



individual                                               E.H. Haleplidis
Internet-Draft                                     University of Piraeus
Intended status: Informational                               I.C. Castro
Expires: 25 January 2026                 Queen Mary University of London
                                                           D.K. Kutscher
               The Hong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)
                                                          A.P. Fournaris
                                                        ISI, R.C. ATHENA
                                                            24 July 2025


                    IETF/IRTF Educational Processes
           draft-haleplidis-eodir-edu-processes-use-cases-00

Abstract

   This document describes the basic use cases for the IETF to have a
   series of activities specifically tailored for educational and
   outreach purposes.  These uses cases cover areas such as academia,
   industry, policy makers or anyone interested in learning the
   necessary skillset required to easily integrate into the innerworking
   of the IETF.

Status of This Memo

   This Internet-Draft is submitted in full conformance with the
   provisions of BCP 78 and BCP 79.

   Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
   Task Force (IETF).  Note that other groups may also distribute
   working documents as Internet-Drafts.  The list of current Internet-
   Drafts is at https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/current/.

   Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
   and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
   time.  It is inappropriate to use Internet-Drafts as reference
   material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."

   This Internet-Draft will expire on 25 January 2026.

Copyright Notice

   Copyright (c) 2025 IETF Trust and the persons identified as the
   document authors.  All rights reserved.

   This document is subject to BCP 78 and the IETF Trust's Legal
   Provisions Relating to IETF Documents (https://trustee.ietf.org/
   license-info) in effect on the date of publication of this document.



Haleplidis, et al.       Expires 25 January 2026                [Page 1]

Internet-Draft       IETF/IRTF Educational Processes           July 2025


   Please review these documents carefully, as they describe your rights
   and restrictions with respect to this document.  Code Components
   extracted from this document must include Revised BSD License text as
   described in Section 4.e of the Trust Legal Provisions and are
   provided without warranty as described in the Revised BSD License.

Table of Contents

   1.  Introduction  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   2
     1.1.  Terminology and Requirements Language . . . . . . . . . .   2
   2.  Use cases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.1.  Academic Teaching . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.2.  Tutorial material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   3
     2.3.  Policy material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.4.  Summer schools  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     2.5.  Research in the IETF  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   3.  IANA Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   4.  Security Considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   5.  References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.1.  Normative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
     5.2.  Informative References  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   4
   Authors' Addresses  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .   5

1.  Introduction

   Lowering the barrier to entry in the process of reading and authoring
   RFCs will allow more participants to engage in the IETF/IRTF.

   Increasing the IETF document literacy and developing skills in IETF
   protocol development can lead to more implementations and
   interoperability testing, better knowledge of the Internet
   infrastructure, more secure deployments and more participation and
   understanding in the IETF standardization process.

   In addition, showcasing IRTF procedures, scope and modus operandi,
   more participants from academia will provide a path for new academic
   institutions, faculty and students to attend, participate and share
   research work

   To this end this draft proposes the development of a number of
   educational material that can support a number of use cases described
   in this document.

1.1.  Terminology and Requirements Language

   The key words "MUST", "MUST NOT", "REQUIRED", "SHALL", "SHALL NOT",
   "SHOULD", "SHOULD NOT", "RECOMMENDED", "MAY", and "OPTIONAL" in this
   document are to be interpreted as described in RFC2119 [RFC2119].



Haleplidis, et al.       Expires 25 January 2026                [Page 2]

Internet-Draft       IETF/IRTF Educational Processes           July 2025


2.  Use cases

2.1.  Academic Teaching

   The creation of a number of courses in academic institutions would
   enable students to be able to read, create, implement and debug RFC
   documents, and as such increase IETF document literacy and
   development experience.  To assist in that process, the IETF can
   create a number of entry level educational RFCs that can then be used
   by academics to develop such courses.  These RFCs can start with
   simple concepts that the IETF community agree that are important for
   students to understand.  There are a couple of RFC types that can
   support this use case:

   *  A series of RFCs to be implemented.  These RFCs can take into
      account different needs based on the various areas in the IETF, as
      each has its own ways of writing drafts.

   *  Additional RFC templates, with extra examples to write drafts.

   *  Drafts with errors that the students need to read, identify and
      provide solutions.

   *  Interoperability testing by providing RFCs with the code and
      requiring students to comply with existing code.

2.2.  Tutorial material

   Alongside academia, educational content can also be used by companies
   for internal training in the IETF and RFC process.  More complex
   educational RFCs, or even a curated list of RFCs, such as one
   provided in https://wiki.ietf.org/en/group/iab/RFC_Readability, can
   be utilized alongside a number of targeted tutorial workshops to
   provide hands-on experience.  These educational tutorials can focus
   on:

   *  Training on implementation and interoperability of RFCs.

   *  Training on security for protocols.

   *  Training and emulation on the process of writing and discussing
      drafts, such as writing drafts, consensus mechanisms and the
      general IETF process.








Haleplidis, et al.       Expires 25 January 2026                [Page 3]

Internet-Draft       IETF/IRTF Educational Processes           July 2025


2.3.  Policy material

   IETF processes can seem complex for new or non IETF members and can
   lead to misunderstanding on how and why some decisions are taken in
   IETF working groups.  To address this, high-level overviews of the
   IETF could be complemented with toy-examples of easy-to-understand
   cases of protocol development to highlight the complexity, variety of
   design options and highlight how consensus can emerge and the
   challenges in converging on to it.

2.4.  Summer schools

   This effort could help to prepare and conduct "summer school"-like
   training events that include lecture material, practical work such as
   implementing protocols and testing them in (virtualized) testbeds,
   and training for authoring protocol specifications.

2.5.  Research in the IETF

   ANRW has been successful into inviting researchers and research
   results in the IETF/IRTF and rasprg has conducted research on IETF
   processes and outcomes.

   The activities defined in this draft, could provide additional
   outreach efforts that showcase how research is performed in the IRTF,
   the scope of IRTF, drafts and RFC authoring for research in the IRTF
   process.

3.  IANA Considerations

   This document makes no request to IANA

4.  Security Considerations

   While security considerations is a critical skill that is needed for
   a draft author, this document does not specify a new protocol and
   therefore has no need for security considerations.

5.  References

5.1.  Normative References

5.2.  Informative References

   [RFC2119]  Bradner, S., "Key words for use in RFCs to Indicate
              Requirement Levels", BCP 14, RFC 2119,
              DOI 10.17487/RFC2119, March 1997,
              <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc2119>.



Haleplidis, et al.       Expires 25 January 2026                [Page 4]

Internet-Draft       IETF/IRTF Educational Processes           July 2025


Authors' Addresses

   Evangelos Haleplidis
   University of Piraeus
   Department of Digital Systems
   18534 Piraeus
   Greece
   Email: ehalep@unipi.gr


   Ignacio Castro
   Queen Mary University of London
   London
   United Kingdom
   Email: i.castro@qmul.ac.uk


   Dirk Kutscher
   The Hong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou)
   Guangzhou
   China
   Email: ietf@dkutscher.net
   URI:   https://dirk-kutscher.info


   Apostolos P. Fournaris
   ISI, R.C. ATHENA
   Security and Protection of Systems, Networks and Infrastructures
   26504 Patras
   Greece
   Email: fournaris@isi.gr




















Haleplidis, et al.       Expires 25 January 2026                [Page 5]
