[OSGeo-Edu] Some thoughts on the production of educational material about FOSS Geospatial Tools

[Simon Cropper]

Hi,

I have been reviewing my personal needs relating to the production of 
educational material about FOSS Geospatial Tools.

To help conceptualise the variety of aspects relating to the creation, 
acceptance, dissemination and acceptance of educational material I created the 
following diagram.

In my mind, this superficial analysis identified some interesting points for me 
relating to how I expect to prepare and distribute my tutorials. I thought you 
may be interested and have listed some thought below.

1. My personal emphasis will be on workflow tutorials rather than manual 
creation. Similar to some of the GIS Desktop Handbooks/Cookbooks touted by 
others at various stages.

2. Three main tasks have been identified: create, maintain and disseminate. The 
question is whether any solution to the preparation of educational material 
should meet all these needs or just address them.

3. Creation of material, in my experience, is problematic. Most packages are 
difficult to use or require teaching yourself mark-up languages. This latter 
issue can put off newcomers getting involved. Focus should be on the rapid 
acquisition of content rather than getting bogged down with formatting.
- OpenOffice Writer is easy to use, familiar and can create PDFs, DocBook XML 
and a variety of other formats readily.
- Lots of HTML editors exist, although variously compliant to W3C 
specifications
- Latex (e.g. Lyx) is promising as it can create multiple output formats 
readily
- XML Editors like Serna FOSS XML Editor also look promising for the same 
reason
- lots of templates and an easy to use program is essential.

4. Once written, maintenance is a big issue as some formats are problematic to 
read (XML, HTML, RST) or harder to translate than others (PDF, RST). 
Formats/Languages where the text/paragraph format is intermingled with content 
have problems when edited.
- Latex/XML Structured Documents separate the issue of format and content. 
Once templates have been created all future contributors need do nothing 
except input content. This option also makes for a consistent output - as all 
people are required to use the same templates.
- Templates in OO are not the same as in Latex/XML editors. The latter create 
structured documents, whereas OO Writer allows unstructured documents -- 
something that facilitates diversity/innovation but also creates problems with 
ongoing maintenance. So templates in OO is really about ensuring all the 
appropriate data is supplied rather than formatting and standard looking 
output.
- Free XML Structured Document Editors are not common and only a few have 
suitable features to make content creation easy. The only program I would be 
happy using is a free version of a commercial product - it is always unclear 
whether these packages will remain freely available into the future.
- LATEX looks promising but templates creation is not intuitive and Lyx, the 
most promising option, is very math/formula oriented. The GUI interface an be 
a bit off putting.

5. Dissemination is dependant on the format created. 
- If OO is used to create PDFs then these can just be dumped to a repository 
similar to what already exists on OsGeo. OO can also save in HTML and DocBook 
XML. The latter could be a useful storage medium for maintenance and 
derivatives.
- Ideally though the repository should aim to categorise documents into 
workflows and provide all relevant information (e.g. PDF, OpenDocumentText file, 
data) for the various packages out there. The OSGeo repository is limited in 
this extent, although it can be filtered.
- if Latex/XML/OO is used to create HTML, this can be inserted into a CMS or 
website for traditional presentation. PDF/ODT/Text as required for inclusion 
onto CD and online document repositories. All these packages allow for output 
in various formats. OO is probably the most widely used and familiar product.

6. Of course there are traditional CMS or Blogging Software (e.g. Wordpress or 
Joomla). Despite being relatively easy to create documents, content stuck in 
online databases like MySQL is difficult to review, export, disseminate, 
maintain, etc. This analysis excludes these systems as suitable solutions to 
my needs.

Whatever the system used, it needs to be easy to create, maintain and 
disseminate the material, and have acceptance of both the FOSS GIS developers 
and users alike.

The options I am toying with at present are using Open Office Writer or Lyx/XML 
Editor to create content and posting the content (PDF, source, data) directly 
to a webpage. I have not been able to locate a suitable web-based FOS Document 
Management System (DMS) that provides public access, manages PDFs, source files 
and data as related items and can present the data in various taxonomies.


Anyone have any other issues that you think I should consider please let me 
know.

Anyone with experience in using Serna [1] or Lyx [2], or have a suitable 
template/s I can try I would be very interested in hearing from you.

Anyone know of a good DMS I would be very interested to hear about it.

[1] http://www.syntext.com/downloads/serna-free/
[2] http://www.lyx.org/Home


(C) Simon Cropper 2010. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Australia
-- 
Cheers Simon

	Simon Cropper
	Botanicus Australia Pty Ltd
	PO Box 160 Sunshine 3020
	P: 03 9311 5822. M: 041 830 3437
	W: http://www.botanicusaustralia.com.au

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