Cardano learning needs assessment

[IMPACT]

General idea

• Through surveying the community, establish a publicly-available list of “things to know if you're going to do stuff in Cardano.” This list will represent an ongoing needs assessment of simple and more complex competencies needed to function in the Cardano environment.
• The list becomes a living document that gets periodically updated by the community.
• Eventually learning resources will be associated with the list; however, this project only aims to conduct the needs assessment part i.e., creating and validating the list of competencies.

General plan

1. Create an Introduction to the survey
2. Create the survey using SurveyMonkey, Google Forms, or another tool
3. The survey will present an initial draft of the list, currently at around 30 “tasks” in five or six categories
4. The purpose of the survey is simply to allow community members to respond to the latest version of the list and suggest edits
5. In this project the survey will be offered twice

The list is NOT meant to

-Be required in any way

-Give information on how to do the task; it will only identify the tasks and categories of tasks.

More details

• Web development will allow edits from the form to be made visible to the public.
• Over time the list will be updated periodically and made available to the Cardano community.
• The initial list has around 35 tasks in a few categories and several sub-categories. All of these are expected to change as in, categories added, deleted and merged over the iterations (attached).
• The last step involves reaching back to the respondents to help with disseminating the existence and specifics in the list. Thus the Cardano Learning Task List continues to evolve, becoming a maximally practical and useful resource to the Cardano community.

Many groups in the Cardano community will find this list useful.

• Individuals or groups interested in developing content especially for new-comers
• The new-comers themselves
• Stakeholders interested in onboarding e.g. Cardano Foundation, Catalyst
• Others

A learner will be able to work through this list. Knowing “what” to learn will help that person find resources on “how” to do the task.

People wishing to develop resources will have very granular/specific things to focus their content on. This is necessary since many tutorials e.g. on YouTube cover the same generic topics, leaving other topics uncovered.

A second question one could ask the community might be, what would you like to learn?

The resulting list will be released under the auspices of the Cardano Foundation and/or under non-commercial CC license.

SUPPORTING THIS CHALLENGE'S KPI's

This list will

• Help increase meaningful participation from challenge teams, proposers, advisors, mentors and voters, by equipping them with clear direction as to how to prepare themselves for the tasks involved in each of these roles.
• Encourage new members to utilize the tools and services available for onboarding, by pointing to the tools and giving a general idea what they'll need to know in order to use the tools and services.
• Over time and with participation of stakeholders, further competencies can be added for different categories e.g. IdeaScale, Townhalls, Catalyst School, Swarm sessions, Circle.
• This list will improve the use of existing text, video and audio materials by giving specific direction on what should be learned from the resource.

1. Lack of participation from stakeholder groups - To mitigate, contact community members in various communication channels (Discord, IdeaScale, Reddit, etc.
2. Difficulty in disseminating the final list, given the amount of activity in the Cardano ecosystem - To mitigate, reach out to Cardano Foundation and IOHK for assistance in publicizing the list

[FEASIBILITY]

Proposed Production Cycle

1. Publish current list
2. Get input quickly for further edits, with a cut-off date
3. Revamp survey itself and list as needed, republish
4. Repeat twice

Milestones

PREPARATION

• Create content introducing the survey

WEB DEVELOPMENT

• Create Introduction web page
• Create the form and page to display results

FIRST IMPLEMENTATION

• Open the survey for a set period of time e.g. two weeks
• Collate responses and edit list as needed
• Send out link to resulting list
• Refine the survey as needed
• Expand mailing list re: updates to the list
• Recruit community members interested in the long-term curation of the list.

SECOND IMPLEMENTATION

• Repeat the process (run survey, collate responses, edit list, publish)

CONSOLIDATION

• Network with Cardano Foundation and IdeaScale to maximize availability of the list

DELIVERABLES

The list in a publicly available and updated format; information about how to participate in ongoing updates.

$980. Details in attached.

Michael Cenkner - Collaborated on survey that went out to 1000+ health care professionals in Canada, created final version in SurveyMonkey. Experienced in project teams creating online courses and digital resources for post-secondary. Experience with DACUM, task analysis. Training and experience in instructional design.

https://sites.google.com/view/michael-cenkner-portfolio/home

https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-cenkner/

Paul Erikson - has extensive web development experience as a marketing consultant since 2013. His work introduced him to business automation using complex user input interfaces (web-based forms, prompts, etc) to provide automated actions.

For the past 15 years, he has studied law as a hobby, focusing on the common law and contract law and how it relates to self-governance.

Today, he teaches communities these principles to help them establish a model of decentralization in every aspect of their lives.

[AUDITABILITY]

Metrics

-100 page views, 10 likes, 3 comments on published list page after six months

-25 comments referring to the list in existing channels (Discord, IdeaScale, Reddit, etc.)

-6+ Discord servers contacted and provided with the list (ADAO; Fill and Media; CNFT; Gimbalabs; Cardano Project Catalyst)

A subsequent project could assess a reduction of entry-level questions in existing channels (Discord, IdeaScale, Reddit, etc.), but this is not a metric we'll pursue in this project.

Anyone in a new role in the Cardano ecosystem will be able to see a list of what they'll need to know (how to do) in that role, and compare their current ability with the needed ability. This will empower each person to seek out the learning resources they need in a very intentional and focused way.

People creating content for "learning in Cardano" will be able to see a list of the competencies they could/should be addressing in their content.

Over time, the amount of generic, overly-long, redundant learning material will be reduced, and better and more focused material will replace it.

Ultimately the list could be included in the Orientation for new members at every level and in every role in the Cardano ecosystem.

New