Idea: Courses

[theymos]

I don't have any concrete plans for this at all, but I've been thinking recently that the Bitcoin community desperately needs some high-quality, unbiased online courses, and perhaps bitcointalk.org would be a good place to host such a thing. This is just a brainstorming thread.

Example courses that come to mind:

Introductory cryptocurrency investing
 - The main focus would be not getting scammed and not losing all of your money.
 - It would be very careful not to endorse any particular sites, investments, or trading methods.
 - Overall extremely conservative, to balance out all of the pump around here.
 - It might be similar to the sort of material on investor.gov, but less authoritarian (eg. no "only trust SEC-approved things") and with more cryptocurrency focus.
 Using English naturally online
 - Tips targeted at non-native English speakers for acting naturally online.
Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member
Making money online
 - SANE tips for making money, especially for people in less-developed countries. No unwise things like gambling or high-risk investing, and no non-constructive things like spamming the forum with garbage.
Basic cryptocurrency concepts
Accepting Bitcoin payments
Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)
 

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

A real challenge, which I'm not exactly sure how to solve, would be to keep them up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased. 99.9% of introductory cryptocurrency info on the Internet is basically an advertisement for something, and therefore not very useful. If anyone could create a course and publish it on equal standing with the other courses, then we'd end up with a huge pile of altcoin-pump courses, "how to make money using totally-safe HYIPs", and stuff like that. But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.)

Thoughts?

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[Vod]

I don't have any concrete plans for this at all, but I've been thinking recently that the Bitcoin community desperately needs some high-quality, unbiased online courses, and perhaps bitcointalk.org would be a good place to host such a thing. This is just a brainstorming thread.

I'd like to assume this is because of my thread asking for consolidation/recognition of education threads?

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=4511686

[o_e_l_e_o]

I like the idea a lot. The challenge as I see it is less in creating the content, however, and more in getting people to use it.

Of the topics you've listed a number of them already have guide threads stickied in various places. People don't read them. Just look at Jet Cash's excellent Fit To Talk project which was struggling to find participants, even with the promise of some merit on the line.

Having said that, if we are looking at this not just as a way of improving the forum, but also as a way of improving the entire crypto community, it's a great idea.

[vit05]

I do not know if the forum has the structure needed for something like that. There are thousands of other structures much better prepared.

But I believe that the forum could be used to debate more ideas and concepts between people who do not totally dominate a subject. That is, they could have specific sections, with suggestions of supporting materials and guides where the average user could discuss the subject and study more about. Maybe with designated tutors. Experts on a given subject, helping and moderating.

I, for example, do not understand practically anything about most of the new protocols or about second layer solutions in Bitcoin. Having a section targeted with a roadmap and many reading suggestions plus a dedicated space for discussions could be interesting.

And as it is a brainstorming, I leave as a suggestion that courses on economics could be very interesting as well. Especially about game theory. One of the most spectacular courses on this subject and that is free can be found here:

https://youtu.be/nM3rTU927io
YaleCourses
Game Theory (ECON 159)

[Vod]

Just look at Jet Cash's excellent Fit To Talk project which was struggling to find participants, even with the promise of some merit on the line.

I chatted with JetCash about these services.

He has great ideas, but they will not succeed without a strong user base.  Instead of making people create another account, leverage the account they already own, and attach services to that.  He needs to build tools that people can use on this forum.

I do not know if the forum has the structure needed for something like that. There are thousands of other structures much better prepared.

Good point.  Go where the members and structure are...

[Shitcointalk]

The first thing that crossed my mind is a mandatory course to anyone who wish to earn money through bounty on this forum: how to behave, how to post, etc.

Instead of making people create another account, leverage the account they already own, and attach services to that.  He needs to build tools that people can use on this forum.

This is an important point, and definitely the way to go. It's always more efficient and productive to encourage people instead of blaming them. People would take better care of their account (and credential) with their hard earned merit, courses, trust, etc.

[o_e_l_e_o]

-snip-

So if we are saying that it's best to create tools that are linked to forum accounts, but also saying that the forum is not the best medium to deliver these courses, then we need to find a platform that can support such courses and that can be linked to forum accounts.

[Don Pedro Dinero]

I do not know if the forum has the structure needed for something like that. There are thousands of other structures much better prepared.

I don’t agree with that. Many years ago, I learned how to play poker on a forum, and a made good money as a result. There are other educational forums about finances as well. I think a forum; well-structured it is an ideal place for those courses. You can have articles and videos and structure them in different levels, where you can't unlock the next level if you haven't passed the previous one.

I quite like Theymos’ idea.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Regarding the existing online courses I can suggest EDX¹ as a platform.
Just to add here that edx is free² platform for online education and certification provided by the world leading universities and organisations like MIT, Boston university, Linux Foundation etc.
Most of the courses are free, you pay only for certificate /world wide accepted/ if you want one.

Course: Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies
Institution: University of California, Berkeley
Info:

Learn the fundamentals of Bitcoin and the Cryptocurrency space, including the basics of smart contracts, the Ethereum platform and how to build decentralized applications.

Course: Blockchain: Understanding Its Uses and Implications
Institution:The Linux Foundation
Info:

Understand exactly what a blockchain is, its impact and potential for change around the world, and analyze use cases in technology, business, and enterprise products and institutions.

Course: Blockchain and FinTech: Basics, Applications, and Limitations
Institution:University of Hong Kong Logo
Info:

Understand the design rationale of blockchain technology, its emerging platforms and applications and uncover the limitations and the opportunities enabled by blockchain applications, particularly as it relates to finance.

 Course:Blockchain Technology
Institution:University of California, Berkeley
Info:

Learn the fundamentals of blockchain technology and how it will power the economy of tomorrow.

¹ I do not advertise the mentioned above website, I just want to share my experience with you. If you feel that is not acceptable,I'll just delete my post.

² With "free" I mean you have access almost all the courses and at the end you can decide by yourself if you want to pay for certificate or not. There are some professional courses where you have to pay to enroll like this one, but still it is a good opportunity.

[tranthidung]

Great ideas, Theymos.
I will strongly support bitcointalk online courses if you decide implementing it in the future.
Something like online courses in Coursera platform, and has different pay gates, BTC, LTC, Doge, ETH, etc. for learners.

Weeks ago, I had a idea to make a collection (an ebook, exactly), which collect main topics of the forum.
I would like to create a textbook, or guideline, anything you think a relevant name for it, I order to help forum users can learn, get ideas, skills, experiences from others, especially from available helpful topics.
Of course, forum members can do it by themselves, but they can only do this if they have Internet connections on train, buses, during vacations, etc.
It is the main reasons why I thought of creating a guideline book for off-line situation.


