Simon, One 'work flow' that I recently heard about for doing reasonably complicated diagrams (from Glen Turner, via LinuxSA)
- draft in Dia - annotate in Inkscape - present in OpenOffice. There would probably be other cases where a chain of tools could be used a better job that any alternative single tool. Cheers, Paul On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 9:53 PM, Simon Ives <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> This is strange, are you a recent uni graduate yourself? I ask because >> I am currently studying and my experience has been that reports could >> be written in anything and had to be submitted basically in a format >> that the lecturer could read. Most of the letcturers were open to >> installing standard/free software if need be. To me .doc, .sxw, .ppt >> etc are formats for authoring, but why would you submit a report in >> one when the marker has _no_ need to edit your work? PDF is a format >> that is ideally suited to the job and this is what I submitted in. > > Formats for assessment are an issue, but more so with Windows than with > Linux. I've done a fair bit of external study and submitting your > assessment items through web systems such as blackboard (or whatever > that weird one is that UniSA use) often requires Microsoft formats. > What's good about Open Office (for example) is that you can save in .DOC > if you must, but you also have access to quite a range of other formats. > If your T.A. wants .DOC then you can do that, if another T.A. wants .PDF > then you can do that too. > > Aside from a list of alternate programs, which is a necessary > requirement, I'm also interested specifically in productivity and > usability benefits that come with using Ubuntu. For example, can a > particular student perform a particular task as easily, or easier, on > Ubuntu. Can a particular task be done quicker? What program options > are available in Linux that aren't available in Windows? > > Simple case study. > > Student A is provided the task of undertaking a research project and > needs to submit a literature review. This review should be presented > in .PDF format with links between the table of contents and the relevant > headings. A title page should be attached. The page numbers should be > as follows: > Cover Page: No Number > Table of Contents: Roman Numerals (IVX etc.) > Content: Standard Characters (0-9) > Appendix: Roman Numerals (IVX etc.) > It should include at least 50 references presented in the text and a > list of references at the end in Harvard format. The table of contents > should also provide a list of illustrations/images. > > Now, if the student were to undertake such a project in Ubuntu where > would he or she start? What tools are available? How do they compare > to any commercially available Windows alternatives? > > The list of recommended programs so far includes: > > a) Open Office.org > b) Gimp > c) Makefile > d) Gcc > e) Open-jdk > f) Mozilla Firefox > g) Zim (personal wiki) > h) Eclipse > i) gedit > j) RapidSVN > k) Pidgin > > -- > Simon Ives > > E - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > M - [EMAIL PROTECTED] > W - www.simonives.info > > Please consider the environment before printing this email or any > attachments. > > -- > ubuntu-au mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au > -- ubuntu-au mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-au
