Online Learning Platform rewards - 500+ Million Users Globally

Higher Education LMS/VLE’s

  • Moodle: 78+ million users, 63k registered sites across 222 countries

  • Blackboard: 100 million users, 16,000 clients across 90 countries

MOOCS (Massive Open Online Courses)

  • Coursera : 23 million registered users and 1700+ active courses

  • Open University (OU): 174,898 students, 73 million downloads

  • Canvas: 18 million users worldwide.

  • EdX: 14 million users

  • Future Learn: 3 million users

  • Khan Academy: 10 million users

  • Udemy: 30 million students

  • Udacity 4 million users

Linked In Learning/ Lynda.com: 580 million users

The above Online/Blended/Distance learning platforms are used by hundreds of millions of users every day and I believe Electroneum should consider exploring this area as a potential opportunity to disseminate ETN far and wide across an age group that’s best suited for early adoption of new tech.

As someone who’s spent a decade working at a university producing media and designing and developing online courses, it’s apparent now more than ever that universities in the UK need to be demonstrating that they’re adding value to the student experience. This is because the market is highly competitive and tuition fees in the UK are now £9,250 per year regardless of where you study.

This raises the question - Why would you study, let’s say, at the University of Portsmouth, when you could study at Oxford and Cambridge for the same price? Let’s put aside entry requirements and cost of living in certain cities for just a second.

So, if the the tuition fees cost the same the next question is likely to be, ‘What added value am I getting from studying here rather than there?’ This is why many universities are ramping up their marketing effort to drive recruitment. My university spent 1 million on rebranding last year and tens of millions investing in new buildings.

Some universities incentivise specific courses with the lure of iPads and Macbooks, however, these are ultimately sunk costs. I even saw a university offering £100 cash back as their best marketing effort, which is around 0.03% of the capital loan, without 20 + years of interest to pay. The majority of universities don’t incentive students at all.

Not only do universities fall short on incentivising as a recruitment tool but they also fall short on incentivising learning. You’d be surprised at the staggering number of students that pay £27,750 and are completely disengaged. Non attendance and drop-out rates can be very problematic for universities and it is generally students that come from lower socio-economic backgrounds or are students of ethic minority.

Stay with me, I’m getting to how Electroneum can be implemented.

When it comes to online learning, Moodle and other LMS platforms can enable completion tracking as students progress through their module. Another feature of completion tracking is that it can be used to reward ‘badges’ to motivate students - not unlike the badges rewarded on this forum but way less sophisticated. The only difference is that our main motivation is not to attain badges or status but to help curate a positive and helpful community committed to helping Electroneum grow, which is mutually beneficial to the company and ourselves.

I can confidently say that 18-21 year olds are not incentivised in the slightest by earning a ‘well done’ badge in Moodle, and this is where the opportunity lies! What if we replaced the somewhat patronising motivational badges in online learning platforms with ETN Badges of varying values?

Money is arguably a very powerful incentive and I believe students would be significantly more engaged in their learning if it earned them money. ‘Earn while you learn’ used to be a phrase to market apprenticeship programmes and part-time courses but I believe Electroneum could literally change the definition.

Every student is issued a unique student number, such as UP232174 which is stored in the Student Record System along with their course, modules, grades and personal info etc. The Student Record System feeds this data to Moodle for module enrolment and a whole host of other online services via Ldap Authentication. An Electroneum wallet addresses could be assigned to every student number and stored in the student record system and this is how…

When students register online at the start of the academic year there could be a section on the registration form that says ‘Would you like to opt in to the university’s Electroneum reward scheme?’. ‘ETN can be used as currency on campus. Download the app and Scan this QR code to participate’.

A university could have 25,000 students all Cloud Mining Electroneum to their central wallet, or multiple wallets per faculty/department. Like an MVNO, the University will benefit from the referrals along with the student.

Now, here’s where the bonus incentive comes in. Not only are the students cloud mining on behalf of the university, but the University can reward some of the ETN received back to the students by meeting certain criteria like attaining over 70% on assignments for example. This may not only help increase engagement but could also help to bring up the average grade attained across the board. A win-win all round.

