The process of issuing and registering academic achievements, both in non-formal/informal education by companies and other training institutions, and by formal regulated academic organizations, is currently a process carried out within each institution’s proprietary systems and largely isolated from other organizations’ record-keeping procedures using their own data models, although if the certificates are officially recognized by the government, some standardized information must be sent to the Ministry of Education in Spain (or equivalent in other countries), but for all the rest of accreditations, both formal and informal, every institution or company use their own model that normally cannot be accessed easily. This situation directly impacts the verification of students’ educational data by a third party since, in many cases, the authentication of a transcript or certificate can only be performed manually, which is very costly in resources and time. Due to this, on one hand, the forge of academic accreditations is not difficult, as it possibly would not be detected as such. On the other hand, there are other problems, such as dependence on third parties for access to academic certificates, and the difficulty or impossibility of managing their validity in the event of the disappearance of the issuing entity.
The “GDPR-compliant blockchain-based architecture for universal learning, education and training information management” (GAVIN) Project is being developed by Attlantic (University of Vigo) and it was born with the contribution of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia in Spain and it has also the support of some relevant education and training entities that have already demonstrated their interest in the potential use of the results of this project and their participation in the requirements capture and validation phases of the project, guaranteeing that it will be compatible with heterogeneous organizations.