Nevertheless, doing this requires lots of time, and I am not sure whether this guideline will potentially violate both forum rules and copy rights.
Consequently, I didn't not make it.

Do you have any ideas or suggestions, Theymos.
If you claim that such guideline book will not violate forum rules, I gonna start doing this.

[DarkKnightNeverDie]

~

Thank you for the very useful collections on books, courses, websites, @iasenko.
By the way, congratulations and it's really good to see you ranked up to Senior Member, months after the launch day of merit system.

[burakike]

Are you really expecting spammers wont take advantage? signatures are the main reason why this forum wont be as good before.Merit system is working but how about your merit sources? do you really think we have enough? do not create another spam-machine shits,give the people/users in this forum some good reason why they should keep using bitcointalk.

[Quickseller]

This could be done with Powerpoint-like software fairly easily once the content is created.

It would probably be beneficial to have Bitcoin-related history courses about scams, thefts and losses in Bitcoin's early days. This ideally would help people from falling into these same traps.

It might be a good idea to invest some of the forum's money into buying licenses of courses focused on teaching english, including english grammar. The benefits of this should be obvious, and completion of this course could be used as a way to reduce the duration of some bans.

It would be beneficial for adoption to have courses related to how to buy, store, and use Bitcoin from a consumer point of view. This course would go over everything from choosing an exchange to choosing wallet software to figuring out an appropriate fee to pay while at a physical store.

I am generally opposed to "investment guides" as anyone who "invests" via cryptocurrency should have near-expert level of understanding of crypto, business, and how to perform due diligence and this expertise should be obtained from multiple sources and the accuracy of said information should be independently verified.

[The Cryptovator]

Exactly this is a great idea. Since I have joined this forum I work always fight against scammer and spammers. Of curse some members have created some guidelines but it wasn't focused as well. Those thing you are pointed here exactly I was looking for that. Specially newcomer and who have not much idea about crypto it will be most helpful for them. Introductory cryptocurrency investing is more important for now. Because many people are getting scamed by investing. So if your idea implement then it will be very helpful.
Anyway here is many members know about software you need. They might be help about that. Just need to be verify. Hope your idea will be implemented.

[LoyceV]

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

Would it still be on this same domain, with the same login? I would prefer that.

The benefits of this should be obvious, and completion of this course could be used as a way to reduce the duration of some bans.

I like it! Give shitposters a chance to redeem themselves, making an effort instead of just dumb spamming.

I'm offering my help in creating or proofreading parts of the courses.

[ionabori]

Here is how this can be achieved on this forum :

1) Creating a section here where members can add such information under various headings. They can be encouraged with merits or some monetary rewards.

2) Having some strict measures to deal with spam in that section.

3) Regarding having course related to "Make money online", you should reconsider that as it will dilute the forum in my opinion.

[tmfp]

My initial reaction is along the lines of "Wow, massively ambitious, good luck with that".

As you raise this structural problem regarding the current forum format, it has to be asked whether the new forum software could be more suitable for this?
Could there be a way of getting something up and running by using the current resources, i.e. authoritative existing posts, collected together by some mechanism (maybe a use for the merit system?) into something akin to a dynamic "Read this" sticky for each sub forum?
Just a couple of thoughts.

[Jet Cash]

@Theymos

You are welcome to copy and use any of the content in any of my projects if you think they will help Bitcoin Talk.
I've got a partial list on this page - http://talkmerit.com/projects/

The Onkly project ( core node and mining experiments) is inchoate, and I haven't completed the introductory page yet. I'm quite excited by this one, as it will help me to decide if I should create a new coin.

[crwth]

The gamified structure of the education about cryptocurrencies would really help boost the number of possible users to be there. The entertainment approach is typically the ones that people like and do (based on experience). The trust-building network should really be strict and know that it would only be quality content courses. Probably some of the people that would make their own can submit their approach and then evaluate.

My thoughts would be:

• Games/Trivia - There could be a trivia like people would join and participate every related thing/lesson to bitcoin and just answer. It's like a game show that features the bitcointalk and every established member with the highest achievement
• Masterclass - the approach of a masterclass that it is separated into lessons and exercises would need to be submitted and evaluate if the student is learning or not.
• Basic work - The part of the making money online. Provide simple objectives like Encoding an excel, latest news (with sources), research, etc.
• Building Connections - we all have different ways on connecting with other people, probably there could be a way to integrate our real life to help mutually benefit each other towards a personal goal or something.

[o_e_l_e_o]

There are plenty of free platforms online for creating and sharing courses - Udemy, Teachable, Google Open Education, etc. The challenge will be to integrate the platform with the forum - I doubt any existing software would offer this functionality.

Maybe Quickseller's suggestion of PowerPoint style courses would be more easy to integrate?

[pugman]

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

Have you contacted slickage for ideas on this? Aren't they designing the new forum and they only helped with the merit source issues. They would have better ideas than anyone else because they have more experience on softwares.

A real challenge, which I'm not exactly sure how to solve, would be to keep them up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased. 99.9% of introductory cryptocurrency info on the Internet is basically an advertisement for something, and therefore not very useful. If anyone could create a course and publish it on equal standing with the other courses, then we'd end up with a huge pile of altcoin-pump courses, "how to make money using totally-safe HYIPs", and stuff like that. But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.)

Simple. Editing privileges should only be given to mods or sepcific trustworthy people. The people who write the articles/courses can't edit it but can always update the mods with new information which can be cross checked. Or before the content is published, post it before hand, discuss with the community and confirm the changes and then do what'd be the best.

And maybe to make this a little more interesting, maybe the writers of these courses could be paid? They could be given custom titles. And more perks? And how about having a secret board only for content writers, they could discuss among themselves and could help correcting the content,everytime the answers can't be right because the internet is that badly screwed.theymos, I would love to help people out with the courses. I already have a thread for self-teaching people about bitcoin, and a few people have learned a lot of new stuff, including me. So, if at all anything is required, I am there to help out.

[LeGaulois]

The idea itself is looking good however when you mention

Introductory cryptocurrency investing

It's already misleading people. Cryptocurrencies are not supposed to be an investment and a speculative asset. This is not the ideology of the cryptocurrency. Otherwise, I should be super rich already.
If you're specifically referring to ICOs, then it should not be called cryptocurrency most of the time. A lot of them don't have any product, or don't use anything using the cryptography

[Welsh]

I like the ambition that you are showing at the very least. I don't see this being implemented any time soon unless, there's an open source software already out there that is suitable then this is likely going to need a bit of investment, and time to not only make the content, but the software also. Besides that I'll encourage any type of content creation which will help better others peoples judgment/knowledge on Bitcoin, and this forum.

