User talk:Joe Gittings

Hi Joe, I've just read your message about Occleve and your work. It seems to be a very good idea to run wiki quizzes on a mobile phone !

This extension represented much work for me, and I think it will be the same for you. Maybe could I help you, for example to explain some parts of my code...

Concerning your wish to add an XML language question type to the quiz extension, you must keep in mind that the wikitext syntax aims at being easily understandable by humans, and XML is for computer... Therefore you can do it, but I don't think it will be integrated in the official quizzes extension on the wikiversity.

I would rather recommend you to conceive an understandable syntax wich would look like the one used in quizzes but with all features you need. That certainly will be difficult since you already did a lot of work with your current XML syntax, but your application will greatly take advantage of it, because more people will be able to use it.

Anyway, I'll not be the only one who will decide of the integration of your work in the extension. I'll ask to people involved in this extension, such as

• James McCormack
• Michael Frey
• Rob Kruhlak

I encourage you to discuss with those guys (who speak a better english than I do). They knows a lot of things about this extension, about what is possible and what is not possible, what is user-friendly and what is not user friendly.

I hope that my answer will be satisfying to you. Regards, Lrbabe 22:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Lrbabe,

Thanks for your positive reply. I'm glad you like the idea of the mobile phone client. In fact, it doesn't represent a huge mountain of work for me as I'm just modifying an existing quiz program (which already downloads from a wiki) to support new question types, and to download from them from a new wiki. But I'm sure I'll need to pick your brain at some point - cheers!  :)

As for XML, I'd like to make the case for supporting it in some way, for these reasons:

1. It's machine-checkable. There's a wealth of GPL'd code out there for checking and validating XML. One of the items on the to-do list is a mediawiki extension to validate the XML after a quiz is edited and refuse to save the changes until the XML is valid.
2. The grammar is extensible. The DTD file specifies which tags are supported.
3. It permits easy upgrading of the content. Unknown tags can just be ignored by the software. For example, I'm currently adding audio clips to the tests. These are not supported by the current mobile phone client (0.9.2), but the extra <audio> tags do not cause the old client any problems.
4. It permits an "intelligent" testing approach. Occleve "knows" the difference between various entities like countable nouns, uncountable nouns, etc. It knows that countable nouns carry measure words in chinese, and uncountable nouns don't. Plus, a future version will enable users to test themselves only on a specific type of grammatical entity (e.g. only the verbs in a quiz...)
5. It's not all that hard. Some of the recent work on the tests here has been done by an English undergrad with no background in computing. She found it easy to get to grips with the XML format.
6. A wikitext format with the same functionality would be just as complicated. One could use template-like parameters to achieve the same thing with a wikitext-like syntax, but I don't see that it would be any less complicated!
7. I want to write some user-friendly editing extensions which will shield users from the XML. This would obviously address the question of complexity.

Having said all of the above, I'm not religious about these matters! It wouldn't be a problem to convert to using a wikitext-like syntax... but I think there's a strong case for XML, especially if the wiki has friendly-editing extensions in place.

And in any case, this is longer-term stuff... right now my focus is on adding support for wikiversity quizzes to the mobile client. :)

Cheers, --Joe Gittings 12:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

---

Hello Joe Gittings, and welcome to Wikiversity! If you need help, feel free to visit my talk page, or contact us and ask questions. When leaving comments for others to read, remember to sign and date; it helps everyone keep track of who is writing messages. The signature icon in the edit window makes it simple. To help you get started:

• Take a guided tour and learn how to edit;
• Explore our learning projects;

• Browse our portals, schools, and research pages; and
• Read and help develop our community policies.

Also, don't forget to experiment with the links to your left. Be bold, and see you around Wikiversity! --McCormack 13:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Strange page?

