Blockchain technology (BCT) is arguably one of the most promising and most hyped innovations of recent years. Many visionaries focus solely on the big picture regarding a revolutionary paradigm shift from an internet of information to an internet of value. This highlights the need for a comprehensive understanding of how this new technology is affecting and improving existing structures and relationships in business environment. Furthermore, increasing numbers of job adverts for Blockchain-related positions show that there is a high demand for experts and personnel with knowledge and skills in the field of Blockchain. BCT builds a base for smart contracts which constitute the missing link for the realisation of the vision of Industry 4.0/the Internet of Things (IoT). Smart contract use cases express the imperative nature of interdisciplinary work. Due to the many different players involved in practice, education approaches in the field of BCT need to be designed interdisciplinary from the core in order to be successful in empowering and improving students' employability. Blockchain is a highly interdisciplinary area, bringing together new challenges and opportunities at the intersections of computer science, economics, engineering, finance, business and law. Despite this interdisciplinarity, there is a lack of educational programs, incorporating different perspective of Blockchain from across multiple disciplines such as engineering, business, logistics and finance. This issue is seen at national, European and global levels. This makes it necessary for universities to apply interdisciplinary courses giving students of different majors comprehensive essential skills and knowledge of BCT and its application and impact on different business environments. Sufficient effort from academic institutions to educate and transfer accumulated knowledge about blockchain technology will foster creation of professional workforce, help exploit the benefits of this innovation, and create other innovations. Graduates might face challenges of understanding advanced blockchain technology in the later stage of their career. Thus, to educate about this new technology, academic institutions should provide sufficient interdisciplinary courses, especially in the fields of Supply Chain and Logistics, Business, Economics, Finance, and Computer Science. This will help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to exploit opportunities and to be prepared for changes in employment trends. The Blockchain SNOC project includes the following milestones and intellectual outputs: - First, the project will conduct a benchmarking study analyzing best blockchain course examples from universities, corporations and associations’ educational programs. Furthermore, the competencies requirements and job adverts will be analyzed for developing the interdisciplinary theoretical skill concept. - Second, the insights gained will be empirical validated by case studies with European companies in order to identify the best practice use cases for BCT and required skills and competencies. Moreover, this provides a comprehensive and systematic analysis of skill and competence needed to be covered in the online course. - Third, based on this first ever comprehensive competence assessment and use case analysis project BlockNet is going to design a didactical and organizational concept for interdisciplinary Blockchain SNOC facilitating remote learning opportunities leveraging educational access. - Fourth, the multimedial learning material for interdisciplinary Blockchain SNOC will be produced and evaluated - Fifth, the course will be technical realized, conducted and evaluated in blended mobility with the students of participating universities. In order to achieve the objectives and milestones, a consortium with four project partners and advisory board is formed, which brings together leading universities: Vilnius University (Lithuania), TU Dortmund University (Germany), University of Tartu (Estonia), University of Copenhagen (Denmark), European project management competence and practical exposure (e.g. associations and industry partner workshops) with a very strong background and international network.
The context/background of the project Blockchain technology (BCT) is arguably one of the most promising and most hyped innovations of recent years. This promise of BCT highlights the need for a comprehensive understanding of how this new technology is affecting and improving existing structures and relationships in business environments. Furthermore, increasing numbers of job adverts for Blockchain-related positions show that there is a high demand for experts and personnel with knowledge and skills in the field of Blockchain. Blockchain is a highly interdisciplinary area, bringing together new challenges and opportunities at the intersections of computer science, economics, engineering, finance, business and law. However, there is a lack of educational programs, incorporating different perspective of Blockchain from across multiple disciplines. This makes it necessary to develop interdisciplinary courses giving students of different majors comprehensive essential skills and knowledge of BCT and its application and impact on different business environments. Objectives of the project Sufficient effort from academic institutions to educate and transfer accumulated knowledge about blockchain technology will foster creation of professional workforce, help exploit the benefits of this innovation, and create other innovations. Given the paradigm-breaking nature of BCT, graduates who have not received knowledge on versatile features and applications of blockchain will face challenges of understanding this advanced technology in the later stage of their career. This project aimed to contribute to education on paradigm-breaking technology with the development of interdisciplinary small network online course (SNOC) covering disciplines which are most relevant to both the practice of developing of information systems and technologies (IT) and their application in business: Computer Science, Information Technology Security, Supply Chain and Logistics, and Business, Economics, and Finance. The project efforts must help students acquire the knowledge and skills needed to exploit the new research, market, innovation and policy opportunities created by the introduction of the nascent technology. Description of undertaken activities The Blockchain interdisciplinary small network online course (SNOC) project included the following milestones and intellectual outputs: 1. Conducted a benchmarking study analyzing best blockchain course examples from universities, corporations and associations’ educational programs. Analyzed the competencies requirements as presented in job adverts. 