RECOUP/site/Help/WikiMaintenance

= Notes and changes =

Recent additions and modifications to software (most recent first)

• Changed default settings so that numbering sections and justified paragraphs are default. --Bjoern 14:42, 13 September 2008 (UTC)
• Added a file size extension, so that download file sizes are now shown on download pages for presentation, see e.g. Community scoping/Sample Household Consensus Form --Bjoern 16:34, 11 September 2008 (UTC)
• On manual pages, I removed the redundant top page title (above the menu), see e.g. Introduction. This change is made through Mediawiki:Common.css, see Help:Administrators. --Bjoern 12:13, 7 September 2008 (UTC)
• Minor fix to mirroring scripts to get Session 4 working again. Bjoern 23:08, 25 August 2008 (UTC)
• There are now four new edit buttons above the edit box: strike through, underline, as well as for box and comment template. Bjoern 20:46, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• Improvement to mirroring script / api, cf. Administrator Information. Bjoern 15:21, 23 August 2008 (UTC)
• Added a new templates (see Administrator Information): box (for participants reponses), comment (to make comments in main text visible). Bjoern 19:34, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
• Added a new template (see Administrator Information) to generate page titles that won't print in pdf output (which is still to be added). Example in Session 7 and Session 2, that show page header, page title, and page contents nicely in sequence. (Headings within a page/session can thus start with the top level heading: = ... =, which produces a good structure for the table of contents.). Bjoern 14:10, 22 August 2008 (UTC)
• I've added this image File:RECOUP book.jpg to the manual header. Bjoern 20:12, 21 August 2008 (UTC)
• File uploads are now enabled. Bjoern 20:14, 21 August 2008 (UTC)

Overall changes to wiki text (newest last)

• The Template:Header was changed to accommodated the new page titles, and all page titles were changed accordingly. --Bjoern 20:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
• Bjoern modified the Introduction to include the text from the about page. Needs further work. --Bjoern 20:04, 1 September 2008 (UTC)
• That's all the images uploaded. --Bjoern 14:48, 2 September 2008 (UTC)
• Changed the background image and the logo. Appearance now a little intense - I'll leave it for now, let me know what you think. --Bjoern 23:14, 3 September 2008 (UTC)
• I have floated the contents boxes to the right. This makes the pages a more compact. Otherwise the various wiki menus plus the page menu and toc take up all the space on the page, leaving no space for the actual manual text! Let me know what you think! --Bjoern 00:10, 4 September 2008 (UTC)
• I have now uploaded all handouts that I've had, see Category:Handouts. The handouts still need checking, and the formatting needs to be improved in places. --Bjoern 19:47, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
• I will go through the manual, and add comments where issues need to be address, e.g. about missing handouts. --Bjoern 19:50, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
• Have now added information about missing handouts. In the summary that Arathi sent, most of these were mentioned, so I genuinely don't have them. --Bjoern 20:40, 5 September 2008 (UTC)
• Redesigned alternative header, cf. Qualitative research. Suggestion is to use large header for the first page of the manual, and the smaller header for all other pages. The alternative header also has the content box floated to the left, and inserted into the text. I am still tryint to see where the content box fits in best - let me know what you think. --Bjoern 08:35, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
• Category:Documents: All remaining handouts have been uploaded (in all required formats), with image preview. --Bjoern 18:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)
• Category:Presentations now lists all presentations in as much as I have got all powerpoints. Powerpoints still need to be uploaded and converted (subject to go ahead on the version of the logo and placement of CC badge). --Bjoern 18:33, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

Additional images:

File:Ground rules.jpg File:Group setting.jpg File:Researcher photography 1.jpg File:Researcher photography.jpg

For administrators

Administrator Information

Discussion

Hi Bjoern, the image you have added looks good. I am a little concerned about the visual "clutter" on the main page. I find it too distracting from the main purpose- to showcase the manual. Any ideas on how this can be handled? N

Wiki front page

I've tried to clean up the front page. This should work better. I still have reservations against making the front page part of the manual: If the community is successful, the front page will place less emphasis on the 'original' manual, because there will be additional materials, experiences from workshops, translations etc. However, perhaps for now the front page should become the main page of the manual. What do you think? Bjoern 17:35, 22 August 2008 (UTC)

Yes, i agree that the front page should become the main page of the manual-- we need to 'hook' people in-- and then we can hope to see a community develop. tricky business! later today or early tomorrow i will send a more detailed mail with some suggestions on how to arrange various sessions (and alternative titles for the 'sessions') in the manual-- as a result of a long discussion that Roger and I had yesterday.

Names for handout pages

We need to find good page names for the powerpoints and other handout pages etc. They can't be too generic. The basic question is:

• Are most handouts tied to specific sessions? or
• Are handouts used across several sessions?

If handouts are specific to sessions, then we should also use the 'subpage' feature. E.g.

• Instead of [[example]] of a topic guide you could use [[Session 4/topic guide|example of a topic guide]] to give example of a topic guide
• [[handout]] on 'Questions to be avoided' could be [[Session 4/questions to avoid|handout]] on questions to be avoided
• [[Powerpoint]] (semi-structured interviews_1) could be [[Session 4/semi-structured interviews|powerpoint on semi structured interviews]]

Ideally the page names would be short, so that they are not too hard to type. You can change the name of the link by using the vertical bar | . However, to create subpages of the current page, you can simply start the link with "/", like this: [[/subpage]], giving this link: /subpage. (You can try this in the sandpit, with a sandpit/subpage here, or a a different text linking to the same subpage of the sandpit.)

However, if the handouts are more generic, and you don't want to tied them to specific sessions, then we could create all handouts as subpages of a page called HO. In many places you are already calling handout pages something like [[HO some title]], and if you used [[HO/some title]] we'd be get the subpage.

Handout pages should always have [[Category:Handouts]] on the page, so that they are gathered into the Handouts category. --Bjoern 14:21, 27 August 2008 (UTC)

How many sessions? Appendices?

I've added a few more sessions to the page header, and a link (with explanation) on how to add sessions or other pages to the header. (Should also be self explanatory for removing or reordering.)

How many sessions do we need? How many appendices (if any)?

--Bjoern 13:45, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

User pages

I would recommend that you put some minimal information onto you 'user' pages, i.e.

• User:Nidhi
• User:Roger
• User:Arathi

See User:Bjoern as an example. You may want to describe your role in the project in one sentence, and add a weblink to your homepage. You might like to add something like: "Registered users can contact me via my contact me via my talk page ([[User talk:Nidhi]]) or by email via [[Special:Emailuser/Nidhi]]".

To try out email function: Special:Emailuser/Nidhi, Special:Emailuser/Roger, Special:Emailuser/Arathi

I'll send you an email via the wiki now, so that you can see what this looks like!

--Bjoern 14:00, 30 August 2008 (UTC)

Style guide

Capitalisation of headings: Only capitalise the first letter of a heading, i.e. use

This is an example heading

and not

This Is An Example Heading

---

Singal, N., and Jeffery, R. (2008). Qualitative Research Skills Workshop: A Facilitator's Reference Manual, http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/RECOUP, Cambridge: RECOUP (Research Consortium on Educational Outcomes and Poverty, http://recoup.educ.cam.ac.uk/). CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. (original page)