Prototyping with Blockchain: A Case Study for Teaching Blockchain Application Development at University

Blockchain technology is believed to have a potential for innovation comparable to the early internet. However, it is difficult to understand, learn, and use. A particular challenge for teaching software engineering of blockchain applications is identifying suitable use cases: When does a decentralized application running on smart contracts offer advantages over a classic distributed software architecture? This question extends the realms of software engineering and connects to fundamental economic aspects of ownership and incentive systems. The lack of usability of today’s blockchain applications indicates that often applications without a clear advantage are developed. At the same time, there exists little information for educators on how to teach applied blockchain application development. We argue that an interdisciplinary teaching approach can address these issues and equip the next generation of blockchain developers with the skills and entrepreneurial mindset to build valuable and usable products. To this end, we developed, conducted, and evaluated an interdisciplinary capstone-like course grounded in the design sprint method with N = 11 graduate students. Our pre-/post evaluation indicates high efficacy: Participants improved across all measured learning dimensions, particularly use-case identification and blockchain prototyping in teams. We contribute the syllabus, a detailed evaluation, and lessons learned for educators.