MRP: Testing the wiki

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Testing the wiki

Editorial history

16/12/11, CSG: Created page


Overview

This page asks a set of questions about various aspects of this wiki, and asks for your help in testing the wiki and in providing feedback to the authors.




Look & feel


Front page


  • Is it clear who the wiki is for?


  • Is it clear what the wiki is about?


  • Are you encouraged to explore further?

Font size


  • Are headers and subheaders the right size?


  • Is body text the right size at the standard browser and screen resolution you use?


  • Are you clear that font size can be changed using the zoom function in your operating system?

Page size & shape


  • What browser have you used to view the pages?


  • Are you clear that all pages in the wiki are resizeable in your browser?


  • What width have you found best to view the pages?


  • Does your preferred width to view pages vary according to the type of page you are viewing?


- For example, do you prefer a different width of page for dense, all text documents, which by their nature have no paragraphs, such as Chancery primary documents, to the width you prefer for secondary documents containing images?


Bookmarks & windows


  • Did you bookmark any pages, and if so, which ones?


  • Did you find it useful to keep any particular pages open as a reference while you looked at other pages?

Images


  • Are images sized appropriately at your standard browser magnification?


- Are you clear that you can enlarge or shrink images using the zoom function in your operating system?

- Are you clear that you can view, enlarge and shrink individual images in isolation of the text by double clicking on the image?

  • Do you prefer fixed size images embedded within the text, or images viewable in popup windows in which the images can be resized?


  • Do you prefer images to be with or without integrated short form author, title and date below the image?


  • Is the information given for images as to artist, author, work, original media & size, copyright, & provenance appropriate?

Functionality


Search


  • What has been your experience of the search functionality in this wiki?


  • What search functionality would you like to see?

Navigation


  • Is it clear how to get where you want to get?


  • Is browsing encouraged as well as focused research?


  • Is it clear what navigation tools are available and how to use them?


  • Does the horizontal menu bar at the top of each page contain the correct tabs?

Finding tools


  • What finding tools have you found useful in this wiki?


  • What finding tools would you like to see?

Editing


  • Is it clear how to edit a page?


  • Have you experience of editing a wiki or a website?

Use of Templates


  • What templates would you like to see available to help you contribute to the wiki?

Academic apparatus


Foot notes


  • Have you found the footnotes of appropriate length and content?


  • Do you believe that the purpose and nature footnotes in web based material edited to academic standards should be different from that of printed material?


  • Do you find it useful to have electronic links from footnotes in this wiki to:


(a) wiki articles (such as biographical profiles and profiles of places)?

(b) transcribed primary documents on this wiki?

(c) e-published books outside this wiki?

  • Are you comfortable with the URL of external e-resources to be concealed under an English language name for the resource (with the URL viewable in edit mode, but not print mode)?


  • Do you support this wiki's current policy of preferring the Internet Archive e-book reader over the Google e-book reader, where there is a choice for the same edition?

Approach to primary and secondary sources


  • What potential do you see in the specific approach taken by this wiki to primary and secondary sources?


  • How do you see this approach and this wiki in the context of other approaches and digital initiatives being taken by national and local archives?


- See for example the National Archives planned (but not yet implemented) new approach to annotation and integration of data by professional archivists and by users, which will be added to the new Discovery platform (currently in Beta development)[1]


Primary source content


  • What type of primary material would you like to see on the wiki?


  • Would you be interested in contributing primary material, as the initial transcriber of a wiki posted document, or as a subsequent contributor to that document in the form of context, annotations, and suggested primary and secondary sources?


  • What sort of authorial acknowledgement is appropriate for primary material? For the transcribing contributor, and for subsequent contributors and editors of a specific new primary document?

Legal


  • Do the Chancery transcriptions stand by themselves, or would they benefit from greater annotation and contextual notes?


- Currently the transcriptions vary considerably in the degree to which annotations and contextual notes have been provided

- See Chancery cases


Inventories


  • How would you like to see inventories displayed?


See Inventories


Letters


  • Is the format used to display individual letters a helpful one?


  • Are short or more discursive footnotes appropriate and useful in a wiki format?


See Correspondence of Sir George Oxenden, 1663-1669 (British Library, Add. MSS. 40708-40713)

See Letters


Wills


  • Are contextual notes useful?


  • Is there any point in a light abstract of a will?


See Wills


Secondary material content


  • What type of secondary material would you like to see on the wiki?


  • Would you be interested in contributing secondary material, as the initial author of a wiki article, or as a subsequent contributor to that article, or editor of that article?


  • What sort of authorial acknowledgement is appropriate for secondary material? For the initial or primary author, and for subsequent contributor and editors?


To date the focus of this wiki has been to prepare, post, annotate and cross-link new primary documents.

There has been some limited experimentation with new wiki articles, which synthesise new primary research and which provide finding aids to unused or lightly used primary sources

Sample articles can be found in the wiki, especially for:

- Places

- People


Providing your feedback


Comments
  1. ↑ http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/news/659.htm, viewed 12/01/12

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