Re: ELReq Rises in October!

Hello Daniel,

Many thanks for this very interesting report. Great to see that ELReq is 
moving ahead on various fronts.

Regards,   Martin.

On 2018/10/24 10:29, Daniel Yacob wrote:
> Greetings All,
> 
> Quite the momentous month for ELReq!  2011 is off to a terrific start and
> we'll strive to keep it going.  Here's a synopsis of recent events:
> 
> Several members of the Ethiopic Layout Requirements Task Force were able to
> meet in Addis Ababa in early October. In a matter of days the group was
> able to meet with the CEO, IT Manager, and other staff at the Berhanena
> Selam Printing Press (the nation's largest), the President of the Ethiopian
> Writer's Association, Director of the Institute of Ethiopian Studies, and
> head of the Academy of Ethiopian Languages and Cultures.
> 
> The objectives of ELReq were reviewed with each party and they were very
> receptive to the goals of the task force and understood well the need for
> better software support for Ethiopic requirements through rule
> recommendations.  Assorted notes from these meetings:
> 
> * Face to face meetings are essential to engaging stakeholders.
> Stakeholders met were very open and willing to discussing layout topics and
> to supporting the initiative with materials and by arranging meetings with
> their staff and membership.  However, the culture and practice of online
> (email and web based) discussion has not been established in this community.
> 
> * Stakeholders pointed to the need for an offline survey to collect
> feedback from specialists. This is in keeping with their expectations and
> regular mode of engagement. An online survey would not be utilized.
> 
> ELReq does have an offline survey available it has been sent now to several
> points of contact for review. The survey is in need of some updates and
> revisions.  A translator is also being sought to produce an Amharic version.
> 
> * Berhanena Selam does not have a formal style guide reference that they
> follow for layout and formatting.  Rather, they have a collection of well
> prepared documents developed in the past that they follow as exemplars for
> good layout.  We have been offered scans of these materials.
> 
> * Berhanena Selam offered to introduce us to the Ethiopian Printers
> Association.  We will follow up when the survey has been updated.
> 
> * The Ethiopian Writers Association offered to host a meeting with their
> membership where ELReq can be presented and the survey circulated. We will
> pursue this to arrive at a collective view of the association.
> 
> * While stakeholders show willingness to help resolve ELReq issues,
> engagement will necessarily be offline.  This presents some burden to task
> force members in Addis Ababa to arrange meetings and to coordinate with
> willing parties to discuss issues, collect materials, distribute, collect
> and consolidate surveys.  Funding to support these activities would be very
> helpful and will be pursued.
> 
> Also in October, a presentation on ELReq was made at the 20th International
> Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES 20) which notably drew the interest
> of the Ethiopian Studies group at the University of Hamburg. The Ethiopian
> Orthodox Church was engaged through a presentation at the 2nd International
> Conference on Ethiopian Church Studies just this past weekend with a very
> positive reception.
> 
> Lots of momentum to capitalize on with willing parties who now await the
> translated survey.  I'll post an update here once we have the translation
> available, your review and feedback will be crucial.
> 
> cheers,
> 
> -Daniel
>

Received on Wednesday, 24 October 2018 06:17:11 UTC