[Building Sakai] Proposal for Sakai 10 help files

Wed Nov 6 15:18:50 PST 2013

Yes exactly!  It's much like i18n the people that end up doing it are
the same people and having it one place makes much sense.  Also, it
would make it easier for institutions who wish to change it to manage
it.  Also, makes it easier to have it on a separate update schedule
that the rest of the app, or maybe even live outside of Sakai
altogether.

FYI, for those who don't know, the existing help tool does let you
host the help on a separate server and manage things in one app
already.  That is how we do it.  You just have to provide the help.xml
manifest to categorize and index the content.

On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 4:06 PM, Sam Ottenhoff <ottenhoff at longsight.com> wrote:
> I'd prefer all of the content live inside one tool, the help tool.  I think
> we had good intentions a decade ago with help inside each tool, but I don't
> think the current setup is helping anyone.  What do you think?
>
> --Sam
>
>
> On Wed, Nov 6, 2013 at 5:48 PM, John Bush <jbush at anisakai.com> wrote:
>>
>> The one thing that isn't clear to me with this proposal is the new
>> content going back into all the tools, or is the content moving to
>> live inside one tool (the help tool)?
>>
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 5, 2013 at 1:09 PM, Sam Ottenhoff <ottenhoff at longsight.com>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > Proposal: For Sakai 10, we should replace much of our help content with
>> > role-focused, image-heavy content.  Our existing help content displays
>> > the
>> > same content for instructors and students and includes few images.  I
>> > propose that we delete the existing help files that are contained within
>> > the
>> > individual Sakai tools, author new content in a documentation-friendly
>> > system, and export that image-heavy new content into Sakai's existing
>> > help
>> > tool.
>> >
>> > Proposal for Authoring: I propose that Apereo pay for a community
>> > account in
>> > the commercial system called ScreenSteps Live
>> > (http://www.screensteps.com/).
>> > ScreenSteps would allow ten of our trusted community members to
>> > collaborate
>> > and edit documents in the shared system for $99/month.  ScreenSteps
>> > would be
>> > used as a collaborative editing system; the content would be exported
>> > and
>> > held within Sakai's existing SVN repository.
>> >
>> > Why ScreenSteps and not a basic HTML editing system?  These are the
>> > primary
>> > reasons I can find:
>> >
>> > a) ScreenSteps makes adding and annotating images incredibly easy.
>> >
>> > b) ScreenSteps allows exports into PDF guides and HTML (that we would
>> > use to
>> > import into Sakai's existing help system).
>> >
>> > c) ScreenSteps could allow institutions to easily export into an
>> > existing
>> > campus system like Wordpress or ZenDesk.
>> >
>> > d) Institutions that want to heavily customize their own help could pay
>> > for
>> > their own ScreenSteps account.
>> >
>> > Proposal for Sakai changes: I believe the changes in Sakai would be
>> > relatively minor.  Here are the changes I would look to make:
>> >
>> > a) Delete all existing help files in individual tools.
>> >
>> > b) Develop a script that could easily import a ScreenSteps HTML ZIP
>> > export
>> > into appropriate help directories.
>> >
>> > c) Add functionality to help tool that will differentiate content based
>> > on
>> > role (Student vs Instructor/teacher vs learner)
>> >
>> > If there are other developers interested in re-doing help, we could
>> > consider
>> > replacing the existing help with a simplified version that depended on
>> > simple HTML files, ElasticSearch (already in for Sakai 10), and a more
>> > streamlined appearance.
>> >
>> > Who is going to edit this new content? Longsight has staff dedicated to
>> > rewriting help files between now and Sakai 10's release.  We also
>> > believe
>> > there are existing community members who are eager to work on
>> > restructured
>> > help files.
>> >
>> > What about multi-lingual content? Sakai's existing help tool supports
>> > multi-lingual content.  ScreenSteps allows multiple sets of content to
>> > be
>> > created, or the static HTML could be translated manually or using a tool
>> > like Crowdin.
>> >
>> > How is the content licensed?  The content would be exported and licensed
>> > as
>> > ECL 2.0 content held within our SVN repository.  Contributors to the
>> > collaborative editing should sign CLAs similarly to developers.
>> >
>> > What if ScreenSteps goes away? Then we are in the same boat we are in
>> > now.
>> > We would need a new system for collaboratively editing HTML-based help
>> > documents besides manually editing HTML inside an SVN repository.  If we
>> > consolidate help files and remove them from within each individual tool,
>> > this should become much easier.
>> >
>> > Other possibilities that have been discussed: The Edia Knowledgebase
>> > tool
>> > would be a nice replacement for the existing help tool, but it does not
>> > currently support multilingual content like our existing help tool.  I
>> > also
>> > built a Drupal-based proof of concept for editing existing help files
>> > (http://sakaihelp.longsight.com).  I view ScreenSteps as a refined
>> > version
>> > of that POC that has much better image editing capabilities and much
>> > better
>> > export possibilities.  Also, a ScreenSteps account should be controlled
>> > by
>> > the Sakai community where the Drupal-based proof of concept is tied to
>> > Longsight.
>> >
>> > Attached: a screenshot of a quick POC of ScreenSteps-exported content
>> > using
>> > the existing Sakai help tool.
>> >
>> > Sample of a ScreenSteps guide used by Canvas:
>> > http://guides.instructure.com/m/8470
>> >
>> > Canvas has a document about how to contribute to their ScreenSteps
>> > documentation:
>> >
>> > http://guides.instructure.com/s/2204/m/4151/l/41924-how-do-i-contribute-my-training-materials-to-canvas-guides
>> >
>> > Thoughts, comments, or realistic alternatives for Sakai 10 help files?
>> > If I
>> > hear no objections, I'd like to get started on some of the technical
>> > work in
>> > early December.
>> >
>> > --Sam
>> >
>> > _______________________________________________
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>> >
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>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> John Bush
>> 602-490-0470
>>
>> ** This message is neither private nor confidential in fact the US
>> government is storing it in a warehouse located in Utah for future
>> data mining use cases should they arise. **
>
>

-- 
John Bush
602-490-0470

** This message is neither private nor confidential in fact the US
government is storing it in a warehouse located in Utah for future
data mining use cases should they arise. **