[READY TO VOTE] Integration of Optimism Gov and RGPF into University Courses,

Governance Fund Missions šŸ¹
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Delegate Mission Request Summary:
This mission proposal centers around building partnerships with academics who are already at the vanguard of incorporating blockchain technology, specifically Ethereum, into their university courses. This mission will strengthen this ongoing commitment by introducing a specialized module focusing on Optimism and RPGF (Public Goods Funding) within the Ethereum ecosystem.

S5 Intent : 4 Contributions that educate the broader community about Optimism governance and RetroPGF

Proposing Delegate: Jack Anorak

Proposal Tier: Fledgling

Baseline grant amount: 100,000 OP (20,000 OP per course, includes rewards to students). Mission management chooses to forego rewards in lieu of future RPGF rewards.

Should this Foundation Mission be fulfilled by one or multiple applicants: Multiple

Submit by: To be set by Grants Council

Selection by: To be set by Grants Council

Start date: Dependent on course dates

Completion date: By Dec 31, 2024

Specification

How will this Delegate Mission Request help accomplish the above Intent?

  • This mission will broaden the reach of Optimismā€™s work in governance by introducing a specialized module focused on Optimism Governance and RetroPGF. This module not only aims to provide students with a nuanced understanding of OP Governance and RetroPGF but also seeks to create a framework that rewards and recognizes the dedicated efforts of these educators while doing outreach to onboard more educators around the globe.

The mission will result in an Open Source Syllabus and playbook allowing other educators to replicate anywhere in the world.

Onchain Impact report including a registry of wallets, onchain attestations from students and a case study. This reporting will allow anyone to evaluate the impact of the mission based on onchain metrics, quality of syllabus, and content shared on socials.

What is required to execute this Delegate Mission Request?

  • Minimum of three academics at three different institutions collaborating on open source syllabus
  • Reporting Progress through socials and gov forum
    Outreach and onboarding of other educators focusing on similar topics
  • Onchain attestations from students rating experience
    Onchain attestation from academics rating student participation and performance
  • Case Study co authored by academics
  • Database of onchain activities and txns

How should the Token House measure progress towards this Mission?

  • These measures should focus on progress towards completion. Including expected completion dates for each is recommended
  • Please be as specific as possible in defining measures of progress so that Token House delegates can accurately track execution
  • There should also be some measure of quality measurement to ensure there is a fully complete syllabus; administrators will be responsible for a rubric listing all of the focus areas to be covered

How should badgeholders measure impact upon completion of this Mission?

  • Progress towards mission should be rated on progress reports from academics.
  • This progress should commensurate with onchain activity demanded by the syllabus.

Have you engaged a Grant-as-a-service provider for this Mission Request?
NO

Has anyone other than the Proposing Delegate contributed to this Mission Request?

The original draft was made by carlosjmelgar.eth

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I sponsored this one because I think thereā€™s a wide open space for work on this. But quality control is important, and I want to ensure that there are a wide number of unrelated academics building a knowledge base. This could be coordinated or not - I wanted to leave this proposal here to encourage some discussion on what we might want to see here.

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Love the idea of an open-source syllabus and getting academics on board to dive deep into Optimism. Itā€™s more than just teaching; itā€™s about fostering a well-informed blockchain community, deeply rooted in academia. Thumbs up from me.

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Hello folks,

As an academic teaching Crypto since 2016 - and teaching the first Ethereum-specific module - this looks quite promising and a welcoming initiative. Note: I gave some informal feedback to this proposal.

In my experience, students tend to value case studies, assignments, etc. that they feel has some connection to the real world activities of what they are studying. This opens up a direct line between Optimism and those students!

Some quick comments on the current form that may need to be addressed:
(a) it is unlikely that a University would allow a full module on Optimism. By analogy, at this point in time Ethereum itself is just about considered OK to do a full module on. However, this content would easily fit in the second half of a module when it turns to DAOs.
(b) start with a cohort of 3 who can coordinate as a smaller unit. Then consider whether a larger cohort works and so on and so on. But 3 academics coordinating three modules across 3 Universities, thatā€™s just about manageable for a new concept.
(c) OP distribution: Iā€™d be curious what is involved there.

But in general, awesome to see.

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Thanks for the feedback and welcome to the OP gov forum. Looking forward to having your presence here.

This is valuable input. The course materials would be created in by the participating professors and would need to align with university guidelines. I do envision a future where this gains support as adoption grows. Many universities have some wild courses so there might be potential to grow into its own module, but I agree that for now itā€™s best to embed into an Ethereum module.

This number sounds reasonable to me.

I suggested 20K OP based on 5 courses, leaving room to onboard two professors after mission is launched. Personally I would like to see the stakeholders distribute this through existing mechanisms like QF and RetroPGF. A portion of these rewards should be forwarded to students so they can also gain hands on experience in governance and other platforms relevant to the OP ecosystem.

