Claire Wood wrote:
My name is Claire. I have 5 years experience writing technical
documentation in the UK but took a career break in 2003 to care for a family
member. I would like to do a bit of everything role wise - read, review,
edit, write, publish etc as I need to update my portfolio so I can apply for
jobs.
I have a particular interest in How To's, User & reference guides. I don't
mind having a go at any installation documentation. I would love to get
some experience creating tutorials. If anyone can offer me some advice on
how to go about it I'd be grateful as it has been a while since I last did
one and of course technology has moved on. I'm particularly interested in
video capture/elearning.
My username is clairedwood
I look forward to hearing from you
Welcome, Claire. I see that Andreas has given you the permissions you
need to download and upload files on the OOoAuthors website.
Regarding video/elearning: at the moment the documentation/OOoAuthors
group itself is not producing any, but I think it would be a very good
thing for us to do. (Most of us here are more oriented towards books
and wiki publication -- written materials -- but I think it would be
really good branch out a bit -- if people are interested and available
to do the work.
Several people have expressed an interest in this area, but I don't
know if anyone has experience and can guide others. That's something
to find out. I have some theoretical knowledge (mostly related to
planning, instructional design, and script writing) but no practical
experience... and no time to do more than direct traffic a little.
(BTW, we have listed on the wiki some video tutorial materials
produced by other people, and as I'm sure you know there are a lot of
(usually very poorly done) video tutorials on YouTube.)
So... where to go from here?
I will put you in touch with one of the people I know who is also
interested in this area, and I will encourage her to join the
discussion on this list. Planning is needed, including identifying
topics to cover.
Meanwhile, you may wish to dig around a bit and see what we already
have (books, how-tos, FAQs, etc). The best place to start for an
overview of OOo documentation is on the wiki, while the OOoAuthors
website has instructions specifically related to the user guides.
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Tutorials
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Dashboard
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Dashboard/Tutorials/Guidelines
http://wiki.services.openoffice.org/wiki/Documentation/Dashboard/Tutorials/Targeted
You will notice that several of the wiki pages (anything in the
"Dashboard" area, for example) are incomplete and/or being used as
places for planning of where we are going with documentation. Please
feel free to get a wiki login (yes, another separate login!) and add
any ideas you may have.
--Jean
-----------------------
Jean Hollis Weber
Co-Lead, Documentation Project