Consider drawing up a wire frame, and presenting it here. Possibility, we could then have a little more insight, and add to it. Fundamentally, the idea is a good one. Also, how are you going to deal with course details/answers being leaked? I'm assuming that these would have to be changed frequently to avoid this issue.

I'm guessing your going to be the one overseeing this? Haven't you got got enough on your plate already?

But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.) Quite like the idea of the forum etiquette, and possibly going into depth on the ins, and outs of the forum.

You've probably got the contacts, and the drive in order to get the most competent people. Even, if it's to initially write the content up, and then using a pull request system to keep things up to date. I don't think it will be a problem for you to contact some of the people who are specialists in the areas that you want. However, they might be able to provide the knowledge, but putting that into an itinerary, and course format might not be the strongest area. You'll likely need to draft in several people for one course where they all provide different inputs.

I think getting the foundations down is going to be the priority. I think you might agree that updating it should not be as difficult as the initial content in terms of updating the content itself. Finding the people capable, and willing to do this could be a little more difficult. However, I think we have more than enough able, and committed members to update topics on Bitcoin, and the forum.

Simple. Editing privileges should only be given to mods or sepcific trustworthy people. The people who write the articles/courses can't edit it but can always update the mods with new information which can be cross checked. Or before the content is published, post it before hand, discuss with the community and confirm the changes and then do what'd be the best.

Mods shouldn't have automatic editing privileges. Of course, if they have the skills, and knowledge then sure. Initially, I think selecting a few "experts" or those capable of creating the content would be the better choice. Then finding a few users who can transfer this into a course structure. Finally, allowing pull requests as mentioned by Github to allow for editing/correcting mistakes.  

And maybe to make this a little more interesting, maybe the writers of these courses could be paid? They could be given custom titles. And more perks? And how about having a secret board only for content writers, they could discuss among themselves and could help correcting the content,everytime the answers can't be right because the internet is that badly screwed.theymos, I would love to help people out with the courses. I already have a thread for self-teaching people about bitcoin, and a few people have learned a lot of new stuff, including me. So, if at all anything is required, I am there to help out.

A custom title should suffice. Something along the lines of "Content creator". I have no qualms of paying the writers either as this is a fairly ambitions project. However, I would be interested in how many people would voluntarily be willing to do this. Especially, considering the limited amount of people who are able to create worthy content, and discuss in depth, and at the same time convey the information clearly.

Especially, in terms of Bitcoin, and the technology behind it.

Introductory cryptocurrency investing

It's already misleading people. Cryptocurrencies are not supposed to be an investment and a speculative asset. This is not the ideology of the cryptocurrency. Otherwise, I should be super rich already.
If you're specifically referring to ICOs, then it should not be called cryptocurrency most of the time. A lot of them don't have any product, or don't use anything using the cryptography

Why is this misleading? Cryptocurrency is what you make of it. Whether, you are investing in it for short term gain, and with the ultimate goal of withdrawing, and transferring that back into fiat or your goal is to use Bitcoin as a currency. They are both investments. Plus, investments don't mean a guaranteed profit so it doesn't mean that you would be rich already. I feel for the person that has to write up the investment course, though. Quite a tough subject to tackle that one.

I like the idea a lot. The challenge as I see it is less in creating the content, however, and more in getting people to use it.

Of the topics you've listed a number of them already have guide threads stickied in various places. People don't read them.

Having said that, if we are looking at this not just as a way of improving the forum, but also as a way of improving the entire crypto community, it's a great idea.

You'll be surprised how many people will be willing to do it just to get a badge on their profile. That's enough of an incentive for them alone, and of course they pick up some knowledge on the way, and hopefully put that into practice. It's exactly why sticky threads aren't looked at or adhered by. They don't really offer any real incentive to those that read it other than gaining knowledge, and following etiquette. It doesn't mean that offering an incentive via badges would get them to intake the information they are going through, unless you have to demonstrate what you've learned in the course via a quiz or something along those lines.

¹ I do not advertise the mentioned above website, I just want to share my experience with you. If you feel that is not acceptable,I'll just delete my post.

² With "free" I mean you have access almost all the courses and at the end you can decide by yourself if you want to pay for certificate or not. There are some professional courses where you have to pay to enroll like this one, but still it is a good opportunity.

Edx is something we should be looking to emulate. However, I quite like the idea of this Bitcoin forum being the forefather for information about Bitcoin, and therefore hosting it via this site would be the best option. I've used Edx, and in fact a few universities actually recommend it, however I don't think they have a platform that can hosted elsewhere, and tied into here on the forum.

[seoincorporation]

What a beautiful idea, even if it doesn't help those who are not willing to learn, there are others (included me) that will appreciate this. Some basics:

- The domain  Bitcointalkcourses.org is not taken. Maybe to create a website (official) it the best way to manage this.
- We can create a board in which the contents of the courses are divided and everyone can participate in a thread, for instance, in order to generate a good article about a specific theme, once the article is approved, then determinate people can shape it and upload the approved content into the website. This board needs to have some rewards, of course, in order for the people to try their best. Also, the users that created the thread will have some recognition in the course's website.
- If you want to take a course, you will need to use your same account name, it is important due to the next point:
- We can implement a system  of achievements, and organize the courses step by step, with a final trivia, for those who achieve a complete course, we can implement here in the forum a tool that shows it, for instance (trainee, first level, second level, tech expert, graduate, bitcoin genius...), it can be under the actual rank of the user, for instance: Newbie/trainee  /Newbie graduated/ Hero/teacher...and it will help the people to rank-up, in case they achieve the graduate level, for instance, and as well as their participation in here is a good quality one, he can rank-up, I don't know, to full member as much, maybe. It will encourage the people to participate and, probably, help the forum to, at least, knowing who has made the effort and who doesn't.

In order to make this a reality, I think the best path can be:
- Buying the domain, and making it look pleasant, nice.
- Open a full contest of teachers in here, as well as the new board (maybe can be restricted, I don't know, maybe global, for there are also good newbies in here).
- Organizing the web by themes and achievements, and launching contests or information in here, once a course is completed, we can make an official announcement in the forum and encourage the people to take that one.

I do believe that the system of achievements and titles can really encourage the people to be a part of this. Also, if, by learning, they will change something in their profile information, as described, it probably will be a success.
What happens with the shitposters? Well, if someone just inscribes into a course and don't make their best, then they will remain in here as trainee forever, and it is going to be as remaining as newbie forever, so they need to try harder.