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Thanks for the request @jackanorak This seems similar to my request [DRAFT] Enable collection of ECTS(or equivalent) credits Mission Request

Do you think we can collaborate on this somehow?

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Oh! We also noticed that both ideas have a similar scope. It would be great to merge them into one mission request.

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The proposals do seem similar. I believe this format makes it easier to execute due to the following being big lifts:

This might require lots of lobbying compared to enabling and supporting professors already teaching Ethereum related courses and funneling their students to Optimism governance through hands on experimentation.

I believe this format allows us to see immediate integration and participation (impact) vrs what could become a long process that may or may not result in the desired outcome.

In this format Optimism will be integrated to courses that already offer credits.

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I also think this this request is just broader in scope generally. I trust our ability to find credible applicants around the world (not just EU or i guess US?) enough not to need to go through credentialing bodies and endure that headache.

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I think it best to keep them distinct. Credentials are more complicated and more long term ambition. I feel we would complicate the efforts of each other. However, I do think we could each share knowledge and know-how in our respective goals.

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Hi all, like @postpolar was involved in initial feedback running up to itā€™s formation and I appreciate being invited to the conversation.

Some background - I am an academic working in crypto building DAO and token economics infrastructure, but also run a course explicitly on public goods and the intersection of DAO governance, architecture and public policy. I have been both a Director of Learning and Teaching, and an Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching and have been involved in curriculum design for over a decade at the institutional level. I have sat on over a hundred validation committees and know the curriculum design and validation processes for bringing in new courses and modules to University curriculum portfolios and ensuring they hit the QA standards expected at high profile Higher Education Institutions. So itā€™s fair to say this is in my wheelhouse.

In fact, I attempted to validate an MSc Blockchain Technology back in 2017 at a University in the UK and ultimately failed to gain the traction within the institution at that time, fighting as you can imagine the institutional resistance you might expect for such a nascent emerging technology with such a poor public perception. Things have change now of course, since the industry has expanded in scale, but if anything public perception might even be worse.

To give you some perspective, curriculum development cycles can be anything from 12 months to 3 years and the process of bringing a new course online will move through many layers of academic committee approval. All of which will require an academic situated within the institution to champion and lead the course.

It can of course be done as is evidenced by the course I now co-run and polarā€™s ethereum course. But we are all in context at these institutions and I think youā€™ll find any educator will probably want to have a decent amount of creative control over the learning outcomes and content and there would be significant work to align it to the HEIs own standards and curriculum frameworks, which frankly would almost certainly sneer at the implicit bias towards a particular L2.

This is just to temper expectations at the goals of embedding curriculum into courses, or creating new courses as an outside actor which lead to a codified credential. It will be very challenging, will take considerable time and probably more money than outlined in the proposal.

However, I think the idea of gathering a pool of committed academics who can be those change agents in Higher Education contexts as highly valuable. They can act as linking agents between here and educational contexts and work towards bringing in more academics and students to the group.

I think it is also very possible to influence assessments on courses that fall within existing learning outcomes and framework modules.

It is also very possible to create some to institutional standard open curriculum, which would also be very valuable, for example influencing academics to shape their delivery towards a governance and RPGF perspective and then integrating it into a shared curriculum elements that could be dropped into courses without the need to jump through the validation hoops.

Consequently, I would consider the removal of the word ā€˜Modulesā€™ from the title, to Integration of Optimism Gov and RGPF into University Courses, to make the outcomes more immediately achievable and remove expectations about getting to credit bearing curriculum in the near term. The requirements and impact metrics remain completely relevant.

This work could form the foundation for providing the support and influence necessary to break into university courses at the credential level, in fact I one day hope to see a DAO with degree awarding powers. But there is groundwork to do.

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Thanks for this valuable feedback. I just got off a call with a gov representative in LatAm, feedback was almost identical.

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Hey all! Maxwell here, I support governance onboarding at the Foundation, and these views are my own.

I also share a background in education / course design, and its awesome to see this dialogue.

Integrating into higher ed courses, while exciting, can often be an enormous lift, and its unclear to me whether its worth the uphill battle. An alternative could be simply doing guest speaking in various political science, sociology, comp sci courses etc. This can, often, be much easier than ā€œofficiallyā€ integrating into the course.

I also think student blockchain clubs could be a possible starting point as well - especially since the measurable goals of intent 4 are to increase delegated supply of OP and increase the average OP voted per gov proposal. Hands-on workshops might support these outcomes more than integration into a course, but there are a lot of possibilities.

Exciting to see this dialogue happening, and glad a Mission Request like this was brought forward.

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Iā€™ve spoken with government officials in two countries about this. They expressed the same concern. One suggested they would support an independent Ethereum Campus.

