[OSGeo-Edu] Templates - Structured Documents or Metadata?

[Micha Silver]

I must say that this question of templates has me a bit confused. I'm 
glad Simon has clarified the options.

So if I understand the issue, then the initial question perhaps should 
be if there is an intention/motivation/time to create *new* educational 
content beyond what's already floating around "out there". If an 
initiative like this would indeed gain support, then we could propose 
templates, insist on metadata, etc.

I'm just not sure we're there yet. From what I see - and I'd be more 
than happy to be proven wrong - all the edu material to date is created 
by people with a wide spectrum of agendas, aiming at diverse audiences, 
using the whole gamut of FOSS4G software, mixing and matching programs 
to meet their needs. (and this is a Good Thing!). So far we've sought 
this already existing content and asked to allow public access to it. I 
*don't* think it's reasonable to approach someone who's gone to the 
trouble of writing a tutorial to ask: "can you share it, and by the way, 
please reformat your material to fit our template..."

By way of comparison, or contrast: the OSGeo Journal, which should be 
published 3 times a year, comes out only about once a year. It is 
rigidly formatted (using latex) so each submitted article must be 
squeezed into the latex mold. This is the main bottleneck to pushing out 
the journal more quickly. And this is a case where the product - a 
single pdf publication - must be formatted uniformly. That's *not* the 
case with educational content.

 From what I see (again correct me if I'm wrong) the Free GIS book has 
been stalled since 2008. I have a feeling that trying to encourage 
content creators into any kind of framework would exact a cost and slow 
down any efforts to spread FOSS4G educational material. Whereas looking 
at new ways to "harvest" tutorials, howto's and lesson plans that people 
are creating anyway should be the most productive.

Sorry for the long winded post,
Micha




On 08/08/2010 08:42, Simon Cropper wrote:
> Hi,
>
> At various times on this mail list and in the recent group meeting templates
> were raised as a means of standardising input by groups and in the preparation
> of educational material.
>
> What do people actually mean when they say templates: structured documents
> like used by Latex or Metadata?
>
> Structured documents create holes for set data and are immutable. Useful for
> standard input but can stymie creativity and innovation when it comes to
> creation of easy to use content.
>
> Metadata means 'please supply all this data' - its format (style, fonts, etc
> is irrelevant) and order is irrelevant. Just as long as all the data is
> supplied then the educational material is free form and as the writer prefers.
>
> Metadata I believe should be available for all documents are listed below.
>
> What do you think? Have I missed something?
>
> <METADATA>
>
>       <!-- only relevant for derived documents -->
>       <THIS_DOCUMENT>
>            <CREATOR></CREATOR>
>            <DATE_PUBLISHED></DATE_PUBLISHED>
>            <TITLE></TITLE>
>            <EDITION></EDITION>
>            <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT>
>            <URL></URL>
>       </THIS_DOCUMENT>
>
>       <ORIGINAL_DOCUMENT>
>            <CREATOR></CREATOR>
>            <DATE_PUBLISHED></DATE_PUBLISHED>
>            <TITLE></TITLE>
>            <EDITION></EDITION>
>            <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT>
>            <URL></URL>
>       </ORIGINAL_DOCUMENT>
>
>       <!-- repeats depending on number of changes -->
>       <CHANGES>
>            <DATE></DATE>
>            <DESCRIPTION></DESCRIPTION>
>            <EDITOR></EDITOR>
>       </CHANGES>
>
>       <!-- repeats depending on relevant software -->
>       <SOFTWARE_TAG>
>            <CREATOR></CREATOR>
>            <DATE_PUBLISHED></DATE_PUBLISHED>
>            <TITLE></TITLE>
>            <VERSION></VERSION>
>            <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT>
>            <URL></URL>
>       </SOFTWARE_TAG>
>
>       <!-- repeats depending on category -->
>       <!-- categories could be standardised by OSGeo to make this more
>              valuable-->
>       <CATEGORY_TAG>
>            <CREATOR></CREATOR>
>            <DATE_PUBLISHED></DATE_PUBLISHED>
>            <TITLE></TITLE>
>            <VERSION></VERSION>
>            <COPYRIGHT></COPYRIGHT>
>            <URL></URL>
>       </SOFTWARE_TAG>
> </METADATA>
> <CONTENT></CONTENT>
>
> Alternatively a potential workflow tutorial could have the following document
> structure, in addition to the metadata outlined above.
>
> <DOCUMENT>
>
>       <METADATA>
>            ...
>       </METADATA>
>
>       <CONTENT>
>            <WORKFLOW_TITLE></WORKFLOW_TITLE>
>            <INTRODUCTION></INTRODUCTION>
>            <SETUP></SETUP>
>            <METHOD></METHOD>
>            <EXPECTED_OUTPUT></EXPECTED_OUTPUT>
>            <ERRORS></ERRORS>
>       </CONTENT>
>
> </DOCUMENT>
>
>
> (C) Simon Cropper 2010. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia
>
>    


-- 
Micha Silver
http://www.surfaces.co.il/
Arava Development Co.  +972-52-3665918