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The MOOCIBL Platform: A Custom-made Software Solution to Track the Innovation Process with Blockchain Learning Tokens

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Conference

2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access

Location

Virtual Conference

Publication Date

July 26, 2021

Start Date

July 26, 2021

End Date

July 19, 2022

Conference Session

Entrepreneurship and Engineering Innovation Division Technical Session 2

Tagged Division

Entrepreneurship & Engineering Innovation

Page Count

14

DOI

10.18260/1-2--37878

Permanent URL

https://peer.asee.org/37878

Download Count

399

Paper Authors

biography

Enrique Alvarez Vazquez North Dakota State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0002-7257-0817

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Enrique is an experienced Systems Engineer with a demonstrated history of working in the electrical and electronic manufacturing field. Highly skilled in Embedded Devices, Software Engineering, and Electronics. He is a strong information technology professional with two MSc's and working on a Doctor of Philosophy - PhD focused in Electrical Engineering from North Dakota State University.

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Ryan Striker P.E. North Dakota State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0001-9058-5636

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Ryan Striker is a life-long learner. Ryan has over a decade of professional experience designing embedded electronic hardware for industrial, military, medical, and automotive applications. Ryan is currently pursuing a PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Dakota State University. He previously earned his MS in Systems Engineering from the University of Saint Thomas and his BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota.

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Lauren Singelmann North Dakota State University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3586-4266

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Lauren Singelmann is a PhD Student in Electrical and Computer Engineering at North Dakota State University. Her research interests are innovation-based-learning, educational data mining, and K-12 Outreach. She works for the NDSU College of Engineering as the K-12 Outreach Coordinator where she plans and organizes outreach activities and camps for students in the Fargo-Moorhead area.

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Mary Pearson North Dakota State University

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Mary is a Ph.D. candidate in biomedical engineering with research focused in the area of bioelectromagnetics, specifically designing electronics that can be used as medical devices. She obtained her B.S. and M.S. degrees at NDSU in electrical and computer engineering. Mary is also interested in STEM education research.

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Ellen M. Swartz North Dakota State University

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Ellen Swartz is currently pursuing a M.S. degree in Biomedical Engineering at North Dakota State University. Her research interests include STEM education, innovation-based learning, and agent-based modeling of complex adaptive systems. She previously received her B.S. degree from North Dakota State University in Electrical and Computer Engineering.

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Stanley Shie Ng Biola University Orcid 16x16 orcid.org/0000-0003-3021-8206

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Stanley Ng received his BS in Biomedical Engineering from University of California Irvine and MS in Biomedical Diagnostics from Arizona State University. He serves as faculty and director of engineering programs at Biola University. Currently, he is pursuing a Ph.D. in Engineering and STEM Education at North Dakota State University.

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Dan Ewert Minnesota State University, Mankato

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Dr. Ewert has been involved in cardiovascular engineering for over 25 years in both research and instruction. He has consulted for major medical device companies in the area of cardiovascular engineering and performed research with US and international colleagues. He has a broad background in mechanical and electrical engineering, and physiology with specific training and expertise. His work includes modeling the cardiovascular system, ventricular assist devices, cardiac physiology, instrumentation systems and leadless cardiac pacing. He help developed and was the inaugural director of a project-based-learning engineering curriculum. He is now involved in innovation-based-learning on multi-disciplinary teams, and innovation center development.

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Abstract

Innovation is becoming more prevalent in education. However, limited tools have been developed to track and characterize the innovation process in education. This paper presents MOOCIBL, a custom-made online platform that tracks the different processes that occur in an Innovation-Based Learning environment. This study introduces the concept of learning tokens as tiny individual trackable pieces, thought of as breadcrumbs documenting students' learning in a course. Throughout the course, students create tokens that illustrate their learning process throughout the semester. These tokens can be related to class-specific core learning objectives, a self-selected innovation project, or anything else they are learning related to the class. When these pieces are created, students identify what they are going to learn (the title of the token), to which level they are going to learn it (Depth of Knowledge), how they are going to learn it (description), and how they are going to demonstrate that they learned it (evidence and impact level). Learning tokens enter the platform and get tracked throughout creation, review, development, and final review by the instructor. Tokens can be reviewed many times and moved to different stages, allowing the students to refine their definition, evidence, and assessment. Since tokens can travel through multiple stages, it was key for our team to be able to track the tokens in our pipeline. We added blockchain features to the token structure to facilitate tracking and to provide a novel sense of security, transparency, and immutability. MOOCIBL allows us to visually inspect, in detail, the process of all the learning tokens in the system. The online application is based on modular PHP/HTML and MySQL databases, which give great flexibility and allow implementation in a multitude of engineering classes. This paper will describe how this tool is structured, will detail the functionality of the platform including both student and instructor web-views, and will analyze the students' and instructors' opinions about the platform and the token learning system. The MOOCIBL platform opens the doors to multi-institution micro-credentialing in a highly transparent, secure environment.

Alvarez Vazquez, E., & Striker, R., & Singelmann, L., & Pearson, M., & Swartz, E. M., & Ng, S. S., & Ewert, D. (2021, July), The MOOCIBL Platform: A Custom-made Software Solution to Track the Innovation Process with Blockchain Learning Tokens Paper presented at 2021 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access, Virtual Conference. 10.18260/1-2--37878

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