Non-Profit to Raise Awareness of CC0 and Create Equity for Entry into the Space

Idea incubation
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I’ve been thinking a lot about equity in the NFT space and how CC0 and, specifically, Toadz can help bring both education and equity to the space. For background on why I believe equity is a problem, please see this tweet:

Just as I believe equity of opportunity is a problem, I also believe that awareness of the benefits of CC0 is an area that could use additional resources. Many people don’t understand why CC0 is so important and how it enables owners to advance the NFT ecosystem through creative derivatives from which they can profit.

Considering both equity initiatives and educational opportunities for CC0, I would like to propose a project where we create a simple online course that is open to all that teaches people about NFTs, and specifically the benefit of CC0 licenses. I envision getting an LMS (learning management system) like Absorb (https://www.absorblms.com/) and building out courses about NFT security and safety and CC0 licenses (and whatever other courses make sense) and offering them to free to all in the community. I’m not wedded to Absorb and research would be needed to choose the best LMS – I just mention it because my company uses it.

Upon completion of the courses, the LMS would then collect the wallet address and verify the twitter and discord handles of the learner (probably using something like premint.xyz) and we would airdrop the successful learners a free CC0 project NFT. There are lots of projects that we could partner with or sweep the floor for inventory to give away. Immediately, projects like NounPunks come to mind, but I think it would also be really interesting to airdrop CC0 projects from small individual 1/1 artists.

The ultimate goal of this project is twofold: 1. to spread knowledge of CC0 projects and their benefits, and 2. to spread CC0 NFTs far and wide to those who can benefit from them, but who might be financially constrained from otherwise participating. By choosing the right projects to partner/sweep, I believe that we could make a little ETH go a LONG way.

I know that this type of project would be ripe for abuse (people creating new accounts to get a free NFT), so I think discussion regarding security methods is necessary. Likewise, if the community thinks this is a good idea, we would need to determine the appropriate courses to include in the LMS. My goal isn’t to be the be-all end-all of NFT education, but to include educational courses necessary for someone to get started safely and courses to help spread the !vibe mission of Toadz (CC0 licensing basics, how you can use them to create, etc).

I’ve started this topic as a jumping off point for discussion and to bounce ideas around. After I receive additional feedback, I intend to post a full grant request. I look forward to seeing everyone’s feedback!

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Hey exlawyer,

So from what I understand, you’re going to submit a grant to create these courses and also some additional ETH to sweep floors of CC0 projects and give them out to people who complete the course? Just wanted some clarification there.

Also, do you have experience with creating and developing coursework? Or would you hire an individual to create the curriculum?

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Hi @ghostbonez

Those are great questions. I intend to submit a grant request, but I’m still working through some of the technical details. Specifically, I’m trying to find a good LMS for this purpose. Unfortunately, the LMS that my company uses, Absorb, probably isn’t good fit because it has a fee per learner. I’d like to find a good LMS that uses SCORM files and that allows for unlimited learners. I’d also really like to find one that does not require an email address from learners (but that’s not critical - if an email is required, I think we could post links to proton email, etc. for users who want to remain anon). Ideally, we could use permint.xyz (which would require a permint premium pass (1 ETH)) to gate access to users who verify their Twitter and Discord accounts, with the goal being to limit people creating multiple accounts to get the NFT for completion of the course.

Beyond those issues, I need to figure out the best place to hold the NFTs that would be given away upon completion of the courses and would prefer that they (along with the permint pass) be held in a multi-sig wallet with myself and a couple of others members of the community as signers. I would love feedback on what would make people the most comfortable with this part of the project. I’m happy to doxx myself as part of the grant proposal.

As for actually creating the coursework: Course creation is a 2 step process. First you write the content and create any images, etc. Then, you use the content to create SCORM files that can be uploaded into the LMS. My plan is that I would write several of the courses and post them here for review by the community before I have the SCORM files created for upload to the LMS. I would also love to have some other members of the community write additional course content, and then I can have the content turned into SCORM files. I planned on using my nephew (he works for me and manages my company’s LMS system, so he has extensive experience creating actual LMS courses, and he has a masters in education) to create the SCORM files. We’ll need to compensate him for his efforts, and I intend to suggest something in the range of 0.25 ETH per course that he creates. It’s likely that I will also need help from the community to create some of the visuals (I have a designer who works for me, and I can get him to do some small stuff where necessary, but I think the community has lots of artists/designers who are passionate and who would be willing to contribute).

Here’s an example of the content for one of the courses:

I believe, initially, the courses would be focused on NFT basics, security, and CC0 issues (what it is, why it rocks, etc.).

Ultimately, I’m not going to be able to do this entire project myself. I see this more as a community project that has input from anyone who is willing to help. If this project is approved by the community, I was going to request either a separate forum here for communications regarding the LMS, or to pin a thread so we have a place to have ongoing conversations.

In the next couple of weeks, after I figure out the best LMS for our needs and some of the other technical details, I intend to submit a grant proposal outline all of the costs, who does what, etc.

Please let me know if you have any further questions. I’m want everyone to be 100% comfortable with the project and to understand the goals of the project completely. And I am completely open to any ideas to improve the structure and execution of the project - and I’ll need help to make it a reality.