XLP-Manual Chapter 5. XLP for Mission Executors
Each Mission Executor goes through an extensive orientation program before engaging in the mission that the Mission Designers created.
Delegations, Groups, and Teams
Depending on the amount of people taking part in activities, they can be broken down as fol- lows:
- A delegation may consist of several groups who attend a venue together, but work on different courses with frameworks different to XLP.
- A group is all the participants working on an XLP course together. They may(or may not) be part of a larger delegation.
- Each group is split into teams, each working on a specific project that they will be graded on.
Orientation Program
Usually involves digital identity, agreement reading/signing and quick overview of how to use digital publishing tools. Participants also gain experience dealing with many other people on the fly, encountering the courtroom, participating in market transactions, participating in media – i.e. learning how the four forces interact with XLP activities.
Digital Identity
Every entity in an XLP mission has a verifiable which they use to:
- Log in to the digital publishing tools stored in their container(like MediaWiki, WordPress, or NextCloud)
- Attach ownership to the content they generate
- Track their learning progress via built-in analytics tools
- Digitally sign the constitution and smart contracts
- Securely link their identity to their qualifications and credentials
These participating entities include individuals and organizations, as well as physical resources and technical services. Digital identities (like email addresses or OpenID) enable the tracking of every entity’s contribution to the crowd-learning process, and allow participants to sign Smart Contracts.
Constitution Reading
Before each XLP mission, each prospective participant reads through the constitution to learn the mission framework. This details the rights and responsibilities of each participant in the activity, in addition to services provided by the sponsor. Participants digitally sign a Smart Con- tract (stored on the Blockchain) stating that they understand the details of the constitution and their responsibilities, and an agreement stating that they agree to abide by the overarching constitutional framework during the activity.
Lab/Knowledge Exploration
”Taster” classes allow participants to visit many laboratories and researchers in a big campus (e.g. Tsinghua University’s laboratory exploration program that makes available more than 100 laboratories and gets participants on campus to see each other’s research results.) This gives a broader context of available technology and research results. Some examples include:
- The Intelligent Manufacturing Incubator at Zhongguancun
- The Digital Capability Center at iCenter, Tsinghua University
- Other local high tech companies
- Tianhe Super Computing Center
- Tianjin High Tech Zone
The Mission
Mission Executors will form teams and create a digital publication, for example an Industry Analysis Report (IAR), based on field trips, in-person interviews, and lectures conducted by speakers and tutors. Ideally, Mission Executors should collect and compile relevant industry indication data, pictures, and videos taken on field trips or daily observations during the program, and integrate them into their publication.
All teams will collaborate on a hosted wiki to write and collate their reports, and then present the finished products on a visually appealing blog and as a class presentation.
- Example: Experience China, Industry Frontiers, 2018: wiki, blog
Missions usually fall into one of three tracks, each of which use different tools to create different outputs:
- Industrial frontier: Participants globally search and compile relevant information, and creatively tell a compelling story using trustworthy data sources and presentation techniques.
- Computational thinking: Participants apply optimization technologies and understand the principles of optimal limits, and can thus apply optimization to all their learning activities.
- Domain Specific: Participants learn domain-specific vocabulary and rules, so that they can leverage existing bodies of knowledge in an organized manner.
Typically, a mission follows five steps:
Mission Breakdown
Decomposition and Recomposition
Each XLP Mission follows our V Curve:
Starting from the left of the diagram, participants break down (decompose) the mission until they get to the most basic (atomic) level, and then rebuild (recompose) the constituent parts into potential viable outputs. Breaking it down step-by-step:
- 1. Mission specification.
- 2. Decomposition of mission specification.
- 3. Decompose and repeat steps 1-3 until you reach the atomic level. Keep going down, machine checking if you have met the specification. Must be at the atomic level.
- 4. Go back up once you have defined the most basic decomposition.
- 5. Propose a solution of some sort. You can use machines to generate new solutions. Frequently test to see if it matches your specification.
- 6. Pick the best option and digitally publish it.
A useful analogy is a Lego set:
- The mission specification would be the picture of the finished model on the box
- The mission would be to build the model
- The most atomic level is the individual Lego bricks
Participants would look at the picture on the box, decompose it into component parts until they reach the brick level, then work out the best way to recompose it (or potentially build something even better) from there.
Logic Model
A logic model (also known as a logical framework, theory of change, or program matrix) is a tool used by funders, managers, and evaluators of programs to evaluate the effectiveness of a program. They can also be used during planning and implementation. Logic models are usually a graphical depiction of the logical relationships between the resources, activities, outputs and outcomes of a program. While there are many ways in which logic models can be presented, the underlying purpose of constructing a logic model is to assess the ”if-then” (causal) relationships between the elements of the program.
