[Using Sakai] End-User Documentation

[Regan, Alan]

Thank you, Michael and everyone.

>From our presentation in Denver this summer, we were exploring at a few areas to address:

(1.) Helping new schools adopt by providing baseline documentation that could be customized as needed.

(2.) Improving the home page of the Sakai site with official documentation that is more accessible for faculty or students.

(3.) Revisiting the built-in help pages and considering possible improvements.

*****

(1.) BASELINE DOCUMENTATION

It takes time to create documentation. Multiply this time across all of the institutions that use Sakai, and we are duplicating effort again and again. Could we provide a central repository of documentation, tailored to the baseline install of Sakai, that a new school could repurpose easily?  Our existing institutions could submit their written work for each tool and it could be edited into this baseline documentation.

One option would be something like a modified version of IU's custom documentation solution, http://ittraining.iu.edu/scripts/oncourse/pdfcreator/  Imagine a school that's starting fresh checking all the tools they plan to implement and the service spits out documentation in a desired format, such as RTF, HTML, or XML so that the adopting school can quickly repurpose.

A pie-in-the-sky solution would be a central wiki service that schools could subscribe to.  They'd set up a subdomain for their school, select their version and tools, and it would spit out a complete wiki documentation site.  They'd modify template colors and images, these settings would cascade through the wiki site, and they'd be up and running within moments.  They'd add their editors and could begin replacing text or screenshots as needed.  This pie-in-the-sky solution could also be a solution to #2 below.

Challenges: document/style standards, file naming standards, image screenshot standards, creative commons license, localization, hosting, administration/management, etc.

(2.) END-USER DOCUMENTATION

The Web site redesign for sakaiproject.org is a great improvement -- it looks great!  So thanks to everyone who worked on that project.  Here, the issue is related to the official documentation listed under Support > Documentation on http://sakaiproject.org.  Dr. Feldman echoes items mentioned at conferences in Denver and Boston, regarding end-user documentation.  Look at the "official documentation" links, e.g. http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.7  It's too focused on installation and system administration, ignoring end-users.  The information here will frighten away instructors and students.

A quick bandaid would be to modify the main documentation page, http://sakaiproject.org/documentation, and move end-user documentation to the top, pushing the technical items lower on the page.  Consider renaming the heading from "Tool demos and tutorials" to "Instructor and student tutorials and demos" (or similar).  Also, perhaps add a tab to the official documentation called End-Users or Faculty and Students or something, and cross-link to an anchor link on the main sakaiproject.org/documentation page?

Another key item here is peer-to-peer collaboration.  We find that if an instructor shares an insight ("This works for me and solves problem x") that other faculty are more likely to listen and try it out.  In addition to the "how-to" or step-by-step instructions, a mechanism for instructors to share their best practices within the community would be ideal.  With Jing and other utilities, many faculty are willing and able to contribute.  Here's an example: "Heard's Hints 1: Entering Text into Courses (Sakai) on an iPad," http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4ewtPPkmJg

NOTE: This summer before the Denver conference, Sean Keesler was already exploring adding screen capture videos of common Sakai tools to the documentation area.  I volunteered to capture the Syllabus -- and still owe him this.  I will work on this next week!

(3.) BUILT-IN HELP

Anecdotally, it's said that users rarely use built-in help.  When they do, though, it should be easy to use and navigate.  On the whole, I like the built-in help in Sakai.  I see that many institutions have customized their built-in help, though.  Can we examine these customizations and evaluate which changes may inform changes to the built-in help in the future?  (Page titles, organization, keywords, search, etc.)

*****

Thoughts?

Sincerely,

Alan Regan, MFA
Manager, Technology and Learning
Information Technology
Pepperdine University
(310) 506-6756


-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Feldstein [mailto:michael.feldstein at oracle.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 29, 2010 4:27 PM
To: Robin Hill
Cc: Sean Keesler; Mathieu Plourde; Marshall Feldman; sakai-user at collab.sakaiproject.org; Regan, Alan; sakai2-tcc at collab.sakaiproject.org; management at collab.sakaiproject.org
Subject: Re: [Using Sakai] End-User Documentation

I'm cross-posting this to the management and Sakai 2 Technical Coordination Committee lists (the latter of which may bounce, since I don't think I'm currently signed up for it), mainly because I'm hoping that the TCC will take this on.
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