A group of professors at the world-renowned Oxford University are looking to start the world’s first blockchain university, but need the powers of the EU first.
Woolf
The team of professors believes that blockchain technology and smart contracts can help democratize the traditional structure of higher education. This “blockchain university” calledWoolf” is led by a team of academics at Oxford.
Woolf is led by Joshua Broggi, a professor from the Faculty of Philosophy.
Woolfs website’s “about” page explains:
“Woolf will be a borderless, educational society which reimagines how teachers and students connect. It will rely on blockchains and smart contracts to guarantee relationships between students and educators. For students, it will be the AirBNB of degree courses; for teachers, it will be a decentralized, non-profit, democratic community; but for both parties, the use of blockchain technology will provide the contractual stability needed to complete a full course of study.”
Woolf’s whitepaper suggests that a blockchain-based university can address many issues currently affecting universities around the globe, such as steep tuition fees and high admin costs.
Coming Soon Fall 2018
Still needing approval from the EU, Woolf’s first college, Ambrose, is looking to launch this coming fall semester. Woolf characterizes their project as the “AirBNB for degree courses” and is looking to charge $400 per ‘tutorial.’ This would come out to less than $20,000, per year – before scholarships.
The ERC20 WOOLF token will be used for a variety of things such as university budget, university governance, tuition custodianship, and internal project developments. You can view the WOOLF token paper here.
Blockchain technology is making its way into Universities across the global. Arizona State University has its own blockchain research lab and is seeking offer classes in blockchain technology in the near future.
Swiss University Lucerne accepts tuition payments in the form of Bitcoin (available on Coinbase) (BTC) now.
While those two examples have nothing to do with blockchain underlying the ‘structure’ of the universities, it shows that this is just the start of blockchain in higher education.
Featured Image: OX
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