Hi, Good question -- and I'm sure there are many readers of the list who are asking the similar questions, or confused by the detail of this thread. So in answer to your question and for the benefit of our readers I'll try and summarise the issues. (With apology for the déjà vu* *experience and repetitiveness of the posts -- however, this is an important policy related issue and we must discuss this openly and transparently.)
jKelly wrote: Are we saying that Wikieducator, Wikiversity, Wikipedia, etc are not meeting > the informational needs of > their users? > No -- we are not referring to how the open wiki projects are meeting the informational needs of their users. As open projects -- WE are responsible for responding to the informational needs of our users -- WE are the users :-). This discussion is not specifically about the open content we collaboratively produce in the open wiki projects, but is more about how we find OER materials in the wiki and the technical alternatives we have at our disposal. WikiEducator is a value driven project and we need to be sure that our decisions are well aligned with our community values. *To summarise the discussions: * The Mediawiki software (the open source software we use for the WikiEducator web site) has a search box on the left-hand side of the screen. This is the wiki's internal search engine which will search the internal WikiEducator database. However, it is not a good search engine because users need to know the limitations of the search engine in order to find what they're looking for. So for example the search box in the wiki is case sensitive. Let's say you are wanting to search for the "Learning4Content" page in WikiEducator (note the capitalisation and no spaces between the words) and you type "learning 4 content" in the WikiEducator search box, hit the search button in the wiki. You will see that this search does not produce useful results. This discussion thread is about what WE can do to improve the quality of the searches using a the WikiEducator search box on our website. (It is always possible to go to the main Google, Yahoo and other search and include the word "WikiEducator" in your search query.) There are a few alternatives -- but some options may restrict the freedom of our users and comprise our values, hence the detailed discussion. 1. Do nothing -- keep the status quo and leave users to use the external Google, Yahoo etc search engines to help find content in WikiEducator by incorporating the word "WikiEducator" into the search query 2. We can trial the inclusion of the Google Custom Search box in addition to the existing Mediawiki search box. The issue is that the Google search service uses closed-source software and is not well aligned with our commitment to using free software. Also, using this service legally requires us to show the Google logo in the search box -- We don't allow advertising on the WikiEducator site and the inclusion of the Google brand in the search box is in effect an advertisement, which goes against our practice of ensuring an add-free website. Google however, will allow registered non-profit entities (like the OER Foundation) to provide advert free search results. 3. We install an an alternative open source software solution based on Sphinx search technology ( http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension:SphinxSearch.) My personal tests (not very thorough) have rendered better search results. This solution has a number of advantages 1) We remain true to our commitments of using free software 2) By using the technology we contribute to ongoing support and growth of open source software 3) We have the freedom to develop customised search capabilities that are needed for educational purposes because we will have access to the source code. 4. A combination of the above, that is providing 2 search boxes on the site (for example No.2 and No.3) and allow users the freedom to choose which technology they want to use for searching. 5. Other alternatives? Using a search box is not "core business" of the WIkiEducator project and it can be argued that we may use non-free web-services in support of our core business developing, sharing and using OERs. In the case of our OER material, this must always meet the requirements of the free cultural works definition, which includes the requirement of open file formats and resources which must be editable using free software. This value is non-negotiable because we do not wish to refuse access to any education in using our OER materials because they may not be able to afford the costs of purchasing a non-free software license or choose to use free software as their preferred technology. Appreciate all the feedback and your patience reading long-winded emails. Cheers Wayne On 6 March 2010 06:37, jkelly952 <[email protected]> wrote: > Not sure why we are having this discussion about search utilities like > Google (Yahoo, Sohu, Yandex, ...) ! Are we saying that Wikieducator, > Wikiversity, Wikipedia, etc are not meeting the informational needs of > their users? > > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google > Groups "WikiEducator" group. > To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org > To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator > To post to this group, send email to [email protected] > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > [email protected] -- Wayne Mackintosh, Ph.D. Director, International Centre for Open Education, Otago Polytechnic, New Zealand. Board of Directors, OER Foundation. Founder and Community Council Member, Wikieducator, www.wikieducator.org Mobile +64 21 2436 380 User Page: http://wikieducator.org/User:Mackiwg Skype: WGMNZ1 Twitter: OERFoundation, Mackiwg -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "WikiEducator" group. To visit wikieducator: http://www.wikieducator.org To visit the discussion forum: http://groups.google.com/group/wikieducator To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]
