Academic Certificates on the Blockchain

The academic certificate verification platform using blockchain technology is used to issue, manage and verify academic certificates in a secure and distributed manner. This project addresses the need for a secure digital platform to issue and verify academic certificates without intervention from the original certificate issuer (University).

The core functionality of this application are :

Create and issue academic certificates.
Manage and share academic certificates.
Verify authenticity of shared certificates.

Architecture Overview

The following technologies are used on the application

Hyperledger Fabric: Used to build the blockchain network, run smart contracts. Fabric CA is used to enroll members in the network.
Node.js: Backend of the web application is built in nodeJS runtime using the express framework. Chaincode is also written in NodeJS.
MongoDB: The user and certificate data is stored in MongoDB database.
Bootstrap: The front-end of the web application is built using bootstrap, ejs & jQuery.

Network Users

The users of the platform include - Universities, Students and Certificate Verifiers (Eg - Employers). The actions that can be performed by each party are as follows

Universities

Issue academic certificates.
View academic certificates issued.
Endorse Verification and digitally sign academic certificates.

Students

Receive academic certificates from universities.
View and manage received academic certificates.
Share academic certificates with third party verifiers.
Selective disclosure of certificate data.

Verifier

Receive certificate data from students.
Verify certificate authenticity with blockchain platform.

To learn more about how selective disclosure and decentralized verifications work, read about verifiable credentials.

Getting Started

IMPORTANT NOTE: The instructions for building this project are out of date. I'm unfortunately not in a position right now to test and update these instructions. If you're able to get the project up and running properly. a pull request to update the following instructions is appreciated!

Related Issue: #4

Prerequisites

In order to install the application, please make sure you have the following installed with the same major version number.

Hyperledger latest version 2.1.x.

#install the latest version using

curl -sSLO https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hyperledger/fabric/main/scripts/install-fabric.sh && chmod +x install-fabric.sh | ./install-fabric.sh

Node and NPM latest version (install it using nvm https://github.com/nvm-sh/nvm#install--update-script)
MongoDB latest version (available on https://www.mongodb.com/docs/manual/tutorial/install-mongodb-on-ubuntu/)

Starting Fabric Network

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/TasinIshmam/blockchain-academic-certificates.git

Start the fabric test-network with couchdb

# at fabric-samples

cd test-network
./network.sh up createChannel -ca -c mychannel -s couchdb

Package the chaincode situated in the chaincode directory.
1. move (or open another terminal) to /blockchain-academic-certificates/chaincode and run npm install:
```
cd ../blockchain-academic-certificates/chaincode
export CC_LOCATION=$PWD
```
2. move to fabric-samples/test-network:
```
cd ../fabric-samples/test-network
./network.sh deployCC -ccn basic -ccp $CC_LOCATION -ccl javascript
```
If there's something wrong, check here

Starting Web Application

Make sure mongodb and fabric network are running in the background before starting this process.

Go to web-app

# at blockchain-academic-certificates
cd web-app

Install all modules
```
npm install
```
Create .env file
```
touch .env 
```
Specify environment variables in .env file.
1. Specify MONGODB_URI_LOCAL to your mongodb database.
2. Specify EXPRESS_SESSION_SECRET as a long random secret string.
3. Specify CCP_PATH as the connection profile of org1 in your test network. The path for this should be ~/fabric-samples/test-network/organizations/peerOrganizations/org1.example.com/connection-org1.json
4. In FABRIC_CHANNEL_NAME and FABRIC_CHAINCODE_NAME specify the channel and chaincode label respectively used during fabric network installation.
5. Sample .env file
```
MONGODB_URI_LOCAL = mongodb://localhost:27017/blockchaincertificate
PORT = 3000
LOG_LEVEL = info
EXPRESS_SESSION_SECRET = sdfsdfddfgdfg3242efDFHI234 
CCP_PATH = /home/tasin/fabric-samples/test-network/organizations/peerOrganizations/org1.example.com/connection-org1.json
FABRIC_CHANNEL_NAME = mychannel
FABRIC_CHAINCODE_NAME = basic
```
Start the server in development mode
```
npm run start-development
```

Contact

Tasin Ishmam - tasinishmam@gmail.com

Project Link: https://github.com/TasinIshmam/blockchain-academic-certificates

mantertius/blockchain-academic-certificates