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 --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ 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 wikieducator@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---