Editors' Page
Editors' Page
08/08/12, CSG: Created page
Draft Project Manual Plan
William Tullett suggestions, August 7th 2012
(In email to Colin, cc Sarah)
Dear Colin,
Thank you for the details regarding all of the individuals on the project. I haven't had any replies from the associates, all of whom we have emailed asking about their ideas on training provision on the wiki but hopefully we will get some input soon as it's only been a few days.
I think, although I have not asked Sarah on this yet, that the project wiki and the wiki for the input of transcribed content should be separate but perhaps have them linked by a tab on each of them so it's easy to get between them. Me and Sarah have yet to produce a more detailed plan but below are some thoughts.
A few things I wanted to ask:
1) Have you set up the project training wiki and therefore would you be able to provide I and Sarah with the details for it? Sarah and I have talked about the possibility of using Wordpress for the project training site, with which Sarah has experience and the possibility of using Scripto for transcription. Do you have any opinions on this and is the preferred option to use a wiki?
2) In terms of copy for the wiki could you provide a blurb for the project goals page? I was going to cobble together a project goals section from the 'Project high level description' you sent me on the 14th July and the various call for papers/history today article but I felt perhaps it would be better for you to prepare this as it is, of course, your entrepreneurial spirit which started and continues to feed the project and I wouldn't want to put words in your mouth about the end goals!
I will try and put together a list of useful secondary resources for the training pages but if you have suggestions that would be great. I wonder what, since I should imagine the training wiki would be privately accessed by password (?) the policy on putting up some pdfs of journal articles would be. Obviously if the wiki were public I understand this would not be allowed. Perhaps links to wikipedia pages would suffice but this is entirely at your discretion and is something I will ask associates about.
3) In terms of schedule me and Sarah currently have this from an earlier email
"August 1st to August 31st
- Train facilitators online
- Work with facilitators to prepare online training material for associates
- Face-to face one day meeting at TNA (August 20th) to look and feel the documents we will be working on, to meet TNA staff, and to practice technical and palaeographical skills. This meeting to consist of project facilitators & project experts
- Project leaders & facilitators to create a digital backbone for the project, with all images checked for quality and readability, and meta data created and input into wiki
September 3rd to December 14th
- Allocation of facilitators to project associates
- Training of project associates directed and supported by facilitators
- Kick off transcription (plus linkage and enrichment) work
- Monthly on line review conferences using e-conferencing"
Is this detailed enough or do you feel that this could be further supplemented?
In addition do we yet have an agenda for the kick off meeting? I currently have this from emails:
"'I'm thinking a morning (9.00 a.m.-12.30 p.m.) plus lunch (12.30-13.30) together might be ideal. For facilitators who are interested we might put a couple of the volumes of the HCA records, including the records we are going to work on, in the conference room, or in a side room, which we could then examine after lunch, and I might run a palaeography teach-in from 14.00 through to 16.00 for any of the facilitators who are interested (if TNA has a palaeography expert who could join us all the better)."
I would suggest key parts of the day to be:
Establishing and confirming end goals of the project.
Running through the schedule and establishing/confirming targets.
Perhaps going through the training wiki and some examples using a projector so we can discuss pros and cons.
Possibly dividing up associates amongst facilitators.
Some time spent addressing Palaeography policy. (I wonder whether this is something we need to have quite an in depth conversation about and that the meeting at TNA might be a good forum for it)
Some hands on time with the HCA records and some palaeography teaching. This could be linked to the above.
Simply getting to know each other!
What is your current position on the agenda for that meeting?
I must admit in IT terms I am not particularly proficient but I have spent a little bit of time today looking at how to set up an RSS feed, a calendar which we could put on the wiki which we could all edit and a forum. I'm still a bit mystified but I should imagine this will be easier once I have access to the wiki so that I can get working on it and trying things.
I completely agree re: the concentric circle style with links for displaying the team structure, I will send an email to Giovanni Colavizza and Patrizia to talk to them about the code for this.
In terms of wiki training I think this will be pretty easy to copy and paste from the descriptions you've provided in your wiki and possibly these explanations here: http://wikispot.org/Help_with_Editing .