A practical example:

I am a Newbie, and I decide to take an English course at the Bitcointalkcourses.org, so in my profile, once I'm inscribed, it will appear something like this: "English trainee" on my BT profile. Once I get my first grade (lets say we can manage 5 grades of English), in my profile will appear: English level 1!!
Suddlenly, I decide to take the course of "Basic programmation", so it will appear in my profile: Basic Prorgammer trainee, and then, once achieved, it will change to "Basic programmer".
By taking a look at my profile, the people will know that I'm trying my best, so I try to take as many courses as I can.
Once completed all the levels, for instance in my profile will appear: English graduated, or English genius, if we want this to be a little funnier.

That's just an idea. My girsfriend teachs in the university and she's standing by my side know telling me what to write  

[Welsh]

- Open a full contest of teachers in here, as well as the new board (maybe can be restricted, I don't know, maybe global, for there are also good newbies in here).

theymos likely has some decent contacts outside of the forum which would be willing to contribute, and write some of the content. Some well respected ones at that. Not all of them are here on the forum anymore unfortunately. I'm not sure what you mean by contest, however its likely not the best option. What would be better is if anyone has an interest in writing some of the content or contributing other ways such as proof reading they could contact theymos privately, and he could then approach these users if he deems them capable. If we introduce a contest where people can vote etc then I fear the it would just turn into a popularity contest, and not who is the best option. In fact, theymos could probably draw up some questions or ask the applicant to demonstrate how they would explain certain aspects. By this he should be able to gauge the technical ability, and knowledge of the user. Maybe, he could pass the responsibility of this onto some of the mods that are knowledgeable in the specific subject. For example,  achow for subjects relating to Bitcoin.
 

What happens with the shitposters? Well, if someone just inscribes into a course and don't make their best, then they will remain in here as trainee forever, and it is going to be as remaining as newbie forever, so they need to try harder.

I don't think implementing another restriction via requiring users to take a course in order to rank up is the best idea. The merit system is already in place for doing just that. Courses should be optional, and have no bearing on rank. Instead, you get a cool badge to display that you've successfully completed a course!

However, having said that there's been talks about requiring a user to complete a mini quiz to complete registration. I guess that might be able to tie into this idea, possibility.

[Jet Cash]

I think bitcointalkcourses is too long. I'm also a fan of .coms. If Theymos wants a domain name, I'll hve a look to see what I've got, or I can look for one.

The other alternative is to use a subdomain like courses.bitcointalk.org. If you do that, then make sure you pick up the name without the dot to avoid it getting into scammers control.

[seoincorporation]

- Open a full contest of teachers in here, as well as the new board (maybe can be restricted, I don't know, maybe global, for there are also good newbies in here).

theymos likely has some decent contacts outside of the forum which would be willing to contribute, and write some of the content. Some well respected ones at that. Not all of them are here on the forum anymore unfortunately. I'm not sure what you mean by contest, however its likely not the best option. What would be better is if anyone has an interest in writing some of the content or contributing other ways such as proof reading they could contact theymos privately, and he could then approach these users if he deems them capable. If we introduce a contest where people can vote etc then I fear the it would just turn into a popularity contest, and not who is the best option. In fact, theymos could probably draw up some questions or ask the applicant to demonstrate how they would explain certain aspects. By this he should be able to gauge the technical ability, and knowledge of the user. Maybe, he could pass the responsibility of this onto some of the mods that are knowledgeable in the specific subject. For example,  achow for subjects relating to Bitcoin.
 

I think this is a Babel tower problem, sorry about that. English is not my first language and I am kind of asleep today:
- By "contest" I was meaning just to encourage the people to write useful things. For instance, if you an English teacher, then you will write something and, in the case to be good enough, well, it could be a part of the site. "Contest" is definitely a word I misused.

What happens with the shitposters? Well, if someone just inscribes into a course and don't make their best, then they will remain in here as trainee forever, and it is going to be as remaining as newbie forever, so they need to try harder.

I don't think implementing another restriction via requiring users to take a course in order to rank up is the best idea. The merit system is already in place for doing just that. Courses should be optional, and have no bearing on rank. Instead, you get a cool badge to display that you've successfully completed a course!

However, having said that there's been talks about requiring a user to complete a mini quiz to complete registration. I guess that might be able to tie into this idea, possibility.

I neither meant the courses to be obligatory, but a "plus" also in here. For all those willing to learn, it will appear in here that that are already taking the courses. That's all. Of course, it must be optional, but with a "reward" in here, so they want to work harder.

About the mini quiz, I totally agree, it could be about the forum rules.

Thanks for the quote, sometimes I find difficult to express myself in English, I must take the English course, if created  

I think bitcointalkcourses is too long. I'm also a fan of .coms. If Theymos wants a domain name, I'll hve a look to see what I've got, or I can look for one.

The other alternative is to use a subdomain like courses.bitcointalk.org. If you do that, then make sure you pick up the name without the dot to avoid it getting into scammers control.

Jejee. Totally agree. It was just an idea, but you are the domain master in here 
A subdomain sounds great.

[krishnapramod]

Accepting Bitcoin payments and other basics are detailed in bitcoin.org, IMO it would be the perfect website to add up and implement the idea of additional courses. Yeah, using English naturally online only stands out, but I guess it could be added up with other informational/educational material.

Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member, if it gets fixed rest of all falls in place. Engaging the users to be more contributing and constructive to only learn, but getting rewarded with achievements/merits at the end would encourage them to keep learning and making constructive posts at the same time if it's on the same domain, user engagement.

[theymos]

A particularly simple way to do it might be to use Twine. Twine creates completely-client-side HTML+JavaScript pages. It's intended for interactive fiction, but I don't think that it'd be much of a stretch to use it for courses. Then the course construction could be done on github, and the github work could be automatically compiled into HTML+JS and dumped on courses.bitcointalk.org with some server-side integration added in.

It seems that there is an open-source EDX platform which could be used, but it seems really complex, and especially difficult for many people to create/modify a course collaboratively.

I'm guessing your going to be the one overseeing this? Haven't you got got enough on your plate already?

Yeah, I'd like to write some of the technical material, but I won't have time to oversee it properly. I also don't know much about the science of pedagogy. I'd be nice if someone with some teaching experience would volunteer to oversee the whole thing.

[Jet Cash]

There are some educational CMS packages in Softaculous. I'm happy to provide a domain name and hosting, and I'll install the CMS. I can cover the cost with ads for my domain registrar and the hosting company, so it wouldn't cost the forum anything. I won't have time to administer any of the courses, so that would be down to you guys.