The idea was inspired by these tweets:

This led me to research courses including Ethereum and governance. [I was able to identify multiple universities teaching these topics for years.](https://I know of a few professors teaching Ethereum related courses. )

I also consulted university professors who are active on CT to gauge their interest and ability to integrate hands on governance participation in their classrooms. They expressed willingness to integrate.

The goal isnā€™t to onboard academics from wallet creation through course creation. Iā€™m expect this mission to embedded Optimism governance into existing courses.

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I love this idea but universities and extremely beau acratic and I donā€™t see this working out.

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Hi everyone,

Criptomommy here, I am an enthusiast of web3 and blockchain. During my time in university, I participated in several university clubs, and I can attest that universities are very bureaucratic and working with them can be a long and arduous process.

Thatā€™s why I believe that the best way to bring education about Optimism Gov and RGPF to university students is through blockchain clubs. These clubs are a great opportunity to reach students who are already interested in learning about these technologies.

I myself presented a similar proposal to the one in this thread, but it did not come to fruition. However, if this proposal goes ahead, I would like to offer my help to connect with university clubs in Peru and Latin America. I have given several talks about web3 at universities in the region, and I know that students are very interested in learning about this new and exciting topic.

I believe that web3 has the potential to transform education, and this proposal is a great opportunity to start. I am confident that, if we work together, we can make this mission a success.

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Universities are indeed bureaucratic, which is why the idea of full modules are a no go.

However, I believe in an earlier iteration the focus was more manageable. To provide OP to lecturers who already teach Crypto classes (i) as retroactive appreciation, (ii) to use in class in governance or delegation and (iii) reward students who engage. This would be quite easily. Lecturers have control over their syllabi and many of us (including myself) already teach these topics at University, just minus the OP that would allow a better hands-on experience. However, this does require recognising that Optimism is not going to be able to propose an actual complete module. Because thatā€™s the Admin level you are all worrying about. If we are proposing a few lectures worth of content about DAOs, then it folds into our already-existing classes. And as it goes to work over time it can become a model to be used elsewhere. So it has a flywheel effect.

For example, if you told me hereā€™s x amount of OP to use in a class right now, I would introduce 2-3 lectures on DAO governance to this module: https://hub.ucd.ie/usis/!W_HU_MENU.P_PUBLISH?p_tag=SMOD&MAJR=B551&MODULE=MIS41220 I donā€™t have to ask anyone to do this. If you ask me to create an entire module, Iā€™m not going to do that. I need to teach the full Ethereum spectrum, thatā€™s my mandate to the University.

The other options seem fine, but their own separate proposals really. Some notes on those:
Gitcoin is already doing a blockchain club round in GG20.
Guest speakers/workshops - in my experience harder to get on campus than you might think. Unis are a little suspicious of Crypto events. Hard for them to tell who is legit and not.

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I am intimately aware of the bureaucracy in the Higher Education context and although there are paths to navigating it as an internal agent (which I would be more than willing to advise on) I think we can side step it for immediate outputs.

What I believe we have iterated this proposal towards is a more strategic injection of DAO governance related content into existing courses and feeding back the outcomes and student engagement to the optimism collective.

This could take the form of integrating DAO governance practices into assessment portfolios, adding in sequences of lectures as @postpolar has suggested and getting curriculum elements we make as part of this project into resource lists and virtual learning environments.

For example, a budget of OP could be used on my course in which we already have a DAO treasury set up to engage in real world public goods activities in social impact architectural projects in London. I could do this immediately (sooner the better actually if wanted to hit this academic year).

As I have said earlier this is actually essential groundwork for doing the longer term work of getting full courses and modules into credit bearing curricula. Universities are as risk averse as you can get and they will need to see impact and proof that this would have positive learning outcomes before they would go ahead with more substantial commitments.

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As someone currently trying to locate token grants for a law school course being taught this semester, the requested amount is probably higher than needed. Requests weā€™ve made to foundations and DevCos has been on the order of ~$30 per student. Unless the class is working on Ethereum, thereā€™s not really much need for large amounts of tokens to fund student wallets to let them try out DEXs, voting, delegation, borrow-lend protocols, etc. L2s are low gas environments and they donā€™t need to transact in meaningful amounts.

The requirement for 3 academics at 3 institutions is also pretty restrictive. You can see a small sample of instructors teaching courses now or soon here. Itā€™s unlikely that many of them are coordinating their syllabi or curricula. Courses themselves donā€™t need funding, but providing token grants so students have materials to work with can provide a lot of value.

Because we think grants could be meaningful in the <$1000 range, we would also recommend removing all but a final update at the end of the lessons or semester.

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Iā€™d hate to see educators being given the bare minimum for this important work. Iā€™m bullish on Ethereumā€™s public goods funding landscape because weā€™re trying to make this impact profitable, not perpetuate martyrdom from the people doing the work on the ground.

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