If you want to get a sense of how useful and effective getting traditional four-year degrees is to the real world, you really look no further than this November 2017 Forbes article, entitled: Six Ways Your University can Still Help You Get a Job, Whether You Graduated Recently or Years Ago.

Still.

Here’s the TL;DR: connections.

Not knowledge, skills, or what you can bring to the market. Nope. Connections.

To be fair, the article is written with the idea of helping get more out of their university experience, but after reading it, I couldn’t help but feel that it was also pointing out the problems of university education.

Is the massive expenditure of time, effort, and money beneficial

Are the skill and knowledge taught really useful and wanted in the real world

Are university jobs programs really effective in putting job seekers in touch with the exact right business that they could help most and which could help them thrive the most

I think answering these questions positively was always problematic, but in a world where technology and job markets are changing at an accelerated pace, more and more the answer seems to be ‘no.’

All this means is that the way we provide higher education is ripe for disruption – creating an opportunity for anyone with an idea about how to do it better.

This is what the team at OS.University, or Open Source University, are trying to do.

Simply put, OS.University will be a global platform linking academia, learners, and businesses in a real-time information feedback loop that will ensure that all three flourish.

How It Works

The heart of the system will be a blockchain based registry system. Students anywhere in the world will be able to search available courses for topics or skills they would like to master. Once they have mastered that unit, the ‘certification’ will be registered on an immutable blockchain.

Businesses that are looking for particular skills or sets of skills will be able to search for matching candidates. No more will they need to worry about whether a candidate’s resume is ‘fluffed,’ as they will see instantly that candidates have the necessary skill sets.

Academia will see in real-time what skills are needed by businesses, and educators can react by creating modules that will meet those specific needs.

Students, whether freshman or life-long learners, will see what businesses are looking for and search out modules providing those qualifications, tailoring their skill sets to what’s needed now¸ and not what was needed twenty years ago as so often happens in universities now.

Cost Savings

There is no denying that the system we have in place right now is hugely inefficient. Universities teach courses that though interesting, may better be left as electives or self-development. Students are limited by the schools and programs geographically and academically available to them. And businesses are encumbered by have no good way to really find the people with the exact right skills they need to survive and thrive.

In one stroke, the connections OS.University is creating will eliminate all the uncertainties in this system. Academia will save time on administration, course development, and advertising. Students will save money on tuition for courses that won’t really help them. And, since the platform will work worldwide, they will know that their skills will be on the global market. And businesses will see enormous benefit in reducing their recruitment and HR costs.

The EDU Token

A key part of the OS.University ecosystem will be its own EDU token. This token will power the network, allowing students to purchase courses, content creators to be paid, etc.

The project is currently in a public ICO, collecting funds that will help them fully build out the platform. Those who purchase the token now will be investing in the utility of the platform, and as the utility rises, so will the value of the tokens. Further, OS.University plans to ‘burn’ 30% of all tokens collected from fees on the platform, maintaining and boosting the value of the tokens.

Though the token is strictly used as a utility token and will not be a security, unfortunately at this time the US is barred from participating in the token sale.

More information:

Website: //os.university/

White paper: //os.university/static/open-source-university-edu-whitepaper.pdf

Telegram: //t.me/OSUniversity

Join pre-sale: //os.university/private-presale/