RE: linking? RE: Proposal for 3.4 Success Criteria

Joel,

         We are not ruling out the ability to link to existing content, 
just saying it isn't sufficient to meet the requirement to put non-text 
content on your site. I may make up a page about bears, and on it include a 
link to the bear cam (be sure to watch it during salmon season - lots of 
ursine activity!) it doesn't relieve me of the responsibility to put a 
topical illustration of a bear somewhere on the opening screen of the page, 
if I want my students to know that this is a bear page.


                                                 Anne


At 08:55 AM 8/6/01 -0600, Joel Sanda wrote:
>Ann wrote:
>Joel, new schools cropping up online cannot ignore their
>responsibility to contribute to content, but I'd put money on the fact that
>although they may be happy to link up "free" content to their courses, they
>will not make their courses available for "free", but will lock it up
>behind a customer password .... shame, shame!
>
>Joel:
>I agree 100%, but I don't think we should rule out the ability to link to
>existing content. I think that some sites, like National Geographic,
>consider their 'free' stuff to be great advertising. When freely available
>images or video presentations from that site are embedded or linked into the
>content, it provides a means of drawing users to that site, which increases
>visitation for that site. That in and of itself may be undersirable, but it
>would be hard to beat National Geographic's quality photos and film footage
>(check our their live "bear cam").
>
>The question of content origination isn't really debatable by us, I don't
>think, but should sit in the lap of the folks creating content. I'm merely
>pointing out we shouldn't rule out "linking to" as a solution to providing
>non-text content. Though this brings its own set of problems (taking user
>away from your site, maybe the server linked to is down, maybe the content
>isn't accessible, etc...), linking to existing content is part of why we
>have the web - the world's biggest network of resources.
>
>Joel
>
>
>Joel Sanda
>Product Manager
>-------------------------------------------------------www.eCollege.com
>eCollege
>joels@ecollege.com
> > p. 303.873.7400 x3021
> > f.  303.632.1721
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Anne Pemberton [mailto:apembert@erols.com]
>Sent: Monday, August 06, 2001 4:39 AM
>To: Joel Sanda; 'Charles McCathieNevile '
>Cc: ''David Woolley ' '; ''w3c-wai-gl@w3.org ' '
>Subject: RE: linking? RE: Proposal for 3.4 Success Criteria
>
>
>Joel,
>
>          Yes, coming up with all the content you need to teach a course
>online well, is expensive. It isn't any less expensive because it's going
>on the web. Yes, your clients can link to existing content on the web, and
>they certainly should do so, but it cannot and should not take the place of
>developing their own content as well. Remember that all the existing
>content was created by SOMEONE, and they are entitled to some return on
>their time if the content is being used by an e-Learning institution
>charging for the course.
>
>          Joel, new schools cropping up online cannot ignore their
>responsibility to contribute to content, but I'd put money on the fact that
>although they may be happy to link up "free" content to their courses, they
>will not make their courses available for "free", but will lock it up
>behind a customer password .... shame, shame!
>
>                                          Anne
>
>At 10:26 PM 8/5/01 -0600, Joel Sanda wrote:
> >Would that mean dropping the linking criteria from  3.4 as it's now
>written?
> >That's tough, I think, for a number of reasons:
> >
> >1. "Coming up" with text content is expensive. Adding additional non-text
> >content elements will mean a steep increase in production costs - from
> >product development through testing and maintenance.
> >2. Why create content if good examples already exist? For example: I'm not
> >going to create a visual map to my place of business if I can have one done
> >my mapquest and add that to my site.
> >
> >I don't mean "only" linking - but giving designers and writers the
> >opportunity to use appropriate and available existing content, linked in to
> >their site, 3.4 becomes much more realistic.
> >
> >In the eLearning industry supplying content for instructors is gaining
> >acceptance rapidly. Providing content from the publishers who have
> >traditionally supplied only text books, but now supply interactive
>tutorials
> >and the normally expected graphics in textbooks means such content is
> >available - if at a cost. For the non-corporate environment there are
> >several "knowledge sites" on the Internet that provide a lot of freely
> >available content fitting 3.4's current requirements. While copyrighted,
>the
> >content can be linked to from a site and in some cases included in the site
> >with appropriate copyright mechanisms.
> >
> >Joel
> >
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Charles McCathieNevile
> >To: Joel Sanda
> >Cc: 'David Woolley '; 'w3c-wai-ig@w3.org '
> >Sent: 8/5/2001 8:33 AM
> >Subject: linking? RE: Proposal for 3.4 Success Criteria
> >
> >The problem with only linking to the content is that fails to achieve
> >the
> >purpose of having the content there in the first place - to enable
> >someone
> >who cannot easily understand a plain text page to have an idea of the
> >main
> >topics of that page.
> >
> >I recognise that there are concerns such as copyright and trademarking,
> >and
> >in some areas (like where I live) of bandwidth. There are emerging
> >technologies in the area of the semantic Web that we should expect to
> >use in
> >the medium term (several years before I imagine it being deployed in
> >browsers
> >that have been spread into schools for example) which will provide much
> >easier techniques for doing this.
> >
> >In the meantime, we are still struggling to get the principles in an
> >agreed
> >explanation, so we may find the technology overtakes us in development
> >pace.
> >Without agreed principles, or even well-expressed ones that are there as
> >straw-man proposals, we are several steps away from being ready to
> >address
> >concerns of whether implementation details are so important as to negate
> >the
> >principle.
> >
> >(But I think we are making some progress, which is encouraging <grin/>)
> >
> >cheers
> >
> >Charles
>
>Anne Pemberton
>apembert@erols.com
>
>http://www.erols.com/stevepem
>http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Anne Pemberton
apembert@erols.com

http://www.erols.com/stevepem
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45

Received on Monday, 6 August 2001 13:29:44 UTC