodes, some that run the frontend and some that run the faucet API. The used currency is Knowledge (NOW), which is a token based on the ERC20 standard, but modified to be a soulbound token.
If you want to learn more about the things that were mentioned above, listen to the lecture of Prof. Strohmaier or dive into the rapidly growing blockchain world online.