If there is any interest, then I'll post a list of suitable CMS for you guys to choose the best. I think some of the packages allow for integration with outside sites.

http://www.softaculous.com/apps/educational

I found a list of the educational CMS packages

[o_e_l_e_o]

Twine is actually a great idea. With Sugarcube you can easily go forward and back through the material, link to extra or external resources, use multimedia files, etc. as well as allowing users to save their progress to return to at a later date.

In terms of having real life educators involved - I have postgraduate teaching qualifications, regularly teach at both the undergraduate and postgraduate level, and am regularly appraised and evaluated on my teaching to keep my methods and skills up-to-date. However, I have no qualifications in tech, computing, or anything even remotely related to Bitcoin or blockchain technology. I'm not sure how helpful I could be in overseeing material that I potential don't understand myself, and I'm sure the same applies of others. I think you might need to find someone who educates specifically in the tech field to take this on.

[JohnTycoon]

I would appreciate these courses really, I am still a bit lost in the forum, even if I am not a newbie in crypto, there is a lot in here to explore and too much misinformation.

[paxmao]

I think that is a good idea to generate resources for learning.

My main observation is that the task is much more difficult than it looks and an effort is required to keep it as simple as possible.

Sorry to disagree on the way of doing it, I think that the Forum is more than enough to generate and host these learning resources and it has some clear advantages:

It is probably more than enough for the first "editions" to use PDF, diagrams and (only maybe) videos hosted in public file hosting sites. Creating a full course with interaction, tests, discussions, etc... requires quite a long time and effort and it may be much better to start small and then grow, taking into account that this would be mostly voluntary work.

This initiative could and IMO should increase the value of this forum. Including the resources and links in the forum, even creating and specific section, would effective contribute to its utility and to the expansion of the user base.

Regarding the issues of governance and management, each topic on a thread, each thread with one "owner" that moderates and updates the content and possibly a specific sections for the guides. This way you have clear accountability. If one of the "topic managers" cannot continue doing a proper work, it would have to be replaced.

Each topic thread will probably have more than one contributor and possibly this contributions could be done in shared docs (typically google docs) before having the first versions available in the forum.

Personally, I have been playing with the idea of creating and ICO analysis document, but I have tons of work at the moment, so it would have to be at a very slow pace. I may be able to translate some of the materials, again as long as speed is not of paramount importance.

P.S. I need to understand better what is "Using English naturally online", perhaps because I can´t use English naturally online.

P.S.S. A question: As it is described, is the idea of these materials to discourage investing in altcoins and speaking mainly of bitcoin?

P.S.S.S I recently reached the l33t post. Good pun.

[Anduck]

The problem with these ideas, as with everything, is that people don't read.
People google up whatever they want to find and skim over words to find what they want as fast as possible.
And so people get scammed and learn untrue stuff.

If someone wanted to learn something, it should be pretty straightforward and simple to catch those people. They're the same who most often get scammed. I'm afraid some content that's trying to stay as neutral as possible, without mentioning any services and so on, will get skipped by big majority of those who would get scammed i.e. the target.

edit:
Something that was planned earlier elsewhere: Quiz must be passed before access is granted. Then the Quiz would also educate people and one would need to answer correctly to the Quiz questions. It would be quite simple, but still something that requires attention as it has to be passed in order to access whatever resources. E.g. such kind of quiz could be used before one can access marketplace section here.

[suchmoon]

I'm quite skeptical of this idea and not so much on the implementation side, which is a challenge for sure but I've seen plenty of bright and enthusiastic people on this forum who could make it happen and would probably welcome a chance to build something inherently positive. To me the more important question is - already expressed by some other posters above me - how do we (or do we even attempt to) entice those who really need that education? We could build the nicest tastiest most beautiful carrot but seeing how many newbies here have a complete disregard for the rules of their "workplace" - how do we get them to eat their veggies without a big-ass stick? If there is one thing we learned from the merit system it's that even when their source of income is threatened (and that's a pretty big stick) some/most folks actively resist any chance of improvement but rather whine and moan about some perceived unfairness.

The idea itself is looking good however when you mention

Introductory cryptocurrency investing

It's already misleading people. Cryptocurrencies are not supposed to be an investment and a speculative asset. This is not the ideology of the cryptocurrency. Otherwise, I should be super rich already.
If you're specifically referring to ICOs, then it should not be called cryptocurrency most of the time. A lot of them don't have any product, or don't use anything using the cryptography

Perhaps not the best title, but the concept is good. It could be focused on what NOT to do, due diligence, risks of irreversible pseudonymous payments, lack of legal recourse etc. Let's face it - people are already being misled in so many horrible ways that any education on the topic would be an improvement.

[verita1]

Regarding the existing online courses I can suggest EDX¹ as a platform.
Just to add here that edx is free² platform for online education and certification provided by the world leading universities and organisations like MIT, Boston university, Linux Foundation etc.
Most of the courses are free, you pay only for certificate /world wide accepted/ if you want one.

Great! Thanks for this information, I have completed courses in edX, I stopped studying for a while and I am not updated with these courses, but it is worth checking out. The platform is easy to use and it is a great achievement to complete a course of prestigious Universities and Institutions such as The Linux Foundation.

The idea of theymos is pretty good and really he is right, the community needs education in cryptocurrencies. Perhaps a news bulletin or articles in Medium and Steemit reporting on these courses could give positive results for the community and it is in the interest of the members to take the courses, improve the quality and skills of their jobs.

Among the concerns of theymos is to use some platforms like GitHub I could confess that it is not so difficult I learned to use the platform with this course Html CSS Javascript for Web Developers and I also think that GitHub has an easy tutorial to learn.

I applaud this initiative because you all know more about our needs because you have more time in bitcointalk it is good to recognize that it is a feeling, so that our community improves in quality.

[o_e_l_e_o]

To me the more important question is - already expressed by some other posters above me - how do we (or do we even attempt to) entice those who really need that education?

This is something I've been thinking on for the last 24 hours. The best I could come up with is to disable signatures unless a required selection of courses has been completed. However, this will just create a bigger market for account farmers, and I can't see a way to prevent that.

[paxmao]

I'm quite skeptical of this idea and not so much on the implementation side, which is a challenge for sure but I've seen plenty of bright and enthusiastic people on this forum who could make it happen and would probably welcome a chance to build something inherently positive. To me the more important question is - already expressed by some other posters above me - how do we (or do we even attempt to) entice those who really need that education? We could build the nicest tastiest most beautiful carrot but seeing how many newbies here have a complete disregard for the rules of their "workplace" - how do we get them to eat their veggies without a big-ass stick? If there is one thing we learned from the merit system it's that even when their source of income is threatened (and that's a pretty big stick) some/most folks actively resist any chance of improvement but rather whine and moan about some perceived unfairness.

