Dear all,

first post to the list - hello to you all.

This is a post partially in reply to Wayne Mactintosh's presentation
http://www.wikieducator.org/Wayne_Mackintosh’s_Presentation#.283:25.29_The_Big_Issue_for_Africa_.E2.80.93_How_do_you_get_Access.3F
regarding access for Africa, and your comments on "Are all Open
Educational Resources Equally Free?".

The issues raised are very important, and I would like to make some
practical suggestions. In my view, issues like web disability access
are quite well understood, with relevant standards etc. However, low
bandwidth access really hasn't come into the mainstream yet, and
remains poorly understood.

A good example for guidelines and recommendations are Aptivate's low
bandwidth web-design guidelines, which are available here:
http://www.aptivate.org/webguidelines/Home.html

If you look at the top ten tips, you'll see that a maximum page size
of 25kB is recommended. Wikieducator is currently about 150KB, and
would take about one minute to load for typical user in a developing
world university.

Quite a bit of this is due to the css and javascript of the MonoBook
skin (which is used by most mediawikis). So there's a real opportunity
here to have an impact by optimising the MonoBook skin. Perhaps even
modifying the mediawiki code, so that the javascript is only loaded
when needed.

Unfortunately I don't have resources available to just get on with
this, but perhaps this could somehow be addressed in a community way?

A second (more involved) area of interest is 'wiki replication',  i.e.
to create a fully functional replicas (say of Wikieducator) within
local area networks. This would be a full copy of Wikieducator, that
can be read and edited on the local area network (of a university in
the south), i.e. without international bandwidth constraints. The
various 'replica' then synchronise themselves as and when permitted by
the international connection. Of course the goal would be a fully
functional copy, that allows both read/write and resolution of
conflicts etc.

This is of course not a new idea, and it's also a complicated problem.
However, it is very relevant for low-bandwidth access, and perhaps one
could come up with some initial pragmatic solutions, that have less
than the full functionality. For instance, one could replicate the
content 'read-only', while 'edits' still take place on the main wiki,
but in a bandwidth optimised way (perhaps also with traffic shaping,
so that bandwidth is available for this). This could give many
institutions instant access to Wikieducator and Wikipedia. (In fact,
Wikipedia of course has a distributed system of servers.)

Of course one would start with a pilot project, to see whether those
ideas really address some of the issues at hand. But if it works, it
won't just make Northern content more accessible, but it could really
make Southern content more visible, and also enable South-South
content sharing much more viable.

I wonder whether there is critical mass to build a consortium around
some of those ideas, and to see what's needed to make this happen.

Looking forward to your feedback!
Bjoern


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