2. The insights from course examples and job adverts on skills and competences were empirically validated by case studies with European companies. Those case studies allowed identifying best practice use cases for BCT and additional skills and competencies. As a result of a comprehensive and systematic analysis, a skill concept was developed. 3. A didactical and organisational concept was developed for interdisciplinary Blockchain SNOC. The didactical and organizational concepts facilitate the online learning opportunities and are required for adaptation of the course to different educational environments of partner universities and across Europen universities. 4. Multimedia learning materials for interdisciplinary Blockchain SNOC were created and evaluated. 5. The interdisciplinary online BCT course was technically realized, conducted and evaluated in online Learning Activity with the students of participating universities. Number and type/profile of participants In order to achieve the objectives and milestones, a consortium with four project partners and advisory board was formed, bringing together leading universities: Vilnius University (Lithuania), TU Dortmund University (Germany), University of Tartu (Estonia), University of Copenhagen (Denmark). The partners and the associate partners of the project carry the experience and excellence in international project management, domain competence in the science and educational fields they represent in the project, and practical exposure with industry partners and international academic networks. Results and impact attained The final measurable result of the project is BlockNet interdisciplinary Blockchain online course, which was implemented at an open e-studies portal Open.eStudies.vu.lt. The project implementation gave the participants an opportunity to deepen their respective discipline’s knowledge on blockchain and broaden the relevant knowledge by learning from project’s immediate and associate partners. The international collaboration within the project has also had a tremendous positive impact on partner’s learning through exchange of ideas, discussions, problem solving, project activities planning and the development of common vision for activities and deliverables. In terms of target groups, BlockNet has had an impact on all groups that the project targeted: students, industry partners, broader industry through the development of skills and competencies for blockchain technology projects, and for the Higher Education System (HES) through the skills development and international cross-learning by the project partners in the fulfilment of the project tasks. Few important quantitative indicators of the project’s impact can be mentioned. Two Multiplier Events (MEs) and the Learning Activity (LA) organized by BlockNet project attracted over 430 participants. Close to 300 participants took place in two Multiplier Events (MEs) organised in Dortmund (2019) and Kaunas (2021, virtual event), yielding from the participants a very positive feedback. The virtual mode of ME resulted in international diversity of participants, additionally to the professional: additionally to the four project partner countries of Lithuania, Denmark, Estonia, and Germany, representatives from Bulgaria, Romania, Latvia, and Ukraine took part in the 2021 ME. Following the implementation of the BlockNet interdisciplinary online course at an open e-studies portal Open.eStudies.VU.lt in December 2020, the course was evaluated under the organised virtual Learning Activity (LA). Over 150 students from the four partner universities and students from University of Latvia and Excelia Business School in France participated in the LA. Students provided feedback on the course, which, on the one hand demonstrated the good overall quality of the prepared materials, while also allowed the project partners to eliminate certain technical and didactical deficiencies, which were indicated by the students. All project’s quantifiable impacts can be summarized as the following: - 16 domain experts provided feedback on the Skills Concept (O1) - 14 domain experts were interviewed to identify Blockchain Best Practice Use Cases (O2) - 54 (or more) participants taking part in ME in Dortmund, 2019 - 225 (or more) participants taking part in ME in Kaunas, 2020 - 150 (at least) students take part in the Learning Activity - 20 (at least) local management and research stakeholders reached at each partner institution. Longer-term benefits The project has been an example of successful collaboration between partners with different disciplinary foci at the times when interdisciplinarity is in high demand in European Higher Education Institutions (HEIs). Interdisciplinary and modular by design, the developed Blockchain course has already had impact at the international level and will continue to impact the development of the European HES as it continues to be available at the open e-studies platform. Project reports and scientific publications cater for another significant long-term impact of the project. Available for download on the project’s website, from the publisher’s websites, and ResearchGate.net, we can estimate the total readership for the multiple project-produced intellectual outputs to be in thousands. By the time of writing the project report, two project reports and two white papers available on ResearchGate.org were downloaded more than 500 times. Two research papers – more than 700 times. The high interest of the academic community towards the BlockNet project results as expressed by the high number of downloads creates the base for the long-lasting effect of the project efforts.