The idea itself is looking good however when you mention

Introductory cryptocurrency investing

It's already misleading people. Cryptocurrencies are not supposed to be an investment and a speculative asset. This is not the ideology of the cryptocurrency. Otherwise, I should be super rich already.
If you're specifically referring to ICOs, then it should not be called cryptocurrency most of the time. A lot of them don't have any product, or don't use anything using the cryptography

Perhaps not the best title, but the concept is good. It could be focused on what NOT to do, due diligence, risks of irreversible pseudonymous payments, lack of legal recourse etc. Let's face it - people are already being misled in so many horrible ways that any education on the topic would be an improvement.

About the carrot and the stick: The stick is that you may loose your money if you don´t bother to read. The carrot is saving your money, but let´s sweeten the deal by using merit to those "students" who prove themselves worth of it.

And I would not go further than that. We can teach those who are willing to learn, that is, I can help someone who doesn´t know, but I not willing to motivate someone who doesn´t care (even about their own money). I you are not even willing to read I can´t help you. That doesn´t mean that the material has to be boring or picture-less, but difficult things are difficult.

Investing is not equivalent to speculation. I can invest to speculate or I can invest to generate a new business, create new jobs and generate something worth for the world. But I think that the title is not really the main issue.

ICO analysis should include Due Diligence for non-professionals, Business Analysis, Technology Analysis, Economic model analysis and many more topics.

Most of the people in the forum don´t grasp simple concepts such as the Market Cap, the value of a token, the real legal implications of an ICO, their rights (or the lack of these more precisely).

As for the the "white papers" that are normally published, most would not even pass the minimum filter of a half-witted accredited investor.

This is not about discouraging people to invest, but about discouraging poor projects to snatch the funds from the users of this forum and create a bad image for the sector, the forum and the senior members.

I think this is a very healthy discussion.

[Ucy]

giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.
Great idea. Sorry for my short reply.

I don't have any concrete plans for this at all, but I've been thinking recently that the Bitcoin community desperately needs some high-quality, unbiased online courses, and perhaps bitcointalk.org would be a good place to host such a thing. This is just a brainstorming thread.

Example courses that come to mind:

Introductory cryptocurrency investing
 - The main focus would be not getting scammed and not losing all of your money.
 - It would be very careful not to endorse any particular sites, investments, or trading methods.
 - Overall extremely conservative, to balance out all of the pump around here.
 - It might be similar to the sort of material on investor.gov, but less authoritarian (eg. no "only trust SEC-approved things") and with more cryptocurrency focus.
 Using English naturally online
 - Tips targeted at non-native English speakers for acting naturally online.
Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member
Making money online
 - SANE tips for making money, especially for people in less-developed countries. No unwise things like gambling or high-risk investing, and no non-constructive things like spamming the forum with garbage.
Basic cryptocurrency concepts
Accepting Bitcoin payments
Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)
 

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

A real challenge, which I'm not exactly sure how to solve, would be to keep them up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased. 99.9% of introductory cryptocurrency info on the Internet is basically an advertisement for something, and therefore not very useful. If anyone could create a course and publish it on equal standing with the other courses, then we'd end up with a huge pile of altcoin-pump courses, "how to make money using totally-safe HYIPs", and stuff like that. But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.)

Thoughts?

giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.
Great idea. Sorry for my short reply.

[DdmrDdmr]

Just a few thoughts on the matter at hand:

The online courses would certainly be nice to have around, since they are better suited for the visual kind of person who dreads taking on the challenge of reading books on the topics at hand, and should be an easier resource to tackle for those that have language difficulties.
Each course would probably require having a structure broken-up by levels to facilitate focusing on one subtopic at a time, thus easing the learning curve.
Whether the courses end up with an online exam or not (per course or per level) depends essentially on the reward that is on the other end. That is, is Bitcointalk Course badges a part of the outcome, or merit, or prestige, then some sort of control needs to be implemented to verify the knowledge acquired. If not, then examless courses are a viable option.

I’ve got conflicting thoughts on the idea of getting badges for taking (and passing) the different courses if integrated on Bitcointalk: on the one hand, it should incentivize people to perform the courses mainly to acquire the underlying knowledge but also as a sense of pride. On the other hand If the number of courses is high(ish) with time, some user profiles could look like decorated generals with uncountable little icons under their profile like a wall of medals. If the badges stand out a lot it could look a bit awkward.
Also, if exams were to be part of the deal, I’m not sure how the qualies should be managed. Perhaps a simple pass/no pass should suffice to avoid a back-to-school habit of comparing qualies and creating visions on people based on their grades.
 
I would favour the courses themselves being tied as much as possible to the forum itself, being a proprietary feature, since it could help to boost it’s profile and position as well as to underline it’s mission.
There are multiple technological challenges associated to the idea itself, that multiply I guess if you try to perform the integration in the current Forum software, whilst having the new Forum software on the roadmap at the same time. Perhaps an external online course platform would give you better functional feasible options that trying to embed it all to the Forum´s software, although some sort of integration would ideally exists (to control user access, rewards and so on). 
Regardless, implementation one way or another will always be feasible, but I figure at this stage that brainstorming at all levels is part of the idea (concept, scope, format, reward, technology, integration, cost, roi, etc.)

I figure that the "Accepting Bitcoin payments" chapter is where the concepts and case examples of how to use bitcoin in day to day activities would be explained. This could ideally be a good booster to bitcoin acceptance and usage (provided network transaction speed and cost improve in the short term). If would be brilliant if multiple real case applications were set here as examples and build a base of cases to help people understand how to do it.

Deep down I do have the feeling though that those most interested in the online courses, if tied to the Bitcointalk Forum, would be a largely a subset of the merited users. I believe the strategical goal is greater than that nevertheless…

[Jet Cash]

I've installed ILIAS on a domain, and I'm exploring that at the moment. I'll throw it open to you guys when I understand it a bit more. It looks a lot more complex than I though. and it seems to be able to create a complete University with courses, tutor groups and projects.

This is the official demo site.

https://www.demo.ilias.de/ilias.php?baseClass=ilrepositorygui&reloadpublic=1&cmd=frameset&ref_id=1

[suchmoon]

Deep down I do have the feeling though that those most interested in the online courses, if tied to the Bitcointalk Forum, would be a largely a subset of the merited users. I believe the strategical goal is greater than that nevertheless…

Perhaps theymos could elaborate a bit on who he thinks the target audience would be. It should be wider than that. Maybe it could attract new forum users who are not bounty hunters.

[Jet Cash]

Is it worth starting a thread about courses on the beginners board to see what reaction it gets.

