Verified, optimised, secure: A blueprint for education and recruitment in Web 3.0

Web 3.0 is on the horizon, bringing with it visions of greater transparency and control over data and interactions online. So what’s in the crystal ball for education and recruitment – two areas poised for rapid transformation?

At the heart of Web 3.0 will be AI and blockchain, creating more personalised experiences, efficiency and new governance models for privacy, accessibility, ownership and identity management.?

Drawing from 10+ years’ experience in education and training, PhD candidate Zoey Li has crafted a blueprint for the evolution of learning and recruitment, using these next-gen technologies to solve the age-old challenges of job seekers and hiring managers.?

Let’s break it down.

Research informed by real people

At the heart of Zoey’s work are insights uncovered through an intensive interview and analysis process based on the socio-technical grounded theory – that is, data grounded in the experiences and perspectives of real job hunters and recruiters.

From this, she was able to summarise the two biggest pain points for both parties:

The solution in a nutshell

AI-supported learning

Dubbed the ‘sweet spot of learning’, the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) refers to when activities are challenging enough to promote growth, but not so difficult they become overwhelming.?

Getting students in the zone has long hinged on the expertise of educators, a factor that varies greatly, leading to many hits and misses.

But imagine a future where the ZPD is rarely missed – the first goal of Zoey’s work.

Her proposed AI-supported approach sees content and how it’s delivered continually adjusted throughout the learning process based on student performance and feedback, to ensure they’re always in the ZPD.

Decentralised Anonymous Credential Scheme (DAC)

Qualifications earned through the above AI-learning process are automatically held, verified, secured and curated as needed by the blockchain through a DAC.?

The one proposed by Zoey focuses on five key pillars:

1. Attribute-based authorisation: Learners can tailor credentials to match job requirements, showing only qualifications required to demonstrate eligibility.
2. Anonymity: Ensures the recruitment process is focused on qualifications and merit, rather than personal details and backgrounds to prevent bias.?
3. Unlinkability: Stops verifiers from tracing a learner’s application history across different companies and roles without notifying the applicant.?
4. Revocation: If a credential has been tampered with or lost, it can be revoked by the issuer.
5. Selective disclosure: Allows learners to selectively link and disclose previously verified credentials to meet a particular job’s requirements.

Zoey’s DAC is intended to upgrade the security level of her existing EduCredential application, CValid, which is used to issue and hold NFT certificates such as for the Monash Blockchain Summer School.

The DAC is a cryptographic identity management scheme embedded with complex techniques such as zero-knowledge proofs.

Now, let’s see how it all works in practice.

A balancing act: Problems plaguing hiring managers

Did you know that the screening and verification process can take a hiring manager 3 to 6 months? Even longer if the position is more senior or highly specialised.?

It’s a time-consuming process that has to be balanced with applicant privacy, liaising with stakeholders and navigating fraudulent credentials and behaviour.??

Why Zoey’s solution works

Not only are students supported to learn at their best through the AI system, but the mechanisms offered by the DAC’s blockchain technology, such as cryptographic signatures from qualification issuers and decentralised verification, assures the authenticity of credentials from the start.?

Having an integrated system tracking performance, issuing credentials and securing them from the moment a student starts their education journey means greater trust and reliability for recruiters – cutting the time to screen applicants.?

Unravelling the maze: Challenges faced by job hunters

Not all information is relevant for an application. And there’s always a risk of bias creeping into the hiring process – as much as we try to avoid it. Because of this, job seekers may want to keep certain irrelevant details private, such as their religions, age, ethnicity and marital status.

Unfortunately, qualifications can reveal some of this data, either directly through what is presented or indirectly through inference (like age, which can be estimated based on graduation dates).?

Why Zoey’s solution works

The AI-powered system proposed by Zoey ensures students are always learning at their best by keeping them in the ZPD zone.?

Once they graduate, the DAC then gives them the ability to curate and disclose relevant qualifications based on the employment opportunity – without linking to unnecessary information or historical qualifications that impinges on their privacy.?

And in the case of credentials that are lost or compromised, the DAC deters unauthorised use by allowing issuers to revoke them.?

A spotlight at top conferences globally

Zoey has presented her work widely at the world’s top conferences such as the Learning Analytics and Knowledge Conference, the International conference for Artificial Intelligence in Education and most recently, the Web 3 Scholars Conference (3:38:50) which featured high-profile speakers such as Vitalik Buterin, the founder of Ethereum.?

To learn more about Zoey’s work, read her research paper.?