# Challenges of Using Blockchain in the Education Sector: A Literature Review
## 4 Discussion and Future Directions
Nine of the reviewed articles highlighted different types of security attacks on the blockchain that could affect educational applications. However, these attacks should be studied in their entirety. More explicitly, researchers should classify the attacks and carry out more assessments and simulations of possible attacks. This will improve the integrity and provide a secure basis for future blockchain technology adoption. In addition, this review showed that although researchers have focused on privacy-preserving solutions, few articles have considered the importance of compliance with data protection laws, such as CCPA and GDPR. Furthermore, besides using the appropriate privacy-preserving solutions, educational institutions can enhance their opportunities for implementing blockchain systems that comply with data protection laws. They can, for example, limit or even eliminate the saving of personal data on the blockchain, try to assess whether a blockchain is truly required to meet a specific academic, business, or social purpose, or adopt permissioned blockchains with more stringent usage regulations. The sustainability of education is one of the challenges that has not received much attention in the selected articles; only two articles have discussed this issue. The adoption of blockchain technology in education without aligning it with a clear philosophy of education sustainability could disrupt the goal of education by creating a new form of social inequality and injustice. Blockchain technology should therefore bring many benefits, but the adoption of a clear philosophy of sustainable education is necessary, in which the main objective is beyond the limits of bureaucratic efficiency, scientific evidence, and social control. On the other hand, more articles have also focused on another important aspect of sustainability, which is climate change and a greater carbon footprint; some articles even considered this challenge to be the most difficult obstacle in the way of adopting blockchain technology. It is, therefore, necessary to further research these two aspects of sustainability. Two articles discussed the impact of market readiness and the awareness of stakeholders on the adoption of blockchain technology in the education sector. This review revealed that there is a lack of awareness, training, and understanding among stakeholders in the education sector about the advantages and the use of blockchain. There is a gap in how and where the blockchain can be used, as well as its real impact and benefits, which requires meaningful training for stakeholders. Understanding business models, technological prop erties, and the governance of blockchain technology is not only necessary to realize the technology's effectiveness but also for its use. In addition, this review has shown that a lack of awareness and involvement of senior management may hamper an organization's willingness to use blockchain technology. The use of blockchain in the education sector can entail significant costs for educational institutions. However, this depends on the intended application characteristics, complexity, the blockchain type used, the blockchain platform, how its features are valued (e.g., immutability, availability, etc. ), and other technology stacks. For example, building a decentralized application on a public blockchain such as Ethereum will be much less expensive than creating an enterprise blockchain on a private platform. By creating a blockchain application from scratch, the cost will increase by adding infrastructure improvement costs, smart contracts, transaction fees, cryptography, consensus algorithms, and other expenses. Despite the important role of skilled professionals in the successful implementation of blockchain technology in the education sector, one of the 36 articles pointed to the lack of adequate skills as a challenge. However, the lack of knowledge and skills required to manage data in a blockchain network could be one of the reasons for the lack of confidence in this technology.