Abstract: Today, conflict, political unrest, and natural calamities can all harm educational data, which is centralized and managed by administrative and educational institutions. Concurrently, there are difficulties in obtaining this data for educational purposes in the context of lifelong learning or exchanges. Blockchain-based research on data exchange and storage across a range of domains is widely available in the literature. Blockchain applications for certification, verification, and data exchange in the educational field have been the subject of numerous studies; nevertheless, a completely decentralized infrastructure has not yet been introduced. Since students are the data's legitimate owners, it is suggested that data control be transferred from educational institutions to students in order to remedy this problem. For this purpose, public blockchain networks are thought to be the best infrastructure, in line with the decentralized internet goal. Within the context of this study, a framework called PublicEduChain has been proposed to address this need. Students can keep their data in smart contracts built on the public Ethereum network with PublicEduChain, which enables them to share that data with any administrative or educational entity. Learning Management System (LMS) applications on the public Ethereum network allow educational institutions to access and add student data to smart contracts. Data management under student ownership is guaranteed by PublicEduChain in a completely decentralized system. There is a detailed explanation of the actual processes in PublicEduChain, including making a smart contract, using Ethereum IDs to log into LMSs, and enabling LMSs to read and write data in the student contract.

Keywords: Web3, Blockchain, Decentralized Identity (DID), Verifiable Credentials (VC), Educational Data, Public Blockchain, IPFS, Smart Contracts.

| DOI: 10.17148/IJIREEICE.2025.134113