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Public access to monitoring framework

In late March 2004 we will publicly release our first monitoring report.

We would like to have open, read-only access to the TESMon group - and make it more widely known in the sector. We would then set up a comments group associated with TESMon, where pages could be edited by anyone to provide comments on the framework and the reports.

This means being able to differentiate access rights between groups.

We need to also simplify the URL, so people can easily type it in.

We will also need to consider look and feel and branding.

Discontinued use of wiki for report production

Following the experience of preparing the baseline monitoring report for publication, we have decided not to continue using wiki for production of official published reports.

There are several features missing from wiki that have lead to considerable additional work in checking reports for publications, including:

spell checking
automatic numbering of tables and figures
automation of macrons
find and replace
generation of table and figure lists
page cross-referencing
control over pagination
scaling and quality of graphics

The size of the reports also pushes the boundaries for pdf2you – possibly beyond what it is intended for.

On the other hand there has been little requirement for colloborative development of the reports – with all of the writing and editing being done within the Ministry of Education and most of it being done by one person.

Instability on the Ministry web server also raised potential risks at key junctures of not being able to access or produce the latest version of the report.

It seems better at this stage to go back to using Word, rather than push wiki to develop as a fully featured publication tool. This also reduces the complexity required for security.

Published versions will be uploaded to the main Ministry website in pdf files (in full layout). These can be cross referenced from the wiki site.

Redesign of groups

Some redesign on the current groups will probably be required to support the differentiated levels of access, discussed above, and to improve overall structure and navigation. For instance, we need to rework the TESMon site and it may be better to start with a fresh group.

Encouraging feedback and comment

We have had very little feedback and comment through wiki so far. The main use of it has been for rapid dessimination of material and collaborative authoring by small groups of people (ie 2 - 3).

We would like to try out some ways of getting feedback. To start with:

freeform comment pages related to each content page - similar to the ‘talk’ pages on the TIS group
setting up more structured discusssion forum pages - either using the $Comments function

We can see how these work and think about whether anything else is required, such as more sophisticated comment forms or use of email.

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