Talk:Training modules/Design ideas

Location of modules

I strongly believe, that acceptance of the tools will be much higher, if they are hosted on a wikimedia project directly. If this is not possible, transparency of the why and transarency how the data users enter is dealt with, are extremly important issues. --Kritzolina (talk) 19:48, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

@Kritzolina: Thank you for your comments, we truly appreciate getting feedback on these issues! Might I ask you to clarify a little about your thoughts on location of the modules: do you think that semi-off-wiki venues like Tool Labs or Wikiedu.org (affiliated with the movement, but not actual projects) are viable possibilities for hosting? And if so, do you feel that those type of venues would raise the same kind of data transparency issues as an entirely-off-wiki venue, if we were to use them? Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 15:34, 14 November 2016 (UTC)

Accessibility

I do think all four accessibility concerns are important. --Kritzolina (talk) 19:48, 8 November 2016 (UTC)

General

Great to see your progress. Most work we are doing right now in WikiSoCal on this and related issues is taking place in off wiki conversations with experts outside of the Wikipedia editor base. We would be happy to include anyone from here and within the wiki communities in the conversations we are having. Our group has been forming on www.meetup.com/wikisocal - please join us there and our ping me directly for more info.

(Limited to editing from my iPhone atm - would welcome having these comments correctly formatted and moved below) DrMel (talk) 18:06, 4 January 2017 (UTC)

Thanks DrMel! I will pass the meetup info on to local team members, and I really appreciate you taking the time to look over our work here :) Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 14:31, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Video content

I would strongly discourage providing content for these training modules in a video format. I say this as someone who has worked in multimedia production, and a fan of YouTube and video tutorials. :)

1. Video takes a large amount of time to produce in a professional (or even semi-professional) quality.
2. It's far easier to translate text on-wiki than translate a video - both in the tools we have at hand and the time it would take volunteers.
3. Videos - especially those showing any user interfaces or content - will be nearly instantly out of date once published. As time progresses the videos drift further out of sync with reality.
4. Text can be searched, video can not.

These are my personal feelings and I realize they are not true for everyone's preferred learning methods. Perhaps some content could be produced (Background information for example) but my biggest concern is that the cost and time it takes to produce videos could be better spent producing more/higher quality textual content.

See also: https://twitter.com/markkriegsman/status/739664279083814912 :)

Ckoerner (talk) 15:08, 5 January 2017 (UTC)

Proof of concept for wiki-defined training content on Dashboard platform

I did some hacking today, and I think it would be feasible to set the training modules up in a way where they can be created, edited and translated on-wiki, and displayed on outreachdashboard.wmflabs.org.

I've got a proof of concept here: https://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/training

The example module seen there has been configured from wiki pages: User:Ragesoss/libraries, User:Ragesoss/modules, User:Ragesoss/slides.

I haven't started working on the translation aspect yet, but the idea will be that the title and text of each slide would be on its own wiki page with translation enabled. I'm on vacation through next week and could work some more on it during that time if folks are interested in trying it out for these trainings.--Ragesoss (talk) 06:09, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Wow Sage, this is a super-intriguing possibility (and it's so kind of you to spend your own time on hacking at it!). I would be very interested in getting a working(ish) prototype of this setup up before the end of January, which is when we're aiming to settle on a particular format for our modules, and I'd love to help you build it (both to take some of the weight off your shoulders, and to make sure I understand how to put it all together). Could you please email me (kbrownwikimediaorg) a little more about what would need to be done to get a prototype up, how I can help, and whether you have any availability next week to do a quick meeting with me and/or Patrick and/or Joe to talk some more about it? Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 15:56, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

This is wonderful, Ragesoss. I look forward to seeing what you all design. Sydney Poore/FloNight (talk) 16:26, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Karen, I'll email you shortly. I've just about got basic I18n working; a good next step would be taking a bit of the content for these modules and putting into the necessary format, and marking it for translation, and getting at least one slide translated.--Ragesoss (talk) 18:07, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Got it! https://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/training/example-library/example-module/example-slide-1?locale=qqq --Ragesoss (talk) 18:10, 6 January 2017 (UTC)

Draft content

I've made some more progress: https://dashboard-testing.wikiedu.org/training/support-and-safety/keeping-events-safe

This is configured via:

• User:Ragesoss/dashboard_modules/keeping_events_safe.json
• Training_modules/dashboard/slides

@Kbrown (WMF): You can extend it with more slides by linking new .json pages from Training_modules/dashboard/slides, adding the slugs to the json array in the module configuration, and then putting the slide content into the pages listed in the .json pages. Here are the ones for the three that I set up already:

• Training modules/dashboard/slides/keeping events safe purpose
• Training modules/dashboard/slides/what do we mean by safety
• Training modules/dashboard/slides/who is involved in keeping an event safe

If those pages are translated — they are not currently enabled for translation, although I think they are all set — the translations should work on the dashboard. (It might only update if I initiate it manually, for now, so if anyone adds translations or new slides, you can ping me.)--Ragesoss (talk) 00:55, 10 January 2017 (UTC)

Quizzes within reach

I don't have anything to show yet, but this morning I got the basics in place to support quizzes. More details when I have a chance, but it's definitely feasible.--Ragesock (talk) 20:18, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

I got images working too, via a template. @Kbrown (WMF) and JSutherland (WMF): I forked your quiz template to be more like the format of the dashboard's quizzes, but I think it could easily work for the quiz content in the S&S drafts.

• Example module with image and quiz
• Training modules/dashboard/slides/five-pillars - slide with image
• Training modules/dashboard/slides/five-pillars-quiz-1 - slide with quiz

Some documentation will probably be necessary for that image template, since the dashboard inserts images by hotlinking them (from Commons). But I think both the images and quizzes will work fine.--Ragesock (talk) 03:23, 29 January 2017 (UTC)

Did you ever know that you're my hero, Ragesock? Thank you for continuing to knock this work out of the park! Joe and I will take a look at the implementation and figure out what needs doing on our end :) Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 13:28, 30 January 2017 (UTC)

Some community feedback from first draft round

In the feedback we got from users about the first draft of content for the modules, we also received a few design-centric suggestions. I'm summarizing them here so we don't lose track of them!

• Consider "in a nutshell" style page or section headers, to make content more approachable and understandable at a glance
• Consider including "relevant policies" links (i.e. hatnote-style) at the tops of sections, so users have easy access to the policies the section is based in
• Avoid "walls of text" at all costs Kbrown (WMF) (talk) 21:26, 30 January 2017 (UTC)
  • +1. I use 'keep everything above the fold' for each dashboard slide, as a rule of thumb. Lots of the longer slides would work better if broken up into several slides.--Ragesock (talk) 21:53, 30 January 2017 (UTC)