[cool_93]

It's an outstanding idea really. It can help to people who came here for "wrong" reasons, but are interested in educating themselves and developing. I would love to participate personally.
I also believe that ideally it should be made in some form of contest, so after some time you have to "unlock" next level. That will help to eliminate those who aren't really interested in studying.

[DdmrDdmr]

Is it worth starting a thread about courses on the beginners board to see what reaction it gets.

Setting this all this in motion is no easy feat, so perhaps additional inputs could be obtained through sampling the idea in a couple of threads as you suggest. It would need to be rather guided to avoid a spamfest of jibberish and turn it into something useful.

Also some sort of proof of concept at some preliminary stage could be approached by means of a pilot test. That is, before deploying a full project and all that it entails, start with one course a kind (less ambitious than a full deployed platform) and see how people react to it, as a means to calibrate the target audience’s reaction. I figure that there are multiple, and that the idea from theymo’s opening statement is to be as broad as possible, but the ties to rewards (merit, badges) would need to be managed with care so as not to focus just on some specific profiles as a result, in the line of what @suchmoon indicates.

[Jet Cash]

As I mentioned earlier, I've installed an educational package on a domain as an experiment.

This is not intended to be a permanent project, but just an initial experiment. I'll probably take the site down in a few months. I'm in KFC at the moment, and it'a a bit hot here. I'll go to McD tomorrow ( their air con is better), and I'll do a bit of formatting, and you guys can comment. I'll just add a couple of the threads from Fit to Talk as examples.

[Piggy]

It could be working if there are enought people who can contribute creating good and interesting content for the courses. In particular i like this, i had similar essays in the university structured like that as well:

Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)

On github there seems to be quite a few projects coming up looking for "learning platform", without even considering the commercial one. So there is no shortage of ready solutions.

One of the main question is what kind of integration with the forum is going to be required, if one of the goal is to keep some sort of continuity. If it need to be completely integrated, is probably better to add this whole dimension to the new forum peraphs?

[BanishedDemon]

I don't have any concrete plans for this at all, but I've been thinking recently that the Bitcoin community desperately needs some high-quality, unbiased online courses, and perhaps bitcointalk.org would be a good place to host such a thing. This is just a brainstorming thread.

Example courses that come to mind:

Introductory cryptocurrency investing
 - The main focus would be not getting scammed and not losing all of your money.
 - It would be very careful not to endorse any particular sites, investments, or trading methods.
 - Overall extremely conservative, to balance out all of the pump around here.
 - It might be similar to the sort of material on investor.gov, but less authoritarian (eg. no "only trust SEC-approved things") and with more cryptocurrency focus.
 Using English naturally online
 - Tips targeted at non-native English speakers for acting naturally online.
Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member
Making money online
 - SANE tips for making money, especially for people in less-developed countries. No unwise things like gambling or high-risk investing, and no non-constructive things like spamming the forum with garbage.
Basic cryptocurrency concepts
Accepting Bitcoin payments
Implementing Bitcoin
 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)
 

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

A real challenge, which I'm not exactly sure how to solve, would be to keep them up-to-date, accurate, and unbiased. 99.9% of introductory cryptocurrency info on the Internet is basically an advertisement for something, and therefore not very useful. If anyone could create a course and publish it on equal standing with the other courses, then we'd end up with a huge pile of altcoin-pump courses, "how to make money using totally-safe HYIPs", and stuff like that. But if courses are only written by trusted & competent people after significant mod review, then only a limited number of courses could be created, and they'd probably quickly become outdated. Perhaps it'd work to do a github-style pull-request format led by some trustworthy editors. (Github could even be used, though that's pretty difficult to use for people not already familiar with git.)

Thoughts?

A good idea of course , i personally liked python / implementing crypto sounds really geeky and cool , many newbie user also can take advantage from making money online course.

Hope all goes smoothly and cant wait for this course stuff will be coming ( even tho its still planning )

[Jet Cash]

I've been playing with the ILIAS software, and so far, I'm quite impressed. I'll probably keep the site, and use if tor instruction about the domain name system, and topics like that. I don't understand enough about it to know if it could be intergrated into Bitcoin Talk though.

[Mianae]

 - A long & advanced course on implementing a Bitcoin-like cryptocurrency largely from scratch in Python or another easy language. (Some of my best courses in university had this model, where you're provided a bunch of library code and then you glue it together by writing a few hundred lines for each assignment, at the end of the course getting some sort of complete thing.)

This will be good. some days back, I was looking to see if i could find any thread that was about basic programming lessons for a starter. I got some feedback about where I can learn from the scratch and I have started. This will be a more added advantage to me when i have the basic knowledge of programming languages.

[paxmao]

I would favour the courses themselves being tied as much as possible to the forum itself, being a proprietary feature, since it could help to boost it’s profile and position as well as to underline it’s mission.

I agree, many people would be willing to volunteer work for the forum, I not so sure of doing so for an externally owned platform that may have some rights on the contents or may close operations, may start charging fees, may gather user data,.... There are many problems that come with outsourcing.

Regarding contents, this would be a White TOC for discussion:

0. The Forum
0.1 Being a constructive bitcointalk.org member (inc descriptions of activity, merit and trust)
0.2 Resources to improve your written English.
0.3 Help keeping the forum clean (how to report abuse in the forum or the campaigns)

1. Cryptocurrencies

1.1 Intro to Cryptocurrency
      A bit of history, a bit of basic technical background some basic terms to understand the rest of the materials.
1.3 Buying safely
1.4 Storing safely

2.  Investing in Crypto
2.1    Buy and Hodl
2.2    Trading
         Basics of technical trading
         Advanced concepts
2.3    ICOs and ITOs
         2.2.1 - Basic concepts (MarketCap, issuance, value of the tokens).
         2.2.2 - Due diligence for non-experts
         2.2.3 - Basics of venture capital investment and Startups
         2.2.4 - Understanding risk and reward
         2.2.5 - Accelerated MBA crash course

3.     Other ways of earning crypto
3.1      Airdrops,  faucets and freebies.
3.2      Promotions and campaigns
3.2.1   Signature
3.2.2   Socials
3.2.3   Other
3.3 KYC and your personal data

(As long as campaigns are allowed in the forum is better to guide the users towards taking part in them constructively rather than ignoring their existence)

4. Crypto Technology
4.1 Bitcoin
4.2 Alts
4.3 Programming resources

This is an Alfa TOC and includes some previous ideas of other members.

[tranthidung]

Today, I found this course by chance in another topic.
I would like to share it with Theymos, our prestigious admin.
Cryptocurrency Investment and Disruption (from The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE))

Hope this one is a helpful information for the ambitious topic.

