Introduction
This page describes the outcomes and objectives of a short project funded by the Wikimedia Foundation UK (during the second half of 2014), see https://wikimedia.org.uk/wiki/Wiki-based_teacher_education_and_resource_development.
Objective
Mediawiki is already used to host Open Educational Resources (OER), such as Wikipedia (which is possibly the most widely used OER overall). However, the use of mediawiki to develop and host more complex resources, particularly for structured resources (such as textbooks) is still limited. Mediawiki could be a suitable platform for collaboratively producing and hosting teacher education resources, including a potential platform for open textbooks (whether these are teacher education resources or otherwise). However, our previous research around the ORBIT project has highlighted some of the obstacles to this. Through work undertaken as part of the EWTE project, aimed to further develop our mediawiki practices to make it a more suitable platform for hosting structured open educational content. There could bring potentially very significant gains to the OER community, and possibly leads to a far greater adoption of mediawiki in that area.
Mediawiki requirements for educational resources
Content organisation. Wikipedia's "unit of content" are encyclopaedia articles. These articles have relations with each other, but they do not form "linear sequences". Other other types of educational materials, such as books, manuals, courses (including professional development courses) have a linear order.
Access. PDF, mobile, ZIM.
The concrete goal of the project is to develop a number of extensions to mediawiki, that will significantly enhance the usability of the platform for creating teaching and learning materials in Higher Education, and particularly for teacher education. We expect the outcomes of this project to be immediately applicable to other wikimedia sites (including wikibooks).
Content organisation
During the ORBIT project, we developed a number of features for our mediawiki on an experimental basis, which we now want to develop into proper extensions. Our first goal is to assess the difficulty of this process, and compatibility with the mediawiki upgrade process, as well as to assess impact of our current solutions in terms of performance. Having assessed the options, we would like to improve/(re-)implement the following:
- Section numbers. When creating longer documents, it is important that each section has a unique number. We would like to be able to prefix the usual page section numbers (1, 2, 3, …) with a chapter number (say “5”, to give 5.1, 5.2, 5.3, …; or say “A”, to give A.1, A.2, A.3). The use of our longer documents (sometimes numbering 100s of printed pages) has been confusing during e.g. during workshops because of the lack of unique section numbers across several pages. (“Let’s look at chapter 5, section 3.” - “No, not this section 3, go to chapter 5 first, then section 3.” vs. “Let’s look at section 5.3.”).
- Project specific page banners. On our wiki, different "projects" have different “page banners”, i.e. a section at the top of the page that identifies the project. Compare e.g. http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/ORBIT, and http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/OER4Schools. In order for projects to choose to place their outputs on a departmental site (let along a University wide, or wikibooks), they need to have their own identity within that site. Otherwise it is simply not acceptable to project stake holders. We have an existing mechanism for this, but it uses the 'site notice’, so we cannot have site notices, and it relies on an actual source code modification, which makes it difficult for us to upgrade.
- Wiki navigation between pages. We currently have a mechanism (relying on the semantic extension) that allows several wiki pages to be grouped into a collection, displaying a navigation menu on each page, see e.g. http://oer.educ.cam.ac.uk/wiki/OER4Schools/Questioning#menuexpand. We would like to assess our implementation of this, and optimise it.
General usability
- Better searching. We did some user testing, and the wiki search came up as something that users found confusing, and not really useful for finding the content they were looking for. We currently use a Google custom search, but the integration into the wiki is not ideal. We would like to explore options for searching that allows our audience to find relevant content more easily.
- Collaborative options. We would also like to explore options for real-time collaboration, such as the collaborative editor or togetherJS.
- Visual editor
Access
- Assessment of pdf generation. We currently generate our own multi-chapter pdf (using a set of scripts), as we have not found the pediapress pdf generation suitable for our type of content. We would like to explore what other pdf production tool are being worked on, and would like to feed Higher Education requirements into that process.
- ZIM
- Mobile
Overarching outcomes
Through our proposal the wiki movement would gain ground in formal Higher Education, particularly in the area of teacher education, and for the use of mediawiki to produce professional open wikibooks. We feel very strongly about the benefits of collaborative teacher resource development, and this projects helps us to take this message out to other departments in the UK. The outcomes will have an impact in a variety of educational contents, both in the UK, and internationally.
Concrete outcomes
The overall specific outcomes of this project are:
- Greater engagement of University of Cambridge staff and students with mediawiki, particularly within teacher education. This is measured through additional (University or Faculty) projects adopting our existing mediawiki site to host their resources (such as a teacher development programme for Raspberry Pi.
- Greater engagement of UK and international Higher Education staff and students with mediawiki, measured through increased use of discussion on facebook and twitter.
In accordance with the goals, the specific technical deliverables are as follows:
- Section numbers. A mediawiki extension that allows section numbers to be prefixed with strings, together with documentations. Implementation of this extension on our wiki.
- Project specific page banners. A mediawiki extension that the adding of project specific banners to wiki pages, in order to be able to mark a set of pages as belonging to the same project or set of pages.
- Wiki navigation between pages. If feasible, and extension that allows better navigation between individual pages in a collection. Otherwise a briefing document on our implementation (together with mediawiki Templates) allowing our approach to be replicated more easily.
- Better searching. A briefing document on the more advanced search options within mediawiki, aimed at the Higher Education sector. An implementation of these search options on our wiki.
- Assessment of pdf generation. A briefing document on mediawiki to pdf workflow options, aimed at the Higher Education sector.
- Collaborative options. A briefing document on real-time collaboration on mediawiki, aimed at the Higher Education sector.
Section numbers.
We developed a simple mediawiki template that allows existing section numbers to be prefixed with strings (together with the CSS extension). To use the template on this wiki, see basic documentation provided here Template:SectionHeadingPrefix. For details about how to install this on other wikis, see OER:Documentation.
Project specific page banners.
A mediawiki extension that the adding of project specific banners to wiki pages, in order to be able to mark a set of pages as belonging to the same project or set of pages. OER:Documentation
If feasible, and extension that allows better navigation between individual pages in a collection. Otherwise a briefing document on our implementation (together with mediawiki Templates) allowing our approach to be replicated more easily.
Better searching.
We did some user testing, and the wiki search came up as something that users found confusing, and not really useful for finding the content they were looking for. We currently use a Google custom search, but the integration into the wiki is not ideal. We would like to explore options for searching that allows our audience to find relevant content more easily.
How did we do this? → See LocalSettings.custom.php and “../custom/extensions” directory.
The Mediawiki search future is customized. It display the results of the standard search engine conbined with the results of Google. This is done using the "GoogleSiteSearch" extension. See the file LocalSettings.custom.php to see how it's configured.
A briefing document on the more advanced search options within mediawiki, aimed at the Higher Education sector. An implementation of these search options on our wiki.
Assessment of pdf generation.
Assessment of pdf generation. We currently generate our own multi-chapter pdf (using a set of scripts), as we have not found the pediapress pdf generation suitable for our type of content. We would like to explore what other pdf production tool are being worked on, and would like to feed Higher Education requirements into that process.
A briefing document on mediawiki to pdf workflow options, aimed at the Higher Education sector.
Visual editor
The visual editor is now working as part of the installation.
Collaborative options.
A briefing document on real-time collaboration on mediawiki, aimed at the Higher Education sector.
Additional
MLEB
m.educ
