Docs:Contents
This area contains documents and associated resources related to course development, development tools, the structuring of material, and protocols involved in generating material.
Note that some of the documents in this section are merely informative, and may not contain strict guidelines. Those that discuss guidelines that must be followed (to ensure that formatting or naming are correct and can be parsed by the development tools, for example) will have the Specification marker at the start of the page.
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Important notice for editors: It is important to note that the development wiki system, and the software tools supporting course development, are under constant research and development. While every attempt is made to reduce disruption caused by new releases of the support tools, major new features and refactoring of development methodology may require you to revise some aspects of your material. |
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As an editor you will have been added to a mailing list through which you will receive updates about the system. While remaining a subscriber is not forced upon you, it is very strongly recommended that you remain on the mailing list and read the updates, otherwise you may miss notices about important changes. You can also join the Course Development Systems forum (Mouse over here to see 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) if you would prefer to discuss issues, suggestions, and usage tips there instead. |
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For more detailed listing of the current development work, and known bugs, requested features, and TODO tasks, consult the Course Processor tasklist on Flyspray. |
Introductory summary
As a bare minimum, you must ensure that you have read the following documents. If you do not read these, the material you create will not be usable by the support tools or structured correctly. If you read these documents and still have questions about how to proceed, please contact apesupport@cs.man.ac.uk for assistance.
- Quick Start.
- Course Structure specification.
- Web-based course processor interface.
- Metadata specification.
Design discussion and documentation
These documents discuss the rationale behind the use of the wiki, design subjects, and related matters. They are not vital to the development of courses, and as such may be ignored by those uninterested in the direction of development work.
- Course Development covers the concepts underlying the design and structure of courses used by APEcs.
- Wiki Overview discusses the overall operation of the wiki-based course development system.
- Rationale discusses the reasons why development has moved to a wiki system.
- Research contains links to documents discussing current research issues and problems.
Course development
Quick start
A short Quick Start document is available that summarises much of the following material, however you are very strongly advised to familiarise yourself with the remainder of these documents to use the system effectively.
Writing courses the APEcs way
Before you can begin using the wiki to develop courses effectively, you will need to understand how courses developed using APEcs tools should be structured, and why we think that this is a good way to arrange material. The Course Development page describes the underlying concepts, and provides suggestions for how to approach your course development, as well as some warnings about potential pitfalls.
Wiki course structuring
In order to be processed using the course processor and supporting tools, course material in the wiki must be structured in a specific way to ensure that the required data is available and can be parsed correctly from the pages. The Course Structure specification discusses the requirements on course structuring, in addition you should consult Help:Namespaces regarding the use of namespaces, as they are used to encapsulate courses within the wiki.
Course processor
The course processor and associated tools provide the means to convert course source files into the APEcs course package format, to extract courses from the development wiki into a format that can be converted into a course package. The documentation for the course processor is available on the Course Processor documentation page (and the various pages linked to from there). The wiki2course.pl documentation describes how to use the wiki2course script to extract a course from the wiki, while the course2wiki.pl documentation covers importing old PEVE/APEcs courses into the wiki. Note that both the wiki2course and course2wiki tools are contained within the course processor download.
- Operational Overview.
- Web-based course processor interface.
- processor.pl.
- processor.pl configuration options.
- processor.pl messages.
- Metadata specification.
- Using content filtering to produce different versions of a course.
- Listing Outcomes and Objectives.
- HTMLInputHandler.
- HTMLOutputHandler.
- LatexInputHandler.
- wiki2course.pl.
- course2wiki.pl.
All the course processor tools are pre-installed and ready for use on elearn, if you have access to that machine. If you need to process material from other systems, you can download a copy of the processor using git and the url git://starforge.co.uk/courseprocessor or use the Web-based course processor interface.
Additional support tools
Other tools are provided to help you with developing course material. These are:
- Sheet2Table - a web application that will convert Excel and OpenOffice/LibreOffice spreadsheets into Mediawiki or XHTML tables. The output may be pasted directly into your material, and you may use both the zebra table and popup facilities provided by Sheet2Table.
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Authors
Chris [
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