As part of their digital publication, teams create a one-page logic model, taking into account activity context, inputs, activities, effects, external factors, and outcomes.
Each of the boxes below will have precise linguistic properties that can be examined by human or machine (via Natural Language Processing), to know if the information in the box fits the specified requirements. In this way, participants can be assessed and certified automatically, using Blockchain-witnessed process data collected using the Remix platform.
1. Context
- What’s your current situation or context?
- Includes spatial and temporal description(where will you do the activity, and when?)
2. Goal
- What do you want to do?
- Imperative statement, for example”conquerRome,”or”land a man on the Moon”
3. Measurable Effects
- How will you determine success?
- Set of conditional statements. Output will be measured against these to confirm it has achieved desired goal
4. Output
- What will you deliver?
- Concrete objects like micro-movies, logic model documents, industry analysis reports, financial statements, etc
5. Activities
- What do you need to do to succeed?
- Set of partially ordered activities, outlining what happens during the project and how to accomplish the project goal
6. Input
- Resources required to execute the mission, including budget, human skills, head counts, etc
7. External Factors
- What factors that could prevent the team from achieving their goal?
The logic model is one of the first activities each team conducts, which helps to build a common understanding of the mission as well as the influencing parameters. During the next steps, continuously referring back to the logic model helps them check that they are consciously aware of their own actions.
Using the logic model ensures that every task or project starts with explicitly-analyzed test cases, originating from Test Driven Design. Each step of the model feeds into the next step, generally with a one-to-one relationship. Similar to writing a computer program, the logic model has two stages of checking/analysis:
- Static Analysis: A way to read the model itself, and see if the content in all boxes is consistent and relevant.
- Dynamic Analysis: A way to use the ”measurable effects” to confirm output matches expected outcomes, and if task performance fits the goal.
Many examples of logic models can be seen from the teams that took part in Experience China 2018.
Mission Statement
A mission statement acts as a carrier of culture, ethos and ideology <ref>[Discourse and the projection of corporate culture: The mission statement https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/ bitstream/handle/2027.42/67339/10.1177_0957926595006002005.pdf?sequence=2]; JM Swales, PS Rogers - Discourse & Society, 1995 - journals.sagepub.com</ref>. Many mission statements are pithy and up-beat, and deal with abstractions possessing ’a strategic level of generality and ambiguity’ <ref>Fairhurst, G.T., Echoes of the Vision: When the Rest of the Organization Talks Total Quality, Management Communication Quarterly 6: 331-71</ref>.
A team’s mission statement should capture the essence of their goals and reflect their specific niche. The best mission statements are clear, concise, and useful (informs. focuses. guides.)<ref>https://topnonprofits.com/examples/nonprofit- mission- statements/</ref>.
Examples
- Public Broadcasting System (PBS): To create content that educates, informs and inspires.
- charity: water: Bringing clean, safe drinking water to people in developing countries.
- National Parks Conservation Association: To protect and enhance America’s National Park System for present and future generations.
- TED:SpreadingIdeas.
- Defenders of Wildlife: The protection of all native animals and plants in their natural communities.
Planning and Management
Mission Executors use physical resources like whiteboards, post-its and note paper, and digital resources like Phabricator to storyboard their mission, assign tasks, and set a schedule.
Scheduling and Task Allocation
Ideally use a whiteboard board, with post-it notes:
- 1. Each team member writes down a list of tasks they think need to be done
- 2. Team comes together to share their post-its, and come to consensus
- 3. Connect post-its with whiteboard markers to mark related ideas
- 4. Post-its are put on kanban, arranged by schedule(today/tomorrow/this week/later/done)
- 5. Each activity is assigned to a team member and recorded on Phabricator
Story-boarding
Teams designing a product or producing a video may find it useful to produce a storyboard, to visually organize their story or use case<ref> https://multimedia.journalism.berkeley.edu/tutorials/starttofinish- storyboarding/</ref> .
Briefings and Debriefings
At the beginning of each day, the team coordinator should meet with the team and ensure everyone is up-to-date and clear on their tasks. Some example questions include:
- 1. What thoughts have you had on the project since the end of the last working day?
- 2. What tasks will you be working on today?
- 3. What obstacles do you think may pop up? (and as a team, work out how to overcome them)
- 4. What other commitments do you have today?
At the end of the day, we suggest a debrief to ensure the team achieved everything they planned. Some example questions are:
- 1. What did you get done today?