[Welsh]

I don't think its a problem in finding the people willing to help out, and volunteer their time. Its the fact that a lot of these people who can write about the technical stuff will not be able to format the course effectively for those that are learning. Something similar to Gits pull requests should be enough for keeping it up to date, and relevant. Pedagogy is an art. Its one thing gathering the information, and setting it out in a logical order, but actually formatting it for ease of learning can be difficult.

[paxmao]

I don't think its a problem in finding the people willing to help out, and volunteer their time. Its the fact that a lot of these people who can write about the technical stuff will not be able to format the course effectively for those that are learning. Something similar to Gits pull requests should be enough for keeping it up to date, and relevant. Pedagogy is an art. Its one thing gathering the information, and setting it out in a logical order, but actually formatting it for ease of learning can be difficult.

Oh, well, you need to start by setting some objectives and open a discussion and one of the tools that are useful for that is a TOC just like the one I suggested above. It is, in a way, an orderly brainstorm on the contents, not that different from a Mind Map but faster and easier to post.

Normally, it will be the contents and the objectives (which should be the other area of discussion) the factors that will determine the tools your need.

Regarding voluntary work, I can only speak for myself but I am volunteering work for the forum, not for other purposes. I am absolutely fine with other people, are more condescending on that point and I am also fine if other people are considered more qualified to develop the topics (I am not going to provide my CV nor identity).

No doubt it is an art and each teacher or training professional have their own ways. Mine is based on an Lean Enterpeneurship approach to the course. Build the MVP, get feed-back-improve - rinse and repeat. The MVP does not need videos nor sophisticated platforms for sure. One you hit the "market" you will discover if your public wants that or maybe something completely different that you did not even consider.

[xtraelv]

Courses could be developed in self moderated threads for brainstorming  (and where scammers are deleted) and then post the finished products as a locked thread.

I like what paxmao is suggesting.

[tranthidung]

Being stimulated by the topic of @Theymos, I created my topics on blockchain and bitcoin courses (most of them are free courses) to help crypto newcomers to easily get basic stuffs on blockchain technology.
My collection can help them to save time, hence using these saved time to learn, practice more.
Additionally, I guess part of them are not familiar with using search feature of the forum, so the collection will sure be helpful.
Available courses on Bitcoin and Blockchain Technology from colleges and Universities

[HI-TEC99]

...

Some different/modified software would be needed. The existing threads structure is not at all suitable. Neither are wiki pages, since they're too easily messed-with. Maybe some suitable online-course software already exists. It'd be cool if the courses were internally gamified a bit, maybe with "achievements" and stuff. And it could be integrated with the main forum, eg. giving you badges on your profile if you completed a course.

...

Thoughts?

Some open source GPL freeware called moodle might be suitable for hosting bitcointalk courses.

A lot of Universities use it to deliver courses. This is Cambridge University's opinion of it.

https://www.student-systems.admin.cam.ac.uk/moodle

Moodle is a popular, flexible Virtual Learning Environment that is designed to support face-to-face teaching with a wide range of versatile online tools, as well as providing a place to upload resources for courses.  It is very popular around the world as a tool for creating online dynamic teaching sites and supporting classroom training.

Developed by pedagogical experts, Moodle is a mature system with a strong and enthusiastic international community of users and developers.

Many other students and academics around the University are already familiar with the system having used it in previous institutions.  It is easy and intuitive to use, both for delivering courses and for learning.

It's available from here.

https://moodle.org/

It's not just for face to face teaching, it has a whole range of tools for hosting online distance learning courses, not just forums and wikis.

This page details its features, and points out that "classes can be instructor-led, self-paced, blended or entirely online".

https://docs.moodle.org/35/en/Features

The only downside to it is some of its modules require javascript.

[CoinLearn_org]

Thoughts?

Here is something I proposed - Contribute to CryptoCurrency learning portal CoinLearn.org.

Additionally, I'd request u to recover my stolen profile CoinLearn. Details - Urgent: Business account with green trust has been stolen. An already establishedprofile would immensely help to spearhead such a project.

[th3nolo]

I found this post by a forum ad, I hope I am not committing a fault by bumping it. Was anything finally achieved? or was it a proposal that was dropped?

[AverageGlabella]

I found this post by a forum ad, I hope I am not committing a fault by bumping it. Was anything finally achieved? or was it a proposal that was dropped?

Bitcointalk courses has yet to become a thing and despite many people supporting the idea there has been no offocial word that progress has been made. Assuming that the courses have started being developed it would probably take a number of years before anything substantial was released. College courses are constantly developed and even have student feedback to improve the courses but because this is coming from a non educational body the content would need to be good from the get go otherwise it could look amateurish. 

[Joel_Jantsen]

--snip--

If someone actually executes this and writes a document with all the valid inputs from the experienced members of the forum and submit it as their entry for the forum's 10'th anniversary contest, they'll certainly win a big chunk of that 1 BTC.

[AverageGlabella]

--snip--

If someone actually executes this and writes a document with all the valid inputs from the experienced members of the forum and submit it as their entry for the forum's 10'th anniversary contest, they'll certainly win a big chunk of that 1 BTC.

This would probably not qualify under being art though and something like the proposed courses would take many years to develop a course that would be worthwhile. A project which would have no returns and would be completely volunteer based unless they sold the courses which would probably greatly reduce their target audience.

[Joel_Jantsen]

--snip--

If someone actually executes this and writes a document with all the valid inputs from the experienced members of the forum and submit it as their entry for the forum's 10'th anniversary contest, they'll certainly win a big chunk of that 1 BTC.

This would probably not qualify under being art though and something like the proposed courses would take many years to develop a course that would be worthwhile. A project which would have no returns and would be completely volunteer based unless they sold the courses which would probably greatly reduce their target audience.

You may be right. I thought "Art" was just the term used to convey your love and appreciation to the forum and whatever you submit will get accepted. Anyway, I'm starting to doubt my submissions now. Yeah, that's why I said if someone actually communicates with the group of people and manages to execute it, it'd be grand. Too hypothetical anyway.

[peempeem]

I think it's a nice idea to drive adoption but there are already plenty of courses, albeit no single 'bulletproof must recommend' course.

Great if you want to do it as a charitable course but no way it would have any significant impact in the wider market.

Where I think this could be quite effective is in a local community.

In some localities I have seen people promote it and now quite a lot of stores accept bitcoin. Makes it not only easier to spend it for existing holders but also makes a lot of new holders i.e. more liquidity in the locality.

[TheBeardedBaby]

Another bump of a great idea which died out.
There are new users around who might be interested in helping out...

[libert19]

Start an education sub, where people post the learning stuff, implement a star system and have few 'reputed' people who rate the people postings.