The Blockchain applied to education for a modern university

Forbes, in an article by Tom Vander Ark, explains how the Blockchain could be applied in the education to ensure more transparency and flexibility.
Among the most interesting points there are: transcripts (universally recognized and verifiable academic credentials), badges that can be shared with potential employers, registration of student data, data storage in a cloud, devices able to defend schools and universities against attacks hackers, smart contracts (reduction of the documentation), peer-to-peer retail (e.g. for school articles), charity (in case of initiatives promoted by schools), libraries (creation of an archive of metadata and simplified management of digital rights) and publishing (the fight against piracy).