User:Charles Matthews
Currently editing here under an IP number, for reasons I won't go into.
Wikimodule
I have been asked to lead a WMUK project to set up a distance learning system. We shall be using Moodle as course management system (CMS).
My approach has to been to abstract from WMUK's situation. What I call "wikimodule" is a system depending on three inputs (or four, if you included choice of CMS). In WMUK's case these are:
- The Training for Trainers system, leading to accredited trainers";
- the broad purposes of the community summed up as "the Wikimedia movement";
- the purposes defined by WMUK as a charity.
The system specification includes an auxiliary wiki. My default assumption is that WMUK would use this wiki as its auxiliary wiki.
Details of wikimodule under a CMS
- There is a concept of "good module". Any account holder can deem a module good. The stated objectives of a good module must include one that is concretely about the broad purposes of the system. The criterion for a good module is a box-ticking checklist.
- There is a concept of "featured module". Modules become featured by consensus of the trainer status group. Review of featured modules is by threaded discussion. The objectives of a featured module must include one that is concretely about the specific purposes of the system.
Details of wikimodule under its auxiliary wiki
The wikimodule work goes on on its auxiliary wiki in a number of namespaces and associated talk namespaces. There need to be portals: Portal:Education and Portal:Educational quality; the latter portal would be edited only by trainers, with discussion on its Portal talk page (open of course to all). There need to be namespaces for Topic, Lesson, Module and Workshop. Module and Workshop pages must have a Lesson page transcluded into them to be well-formed. Besides its Lesson, a Module page must be named after and link to a module on the CMS and include metadata from its associated module.
Initial deliverables
To set up such a system, there are initial or baseline deliverables:
- Explicit list of topics, marked Y or N according as to whether there will initially be a Topic page or not. These can be divided into categories such as "Core topic" and "Outreach topic" for clarity. The community will then, after the initial population, take control of these categories and update them in lines with criteria (which will likely apply to individual categories).
- Explicit list of "module specifications" fit to populate the Lesson namespace. Topic pages without an associated Lesson page should be tagged at this stage: they are not obviously teachable, in other words, and the work should be done to investigate.
- VLE in beta. This will mostly consist of seeded modules, i.e. modules with content copied-and-pasted from existing CC-by-SA sources. The point is to do proof-of-concept.
- Good module package. This is the checklist for a good module, covering (a) format, (b) metadata that must be supplied, (c) standard header and footer.