THE ASSESSMENT OF BLOCKCHAIN READINESS FOR ACADEMIC DOCUMENT VERIFICATION

Abstract

This article presents a methodology for comprehensively assessing a blockchain platform’s readiness to verify academic documents in a pilot production environment. The system under study is developed on the Ethereum Virtual Machine (EVM)-compatible blockchain network and utilizes smart contracts, document hashing, role-based access control, event registration, and transaction monitoring via BlockScout. Blockchain is viewed as an additional layer of trust and verification that integrates with the existing digital infrastructure of higher education. The study proposes an integrated readiness index for evaluation, considering six criteria: functional completeness, security, performance, reliability, integration, and regulatory readiness. Each criterion is assessed on a five-point scale using weighting coefficients. The pilot test analyzed 294,698 transactions with a 15-second block generation interval. Average throughput was 8.26 transactions per second, node availability was 99%, and average cost was approximately 226,000 gas units per transaction. The integrated readiness index was 75.3%, which corresponds to conditional readiness for pilot production. Functional completeness, safety, and reliability received the highest scores. At the same time, the key areas for further improvement were regulatory readiness, scalability, and integration with the Learning Management System and the Unified Higher Education Platform.