[OSGeo-Edu] Style and Target Audience For Free GIS Book

Fri Nov 2 13:17:51 EDT 2007

Victor/Landon - great to see this and I look forward to a metadata
chapter. 

Given you have 300+ pages written, in my opinion, it might be useful to
have one chapter that you think is a good example of the style of the
book so far translated to English to act as a model for other chapter
writers (at least for headings, etc.) Do you have any translated in
English? I think it might help to have at least some short guidelines
(an example of one is here:
http://www.eoearth.org/article/An_Introduction_to_Ecological_Economics_%
28e-book%29:_How_to_Contribute#Guidelines). Here are some ideas for this
document-

1) Do you have a chosen style for the bibliography?
2) Should each chapter have its own bibliography (that might be nice
from a modularity standpoint) or are you building a full one for the end
of the book?
3) Is the license decided upon yet? It seems that every chapter should
have a statement on the license at the end of it.
4) An author attribution section?
5) Are footnotes or endnotes allowed?
6) Graphics - I assume all graphics should be Creative Commons or public
domain? No copyrighted graphics?
7) Heading and font recommendations.
8) Maybe a section on whether the chapter has been peer reviewed with
acknowledgments to the reviewers? Do we want to set up a blind review
process?

Finally, am I missing it? I don't see a clear easy found path to the
FreeGIS book effort on the OSGeo wiki. 

I'm thinking we should add a statement under #2 on this page:
http://www.osgeo.org/education.  Do you agree?

Charlie

On Fri, 2007-11-02 at 16:22 +0100, Victor Olaya wrote:
> Landon,
> 
> we have guidelines, but they are guidelines for the usage of LaTeX and
> mostly concerned with format, not with style. I tend to write in a slightly
> informal style, but not too informal. This can be considered the current
> style of the book, since I am the only author so far, but  it is true that
> we haven't talked much about this on the spanish side. However, although it
> is ok to write in an informal way, please use references and citations in a
> the usual way (more formal), so as to give the text a good scientifical
> appearance. It can be a "gis for dummies" text...but at the same time a good
> scientifical work.
> 
> Anyway, try to write in your own style. I think that one of the main tasks
> of the editorial comitee should be to adapt chapters to hava a homogeneous
> book, so whatever you write can be later edited (with you help an
> permission, of couse), to fit the global style of the book. Also have in
> mind that yours is the first (and by now the only) chapter being written in
> english, so i doesn't need to have the same style as the spanish chapters
> already written. We can alter your style when traslating the chapter, so as
> to make it fit better among the other chapters.
> 
> The book is mainly target at people with no previous knowledge of GIS, but
> check the chapters that go before the metadata one, to avoid repeating
> things that have been explained on those chapters. About FOSS, you should
> avoid mentioning software tools. There is a special chapter on software
> (wheter free or not), but outside of it, only theoretical stuff should be
> explained. You can contribute to that chapter, and write about tools for
> handling and editing metadata, or any other thing that you think that should
> be added.
> 
> By the way, I'm glad to tell you the Mª Dolores Arteaga, who is the main
> author of a couple of chapters (and maybe more, because we are talking about
> creating a separate part on SDIs, and she knows a lot about them...) has
> volunteered to translate your chapter as soon as it is written, since she is
> really intereseted on that subject.
> 
> Regards.
> 
> ***************************************************
> Victor Olaya Ferrero
> UNEX
> E-mail : volaya at ya.com
>             volaya at unex.es
> My blog: http://volaya.blogspot.com
> ***************************************************
> ----- Mensaje original -----
> De: Landon Blake
> Para: edu_discuss at lists.osgeo.org
> Enviado: viernes, 02 de noviembre de 2007 15:59
> Asunto: [OSGeo-Edu] Style and Target Audience For Free GIS Book
> 
> 
> I was hoping to start on the Metadata chapter of the Free GIS Book this
> weekend. Before I get started I wanted to ask if there are any guidelines
> about the style and target audience for the book. My own style tends to be
> rather informal. I also like to err on the side of too much explanation
> rather than not enough. (I try to act like I am writing a "GIS For Dummies"
> Book rather than a traditional text book.) :]
> 
> But, I'm only one contributing author among many, and I would like to know
> if I should modify my writing style to fit with any adopted style.
> 
> Do you have any thoughts or comments on this? Should we put some style
> guidelines on the wiki? Or will we expect different styles from different
> authors? (Perhaps this is the best approach.)
> 
> What about our target audience? Do we have a clear picture in mind of who
> this person will be? Is it a person familiar with GIS but unfamiliar with
> FOSS? Is it someone brand new to GIS but familiar with FOSS? Or is it
> someone brand new to both GIS and FOSS?
> 
> Landon
> 
> 
> 
> 
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