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

[Cameron Shorter]

Charlie,
While I agree that there are 2 types of content authors (collective 
authors, and individuals), I still feel that individuals will benefit 
greatly from templates and structure.

Templates, document structure, defining target audiences and writing 
styles, researching licences, publishing chains, publishing pipelines, 
are all time consuming tasks which often require specific expertise to 
resolve effectively.

If all these issues can be addressed once, and then given to authors, it 
will significantly reduce the barrier of entry to creating documentation 
for authors.

And as an added benefit, we as a community will gain consistent, quality 
documentation from many more authors.

It is also a non-trivial amount of work to do effectively, and I think 
is going to require a hero volunteer, or sponsorship from some 
enlightened organisation to kick it off.


On 11/08/10 01:38, Charlie Schweik wrote:
> Simon Cropper wrote:
>> ******** 2nd thought by SCC **********
>>
>> why do we need templates. most of the editors looked at, especially 
>> open source, can save in a variety of formats. If the objective is to 
>> make it easier for someone to create a derivative then who care what 
>> format something is in (as long it is not in binary). 
> I think we have two distinct situations:
>
> (1) authors who are "user-centered innovators" (to use Eric von 
> Hippel's labeling). They are developing content for their own needs 
> and use and are willing to share this content;
> (2) authors who we are trying to get to "collectively act" in the 
> development of a document or volume, together.
>
> The first describes what we've been collecting so far on our inventory 
> system. This second describes where some in the group (Cameron, Venka, 
> perhaps others) think we should go -- toward the development of a 
> volume of materials like Cameron has done coordinating the Live DVD 
> effort. In the IRC, Venka was pushing for our group to try and put 
> together two handbooks: one on open source DeskTop GIS; one on open 
> source Web GIS.
>
> In my opinion,
>
> I don't think we need a template for the #1 situation. I think it adds 
> friction and requirements that will reduce our already fairly limited 
> submissions.
>
> I think we should develop a template structure if, as a group, we are 
> going to try and develop the handbooks Venka has proposed (or some 
> other collaborative document not yet identified).
>
> QUESTIONS FOR THE GROUP:
>
> 1) Do others agree or disagree?
>
> 2) Should we start an effort to collectively build the handbooks Venka 
> proposed, following a development strategy that Cameron used for the 
> Live DVD? If so, we need one or two people to step up as 
> "coordinators" of the Desktop and Web handbooks. (I'd also like to see 
> if we could, in parallel, develop Webinars on the subjects or YouTube 
> videos or something, returning us to the discussion last year about 
> outreach to the NY State GIS community). I'd also like to see us use 
> this as a way to connect more closely to the software groups.
>
> Cheers
> Charlie
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> People who make derivatives need to disassemble everything and 
>> recreate it anyway.
>>
>>
>> (C) Simon Cropper 2010. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 
>> Australia
>>
>
>
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>    


-- 
Cameron Shorter
Geospatial Director
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254

Think Globally, Fix Locally
Geospatial Solutions enhanced with Open Standards and Open Source
http://www.lisasoft.com

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