Building the world’s leading blockchain Developer community
In a world where the concept of a knowledge economy continues to gain steady prominence, the traditional rigid educational system adds little value to a student’s education. There is, of course, healthy correlation between the level and amount of education of a student and their earning. However, with every employment opportunity coming with add-on requirements and new conditions lately, you need to earn more degrees and certificates in order to be employable in your field of choice. Although learning is, in principle, earning in itself because of the knowledge one gains through the process, our goal in the end is to support ourselves and our families in a quantifiable, financial way. Learning needs to be incentivized in order to encourage people to keep enhancing their knowledge.
What is one0x?
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have become increasingly popular over the past half a decade or so. However, most MOOCs websites like edX and Coursera charge a fee to obtain a verified certificate on completion of the course, and such a certificate has failed to command value in the eyes of employers. one0x has tried to solve this problem by building an incentivized, blockchain-based teaching and learning platform where the level of knowledge of each student and teacher is verifiable, both on the platform as well as by third parties — something traditional MOOCs have lacked. For example, the Blockchain University, powered by one0x, is rapidly developing into a large community of both teachers and learners, each using the platform to enhance their pool of knowledge and also earn rewards.
The one0x rewards system
One of the major challenges faced by one0x was how to assess the relative quality as well as quantity of work done by each student or teacher on the platform, and how to assign rewards based on the same. The platform has come up with an innovative rewards system which gives importance to both teaching and learning, and judges any participant’s contribution as fairly as possible.
Distribution of funds
one0x has a decentralized and fair authority, which is responsible for the distribution of funds among users in the network. As a first measure to ensure that people get some incentive regardless of their contribution, a fixed amount of currency is designated for distribution regardless of the amount of work done. So rather than dealing with a question of whether a user will be paid or not, it becomes a question of who gets what proportion of the funds. one0x also has a ranking system to ensure that every user who makes even a small contribution to the platform gets some reward. The value of currency distributed will consequently be proportional to the user’s rank.
Gyan
Gyan is the standard unit used by the one0x platform to measure the knowledge gained and is in unlimited supply, because knowledge, in principle, is infinite. The value of Gyan associated with a particular subject or topic is assigned by its teacher, based on how much knowledge is to be gained by a student while learning it. After a lesson or the completion of a course, the student’s performance is assessed by the teacher and a proportional amount of Gyan as decided gets added to the student’s Gyan balance. Also, since teaching is one of the best forms of mastering a subject, the sum of the Gyan earned by all students is also credited to the teacher’s Gyan balance. Every Gyan ever earned by anyone on the platform gets added to a permanent record of collective learning.
Karma
Karma is the blockchain token which is used as a currency on the platform. A number of these tokens need to be burned by any student who enrols in a course. To offset this, a fixed number of Karma tokens are minted every week and distributed to the various users based on their Gyan ranking and the Gyan passed around in that week. The amount of Karma awarded to a user is proportional to the amount of Gyan he/she earns, and hence ensures fair distribution of the currency based on the quantity as well as quality of work they do on the network.
Assessment of student performance
Another challenge one0x faces is related to the assessment of students and their performance. Particularly when it comes to small communities where the teachers, students and their peers know each other well, there is a chance of unfair assessment. To overcome this major challenge, one0x allows teachers to create their teaching contracts with third party assessment and setting a grade format along with rules for assessment. The teacher has the freedom to include criteria like attendance, commitment to the course and regularity in assignment submissions as part of the assessment. If a third party assesses each student with the help of data provided, the possibility of bias is eliminated.
One0x is essentially a platform built on the blockchain, to enable teachers and students to come together for a collaborative learning experience, incentivized by cryptocurrency tokens and a reputation which comes with contributing more to the network in the form of teaching, learning, asking and answering questions, etc.