Electroneum badges could also be rewarded for completing a whole host of tasks in Moodle, wether they’re formative multiple choice quizzes, assignments for summative assessments, engaging in forum discussions or even for watching a video or reading a document.

The interesting part of this is how a university might develop an ecosystem to keep the ETN in circulation. This could be achieved by accepting ETN as payment in campus cafeterias, vending machines and students union bars or even by accepting ETN as print credits. You’d be surprised how much students spend on printing each year. What about paying late fees on books loaned from the campus library? The reward scheme could even be linked to the attendance monitoring system which rewards students when they scan their student card before entering their lecture or seminar room.

An Electroneum reward scheme would undoubtedly encourage entrepreneurial students to figure out ways to earn more ETN. Once established the ecosystem has the potential to then spread organically from the campus out to other shops, clubs and bars in the city who might offer a reduced entrance fee or discounts on food/drinks etc. The KYC aspect of the app/Yoti collaboration could even mitigate the need for students to carry driving licenses or passports for ID to get into pubs and clubs.

Can you imagine the global coverage and recognition a university would receive for being the first in the world to roll out a crypto currency reward scheme? I don’t think a university could wish for a better PR opportunity. This would not only give additional credibility to Electroneum as a trusted brand in the education sector, but I believe it has the potential to start a wave of adoption across other universities across the world and expand to all online learning platforms. Higher Education is after-all a business first and foremost and one that is extremely competitive with a target demographic that is second to none as a catalyst for mass adoption.



I like the thought a lot, very well put together thank you for taking the time to collect your thought and write it out. I think this would be a win-win for universities and students as you outlined thoroughly. Well worth the read I agree this should be highly considered down the road imo. Awesome work @Anthony :+1::zap:
:bow_and_arrow: :bow_and_arrow: :bow_and_arrow:

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One word. Brilliant! :slight_smile:

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Well done - this is a great idea.

Do you have the sphere of influence at your university to suggest it??

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Well thought out. Definitely a great target audience.

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Sounds like a great idea. Might be a little early at this point for something like this, but down the road I could see it gaining some traction.

I think they have plans of offering digital skills learning possibly for free on the gig economy site to help jump start things a little for gig workers who need to aquire the skills to offer services. So I’d imagine they would first direct their focus on the gig ecomony sites success.

Might be some kind of conflict of interest there.

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Yes, I could raise the idea with some senior staff but a well presented and thorough business case might be the best approach to take. Even universities at the forefront of research are still in the dark when it comes to generating revenue from crypto so I think the gatekeepers would need to be brought up-to-speed to overcome any potential skepticism - They might think it sounds too good to be true.

Before raising the idea it’d be worth finding out if it’s an opportunity that Electroneum would be interested in pursuing and whether they have the resources to assist with development or have the time to provide guidance to our developers while they’re busy targeting users in developing countries. I appreciate they have more than enough on their plate.

Ideally we’d need a proof of concept to demonstrate how it could integrate with our systems - Moodle and Oracle’s Discoverer, though I’m sure Electroneum’s route to market via MVNO’s and their partnership with the Unlimited would make an extremely compelling case by itself. I’m not a back-end developer but I’d be able to explain or design some kind of process that illustrates the vision and I could help establish contact between Electroneum and the necessary stakeholders to take this idea forward. Our University is always looking to form new partnerships with businesses with a global reach.



http://www2.port.ac.uk/collaborative-courses/join-our-network/
https://www.port.ac.uk/research/future-and-emerging-technologies

My faculty in particular (Business and Law) is the most innovative at the university in terms of trialing and adopting new technology and I’ve been involved in the set up and roll out of lecture capture systems, iPad pilots and the development of specialist teaching classrooms, we’ve even got our own mock bloomberg trading suite right next to our office. I don’t see why we couldn’t pilot the idea and get some valuable feedback from students and those involved in the process whether that takes the form of surveys, interviews or focus groups. It’d be great to film the process a case study for learning materials, a documentary for our business development team or for use in future marketing materials.

Electroneum team, is this an opportunity you’d be interested in exploring?

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Thanks for your reply and welcome to the community!

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Yes, I think you’re probably right. It’s still very early for Electroneum and they have a lot to focus on at the moment that will keep them busy for quite some time. Hopefully, it’s something they’ll look into and take into consideration as another route to market in the not too distant future.

