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<p>Thanks Piers for sharing.</p>
<p>I'm forwarding to the QGIS Community page where qgis documenters
are communicating.</p>
<p>QGIS writers, I suspect you will want to monitor and contribute
to our OSGeo Season of Docs communication. You can subscribe at: <br>
</p>
<p><a href="https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/seasonofdocs/">https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/seasonofdocs/</a></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 21/4/19 1:06 pm, Piers Higgs wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:CAFdEQTjFx4B=Kx+KvHYY9fQewU16Q20ubqQef-qymr2YFoT-Rw@mail.gmail.com">
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<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Hi all,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Cameron and I had a
brief discussion this morning via email, and he asked if I'd
share some of my thoughts here on the list - so I've just
joined up to do so.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">I probably don't know
many people on this list, but I run a little tech shop called
Gaia Resources in Australia. You can find out more about us
on the <a href="http://www.gaiaresources.com.au"
moz-do-not-send="true">www.gaiaresources.com.au</a> web
site, but I've had a background in spatial tech myself, and
while we're tech agnostic, we also prefer open source and try
to give back where we can. We've been doing a bunch of things
with QGIS for a fair while now, and trying to get to events
and support the open source community where we can. Our
freely available online QGIS course seems to be reasonably
popular (more on that to come).</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">So some thoughts on
technical writing, training materials and courses to follow -
happy to carry on the conversation here on the list or
personally, if you prefer.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><u>Technical
writing</u></div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">I
am a keen (technical) writer myself, but I am probably the
most time poor person at Gaia Resources. While I'd
personally love to be more involved in helping with the
writing and putting our names down across some of the season
of docs stuff, we're probably not going to have time to
really provide a lot of input. We are pretty busy with the
operational side of the business, and all of us already
volunteer in different ways outside of work hours, or have
families to look after. So I'm not sure that as a company,
we could be heavily involved in the technical writing
component. </div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">We
might be able to help here and there, but as a small
business we often have a lot of competing priorities, and
keeping the lights on with paid work will always trump our
idealistic natures :)</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><u>Training
materials</u></div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">Our
freely available QGIS training course (which focuses on the
environmental side, as per <a
href="https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/our-services/online-training/"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/our-services/online-training/</a>) was
released last year, which has:</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">*
A series of youtube videos - <a
href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fag9Yn65Qy0&list=PLfInsSYJw1lQ_vii1wxePr7aKqBOziKVQ"
target="_blank"
style="color:rgb(17,85,204);font-family:Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif"
moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fag9Yn65Qy0&list=PLfInsSYJw1lQ_vii1wxePr7aKqBOziKVQ</a></div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">*
A manual that has been designed around these chapters, and</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">*
A data package that contains all the data to run the course.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">All
we ask is that people let us know that they want to use the
course, and then we can see who around the world is using it
and to see if there is any demand for updates. Once we get
a request, we just send a link to a Dropbox folder where
they can get the manual and data. We also run our own
commercial training courses, but we mainly do that for
clients that are after us to train a bunch of people at once
- a lot of the individual requests are too hard to set up
training courses for, so we point them at our free training
instead. Our commercial training uses our manuals and data
but not the videos, so we run those in the latest Long Term
Release (LTR), which keeps our materials up to scratch.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">The
videos are a different story. They are based on an old LTR,
2.18, and we're currently working on a new 3.4 version which
we hope to push out a new set of videos for in June. By
that stage QGIS will have probably evolved a bit further, so
the overhead of keeping these videos up to date is a pain
(the manual and data, much easier!). Video assets are just
time consuming to maintain.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">So,
we do have people using our course from all over the world (<span
style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">a
few are - see the map at<span> </span></span><a
href="https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/our-services/online-training/"
style="color:rgb(17,85,204)" moz-do-not-send="true">https://www.gaiaresources.com.au/our-services/online-training/</a><span
style="text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial;float:none;display:inline">)</span> and
a lot of what they say is that it does lower the barrier to
entry (at least to the people wanting to use QGIS), which is
what I think you are all trying to do. To be frank, better
documentation isn't (by itself) going to lower that barrier
for a lot of people who want to get started with something
more hands on and useful, rather than trying to read lots of
written stuff. Which is why we were keen to get this course
made and out there.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">Our
aim is to keep updating our course and making it freely
available (yes, I hate monopolies too). We'll keep having
an "environmental" bent in it, but hopefully a few others
might take this on board and start putting together courses
that cover other disciplines, such as geology, planning,
etc. It shouldn't be too hard to set that up (if a small
business in Perth can do it... ;) We haven't found that
putting this course out there has eroded the demand for
commercial training, too - it's probably increased it, if
anything.</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">I
don't know how this would work, but if our training
materials can get used to bootstrap something, I'm all for
that (some sort of Creative Commons licence would probably
work here).</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial"><u>Ongoing
courses</u></div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-size:small;background-color:rgb(255,255,255);text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-color:initial">We
are happy to run this training course at any of the FOSS4G
conferences that we attend, or get involved in those more if
you like. The last FOSS4G one in Australia was pretty good
- our team really liked it, we learned a fair bit, and
hopefully contributed enough - so we've generally got this
on our radar. Not that we're going to be heading to every
one and all over the world - we do have to keep an eye on
the return on our investment there! But I'm happy to have
further conversations around that.</div>
<br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">So there's a few
thoughts from a small group in Perth that might help. </div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif">Happy Easter all,</div>
<div class="gmail_default"
style="font-family:verdana,sans-serif"><br>
Piers</div>
<div><br>
</div>
-- <br>
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data-smartmail="gmail_signature">
<div dir="ltr">
<div>
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<div
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:13.3333px"><span
style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">------------------------------------</span><br>
<span style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">Piers
Higgs</span></div>
<div
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:13.3333px"><span
style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">Gaia
Resources<br>
p +61 8 92277309<br>
m +61 411754006<br>
w <a href="http://www.gaiaresources.com.au"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">www.gaiaresources.com.au</a><br>
e <a href="mailto:piers.higgs@gaiaresources.com.au"
target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">piers.higgs@gaiaresources.com.au</a><br>
</span><span
style="font-family:verdana,helvetica,sans-serif">------------------------------------</span><br>
</div>
<span name="x"
style="color:rgb(0,0,0);font-family:Verdana;font-size:13.3333px"></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Cameron Shorter
Technology Demystifier
Open Technologies and Geospatial Consultant
M +61 (0) 419 142 254</pre>
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