- 2. What did you plan to do, but didn’t do?Why not?
- 3. What surprises(good or bad)came up?(and as a team, work out how to overcome those bad surprises if they happen again)
- 4. What’s your plan for tomorrow?
- 5. Any other business?
Activity Coordination
Based on the planning done in the previous steps, each team collects data via interviews with industry experts, site visits, online and offline research, and surveys. All research must be cited and collected on the wiki.
Surveys
- Writing good survey questions
Research
Some helpful links include:
- Google Scholar
- ArXiv
Product Development
Note: Not all XLP courses require a product development step, for example when writing Industry Reports, this step would likely not be required.
Mission Executors use tools like Jenkins, Modelica, Jupyter Notebook, and other prototyping and integration tools to develop their product, which may be software, hardware, or a business idea.
Digital Publishing
Many of the mission objectives you will be graded on revolve around digital publishing. Each group participating in the course will have their own digital container that holds the software and data you will use and/or create during the course.
When you sign up for the course, you should be given a URL for your container and a unique login and password. If you haven’t, please speak to your coordinator. The software you will use is WordPress and MediaWiki
Wiki
Mission Executors use the wiki to group edit your report and other documents.
A wiki is a website on which users collaboratively modify content and structure directly from the web browser. In a typical wiki, text is written using a simplified markup language.
Wikipedia is by far the most popular wiki-based website, and is one of the most widely viewed sites of any kind in the world, having been ranked in the top ten since 2007. There are tens of thousands of other wikis in use, both public and private, including wikis functioning as knowledge management resources, notetaking tools, community websites, and intranets. The English-language Wikipedia has the largest collection of articles; as of September 2016, it had over five million articles.
We use Mediawiki, the same software that runs Wikipedia, to allow participants to collaboratively create reports and other documents.
A guide to using MediaWiki is in the appendix.
Blog
After your report is ready, you will use the blog to create pages and present it in a visually appealing manner.
A blog (short for ”weblog”) is a discussion or informational website consisting of posts (diary- style updates, displayed newest-first) and pages (more permanent information)<ref name="wikipedia">Adapted from Wikipedia, July 30, 2018</ref>.
Our blogging software is WordPress: a free and open-source content management system. It is most associated with blogging, but supports other types of web content including more traditional mailing lists and forums, media galleries, and online stores. Used by more than 60 million websites, including 30.6% of the top 10 million websites as of April 2018, WordPress is the most popular website management system in the world<ref name="wikipedia"></ref>. Our WordPress installation includes several plugins to make editing easier, most notably Elementor.
A guide to using WordPress and Elementor is in the appendix.
Presentation
Each team will create a presentation to present the work they’ve done, and present to the class. Typically, a presentation should last 5-7 minutes, plus questions and answers afterwards. Don’t worry about getting everyone on stage to present - instead limit it to 2-3 speakers.
Since Microsoft PowerPoint is the industry standard (and you may not be presenting from your own computer), we recommend creating your presentation in pptx format. Don’t use Google Docs or other online office suites, since connnectivity (due to VPN or lack of network) may be an issue.
After each team has presented, everyone will regroup and the group will nominate a team to create one final presentation to summarise the industry reports of all the teams.
Poster
Quite often, all of the teams will come together as a group and create one or more posters that present the work they’ve done. While other groups may use markers or a collage to create their poster, we recommend sticking with the theme of digital publishing and creating it with soft- ware like Adobe Illustrator.
Example poster from Experience China 2018: Industry Frontiers:
Useful Resources
We encourage participants to use Creative Commons (CC) licensed materials in their work. Creative Commons licenses let others copy, distribute, edit, remix, and build upon various works, all within the boundaries of copyright law<ref>Creative Commons website, 31 Jul 2018</ref>.
The following websites let you search for content licensed under Creative Commons. Don’t for- get to cite your sources and respect the license when you use these materials!
- Creative Commons Search - images, music, video
- Noun Project -symbolic icons(for example, world, people, internet, etc)
- 14WebsitesToFindFreeCreativeCommonsMusic
- The Five Best Places To Find Free Creative Commons Photos
- 5 More Places to Help You Find Quality Creative Commons Images
Evaluation and Assessment
Using secure technologies like the Blockchain, XLP tracks learner activity at different levels, assessing how individuals contribute to their group and how a small group contributes in turn to larger communities. This allows individuals and teams to receive personalized feedback and improve over time. This in turn applies to grading and certification, with both micro-credentials and full degrees stored on the Blockchain. Access rights can be granted to other universities or employers to show tamper-proof evidence of achievement.
- Footnotes
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