Re: Post TPAC plans - moving forward

On 15 Nov 2011, at 06:56, Alexander Dawson wrote:

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> Some feedback here Chris...
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>> a. Looking at what material we need, and drawing up a big spec for what articles we should have (see http://www.w3.org/wiki/Web_Standards_Curriculum for the current state of this - THIS WILL SOON BE MOVED TO http://www.w3.org/community/webed/wiki/Main_Page).
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> Are we only focusing on content relating to W3C specifications or are we going to offer an extensive resource on all things related to designing and developing for the Web (in the short and long term)? If the latter, perhaps the list in this post (http://www.sitepoint.com/forums/printthread.php?t=680804) might be useful to help you begin to re-structure the WSC. I put it together for the poster when researching industry fields for a community produced ebook I developed with SitePoint last year (they were looking for ideas for subject matter to include).
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The sitepoint post is very useful - thanks!

We will be aiming in the long term to cover as many subjects related to designing and developing for the web as possible, as long as they make sense in a pragmatic sense, ie, people want to learn about, or need to learn about them as part of their courses.

The primary focus will be W3C open standards, but it could also include browser specific technologies, or proprietary stuff like Flash ... if sufficient demand is there.

However on the final publishing platform for this material, we will be making it very clear which material is proprietary/vendor specific, with labels/tagging putting it in a different part of the site.

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>> b. Finding out what material already exists out there that we could bring into this project, eg We already have the Opera web standards curriculum transplanted inside the W3C, Microsoft have potential content in MSDN, W3C have fantastic HTML and CSS reference material, Adobe have potential material, Mozilla have the MDN, which we could potentially take from. It makes sense to not reinvent the wheel on this (WE WILL SOON ASSEMBLE A LIST OF THESE).
> c. Adding existing material to the spec - again, see http://www.w3.org/wiki/Web_Standards_Curriculum>
> d. Creating new material to fill up the holes that are left
> e. Updating/editing/proofing all the material as necessary to make sure it is of sufficiently high quality, and has a reasonable consistent voice.
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> My only worry with this would be that it would be a heck of a task to rewrite that migrated content to match the style guide you're putting together (if we were to bring them all into a single W3C backed resource). Are we intending to hybridise each of these libraries into the WSC? If so, how would we approach merges and deciding upon which version to use in case of conflicts or repeat info? (I'm only putting this out there as a thinking forward thing). Regardless, I'd be happy to help tech edit the content and identify areas for expansion or issues in the copy as I get time.
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I agree that it would be a lot of work to take, say Opera WSC, plus a third of MDN and MSDN, and stuff from Adobe, and try to get it all into completely consistent editorial voice, etc etc. But we will do what we can, going forward. It would still be much less work than writing it all from scratch.

We are going to have a system where we have admins, whose job it is to look at content conflicts and work out solutions.

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>> The Web Edu CG wiki (http://www.w3.org/community/webed/wiki/Main_Page) will be the place where we will develop all the material, collaboratively, as a Wiki is ideal for this purpose. However, a Wiki is not so great as a publishing platform for the final product, as we want it to look as polished and attractive as possible. Therefore, we are looking at creating a dedicated learning platform hosted on a separate domain to promote the material to, when it reaches the desired level of quality. These articles will not be editable by anyone, but we will have a commenting/feedback function allowing anyone to notify us of suggested changes.
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> Sounds good. I'd also suggest perhaps when we develop the platform we consider having PDF versions of the complete guide or something for people wanting an offline copy of the reference (I know people seem to make use of offline copies of W3C specs so an official PDF would be useful to a lot of people), especially for students with tablets or phones wanting something to flick through.

I agree that this would be good. Educators in particular are obsessed by PDFs - the number of times I have been asked for downloadable PDFs of WSC by teachers and students just doesn't bear thinking about.

We might be able to find a system whereby we can dynamically generate PDFs of the content, per article, or the entire resource, so then we don't have to worry about creating a new PDF each time articles are updated.

We could do this using a Prince XML server, or some such thing. I'll do a bit of thinking.

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>> ACTION: PROJECT GROUP - migrate the WaSP InterACT curriculum over to the Web Edu CG Wiki pages, and make sure links to recommended reading are updated to the new locations (for example, the WSC stuff)
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> With regard to recommended reading, will we be mentioning specific non-WSC/W3C resources such as books? I know WaSP InterACT relies quite heavily on third party referencing in places for project work, which could prove tricky to keep "current" in terms of book availability (that and the cost barrier if we're trying to ensure the content remains free to students - thereby not having to buy loads of books to get the benefits).

Sorry, what I meant by this is making sure we update the links to the WSC articles inside WaSP InterACT to point to the new W3C versions instead of the old dev.opera versions.

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>> For the most part, outreach will be largely on hold until we have got the learning material and curricula first phase completed.
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>> --------------------------------------------------
>> ACTION: CHRIS - SEND OUT THE BIG INVITE MAIL. ALSO INVITE COPY WRITERS. GET PEOPLE ON BOARD TO HELP WITH PROOF READING, AND GENERAL COMMENT ON LEARNING MATERIAL STRUCTURE. ALSO NEED TO GET EDUCATORS LOOKING AT THE LEARNING MATERIAL AND CURRICULA, TO MAKE SURE IT IS AS USEFUL TO THEM AS POSSIBLE.
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> Might I suggest that in preference to putting outreach on hold, we instead get the available outreach team focused on outreaching to potential members who could contribute to the WSC or some other active part of the project? I know outreaching to academic groups (for adoption) currently isn't of much use as we're lacking in content - but outreaching could still be highly useful in finding quality contributors either from those academic backgrounds (who can offer perspective) or technical backgrounds (to add to the material) - as I'm assuming we'll need more members to get things moving at a good pace!
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Good call, my man.

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>> ACTION: ALEXANDER DAWSON? - create outreach resource
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> Already planning this, so I'll be compiling the resource list ASAP. :)

cool!

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>> This is at an early stage, and can come later. There is some movement inside the W3C to try to create full training and certification programs (led by Anne Marie Forgue?), but there are also a number of people inside the Web Edu CG who believe that to create all of our own training and certification is possibly a bit ambitious, so perhaps instead we should just have a system whereby we can validate university/college courses and give them a W3C stamp of approval? Maybe both approaches can work together in tandem?
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> I believe there is scope for both. MCSE's don't remove the need for computer science degrees, neither did the CCNA. Some employers will naturally prefer a degree or related qualification over a proprietary certification scheme in a specific field (and vice versa). Each have advantages and disadvantages. Our aim if we follow through is to do what the MCSE did and provide a more specialised program for those who want a direct reflection of their abilities - rather than (just?) the more generic degree / diploma / etc platform (which can be tricky to encourage change as they're regulated by examining bodies). A W3C qualification would offer competition to the lacking existing schemes to encourage better quality of standards (in mainstream courses) and allow students to decide their route into the industry (academic / certification / self-taught) - which feels like a healthier balance (to me at least).

well said. After conversations at Build conference last week, I also have renewed faith in the idea of creating our own certification, which we could run and prove the worth of, and then get a university to endorse and provide the certification part of.

Received on Tuesday, 15 November 2011 12:44:59 UTC