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Well it would seem you have put a lot of thought into this and the idea is your baby and appears to be in very good hands.

It’s actually quite a brilliant idea and I certainly didn’t mean to sound like I was shooting it down. It’s use case potential could be right up there with personal global remittance.

The potential is tremendous and worth exploring for sure.

I hope ETN execs take a serious look at your idea and begin some kind of exploratory process just as soon as they have the time to devote some brainpower to it. It’s a lot to wrap the head around.

Might want to tag them if you haven’t already.

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Thought I’d add some other posts I’ve done on a similar theme:

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Yeah gig.guru has to be marketed after presumably soft launch

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Very well thought out. A whole new angle on the use of crowdfunding, I love it.

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Well, the stars seem to be aligning!

Our university, after many years, has literally just officially parted ways with Totum and NUS discount cards for staff and students and are now looking for a new discount scheme. Hmmm, I wonder what they should use???

https://uopnews.port.ac.uk/2019/04/29/students-union-leaving-the-nus-and-impact-on-totum-nus-discount-cards-for-staff/

@ETNCEO @chris.gorman @Nick @Rach @MSystem I really think an ETN trial in Higher Education could be an extremely valuable learning opportunity for you…and the doors have just flung wide open.

Please read through all the ideas in the thread and let me know if you’re interested.

Best wishes

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Great ideas here @Anthony! :+1:

The education realm, like the digital economy is rapidly evolving. And way past due on that. The method and structure of education has been largely unchanged since the 1800s.

Exciting times we’re in! :grin:

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I’m not too sure how much the ETNCEO account is monitored @Rach - anything you can do to bring this suggestion to the table within the company??

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This is a truly fantastic thought process. It should be looked at further! Well done :slight_smile:

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Electroneum hadn’t moved to Proof of Responsibility when I started this thread so my perspective focused on universities using ETN Rewards, but enabling them to become validators is a much more elegant solution. :sunglasses:

I work in the Faculty of Business and Law at the University of Portsmouth and I’d be interested in helping my uni to become a validator. I’m a Senior Specialist Technician and my role combines Course Development, Media Production and other aspects of Educational Technology. If there’s anything I can do to help facilitate this then then please let me know @Jonathan.

To encourage recruitment at a time when Covid has significantly impacted intake numbers, Electroneum could consider sponsoring students to undertake a research projects that are mutually beneficial to Electroneum and the fintech/crypto industry. Moreover, the student’s fees could be entirely funded directly from the block rewards each participating university receives - the ETN Scholarship Programme.

In my scenario, our Business School is currently looking for self funded PhD students in the area of Economics of Fintech and Digital Money to conduct a study in 1 of 3 areas - one of them being crypto.

“1. Cryptocurrency – Is there any potential competition between CBDC and cryptocurrency such as Bitcoin? What are the monetary policy implications of the future existence of private digital money? What are the challenges and opportunities of the use of cryptocurrency?”

“Electroneum sponsors groundbreaking research in Fintech” could a be a pretty sweet marketing angle to explore which could further raise Electroneum’s profile, and increase credibility within the HE sector and beyond.

This next bit may or may not bear any significance but… the Dean of Kent University’s Business School, Prof Jeremy Howells, will be taking up the post as the new Dean at my Business School in November. As the University of Kent is on Electroneum’s door step, is it safe to assume they are already in the validator short list? if so, It’ll surely be an easier sell for when he joins our Faculty. He has a background in enterprise and innovation so a company like Electroneum could pique his interest so It might be worth putting the feelers out and planting the seed.

Lastly, if Electroneum is going for low hanging fruit, these universities are already working as validators for Ripple.

  • University College London, UK
  • Haas School of Business University of California, Berkeley
  • University of Nicosia, Cyprus
  • Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
  • University of Oregon
  • Korea University
  • Carnegie Mellon University
  • Cornell University
  • Duke University
  • Georgetown University
  • University of Kansas
  • University of Michigan
  • Morgan State University
  • National University of Singapore
  • Northeastern University
  • University of Sao Paulo
  • Institute for Fintech Research, Tsinghua University
  • Kyoto University
  • University of Tokyo
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Just an idea :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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