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EWTE: Difference between revisions

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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 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 ==
== Mediawiki and Open 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.
Three freedoms.  


'''Access.'''  PDF, mobile, ZIM.
'''Content organisation.''' One of the areas where we experienced difficulties were in the area of content origanisation. 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. Typically such content would be organised as a set of pages, with appropriate navigation between pages. Other than doing this manually, by default, mediawiki does not provide such facilities. However, as part of this project, we developed a number of options to better structure content (see below).
 
'''Access.'''  Mediawiki is a strong platform in terms of providing multiple ways of accessing content, including PDF, mobile, and 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).
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).
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=== Content organisation ===
=== 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:
During the ORBIT project, we developed a number of features for our mediawiki on an experimental basis, which as part of [[EWTE]], we developed into proper extensions, with documentation. These include:
* '''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.”).
* '''Section numbers.''' When creating longer documents, it is important that each section has a unique number. In educational materials, sections usually have a number, that uniquely identifies it. In mediawiki, section numbers within pages are just numbered incrementally (1, 2, 3, ...). Ideally the usual page section numbers (1, 2, 3, …) would be prefixed 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). This stems also from our experience with [[OER4Schools]], where 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.  
* '''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.
* '''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.
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