Re: ListOfQuizzesForMobileClient

Hi Joe. Me again, but with an entirely different hat on this time :) I looked at your page above, and got a rather scratchy head, even after reading your discussion page comments as well. As I know a little about the project behind this, having been over at your site, I think I sort of vaguely know what you're doing. Somehow trying to provide a data file for some kind of mobile phone programme to read? Usually my concept of a Wikiversity page is that it should be human-readable - what do you think? I didn't really follow your talk page comments on where this is going. The quiz extension we already have at Wikiversity consists only of wiki-markup. There's no XML or other data file behind it. And the markup is simply parsed into a human-readable form with a few javascripts attached for a little interaction. If you'd like any help or advice converting your XML data into "Mediawiki quiz extension markup", I'm happy to try to help. But slow down and explain things to me simply! Cheers. McCormack 13:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi McCormack, thanks for the message. I'll try to explain it in more detail...

• The mobile phone quiz program needs to know what quizzes are available on the wiki.
• It gets this information from ListOfQuizzesForMobileClient
• The user can choose to download any or all of these quizzes.
• The downloaded quizzes are stored in the phone's recordstore, meaning that they can be used offline.
• This one page is the only special page that the mobile phone program needs in order to support wikiversity quizzes. Apart from requiring this page, it will operate using the wikiversity wiki as it is right now. So I hope you'll agree it's not a very onerous requirement in return for the payoff of being able to download to and run the tests on mobile phones...  :)
• What I'm doing right now is giving the mobile phone quiz program the ability to support wikiversity quizzes, and download from wikiversity. It has nothing to do with my XML quiz format, and doesn't require any changes to the wikiversity quiz syntax, the quiz extension, or anything else. It just requires that one special page, ListOfQuizzesForMobileClient.

You can probably get a better idea how the existing program operates if you try it via the demo page, at http://occleve.berlios.de/demo.html . That has the 0.9.2 release running in a simulated mobile phone within your web browser. The new version will operate in a very similar way to the version on that demo page, but with the additional ability to download quizzes from wikiversity as well.

I'm not sure if I've done a better job of making things clear this time... please let me know either way!

Cheers, --Joe Gittings 13:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Joe. I think "understanding" and "me" are slowly getting closer together ;-) So basically this is about getting any wikiversity quiz (as in: "quiz which uses mediawiki quiz extension") to display on a mobile? Presumably by scraping the already-parsed HTML (or the pre-parsed wiki markup?) out of any human-readable quiz page on Wikiversity? And to do this, you need a directory of sorts? So why doesn't the category page suffice? If you need a special page as your directory, a suggestion might be that you should use a user subpage off your user account. Strange pages in the main namespace might be vulnerable for tagging for deletion, but your user pages will be safe.

Going off on a different tack for the moment, I believe that Louis-Remi (who programmed the Mediawiki quiz extension) is looking at more formal formats for interoperability, although I think he's only has the vaguest of intentions at the moment. Currently the Mediawiki quiz extension is fully non-interoperable :( I know that SCORM was mentioned for the future. For myself, I'd favour anything simple. Assuming we could dress up Mediawiki quizzes in an exportable format of some kind, I wonder how we'd actually do this? Possibly some kind of export URL which appears in the left-hand column of the page (where you sometimes see things like RSS feed). Would that be any help to you? Or are you displaying Wikiversity pages as HTML, exactly as is?

-- McCormack 14:29, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi again McCormack,

• I think "understanding" and "me" are slowly getting closer together - yes, you're definitely getting there!  :)

• So basically this is about getting any wikiversity quiz (as in: "quiz which uses mediawiki quiz extension") to display on a mobile? - yes: more specifically, to download, store offline, and test locally. And in the future, permit editing of the quiz and upload of the changes.

• Presumably by scraping the already-parsed HTML (or the pre-parsed wiki markup?) out of any human-readable quiz page on Wikiversity? - no. Scraping HTML is obviously a bad idea in all sorts of ways, so of course I wanted to avoid it. Instead, the mobile phone quiz program reads the wikitext directly. It does so using the incredibly useful (and incredibly little-known) &action=raw URL parameter. This retrieves the wikitext of any page without any HTML markup. In other words, it retrieves the source of a wiki page. Then it parses the code that's between the <quiz></quiz> tags.

• So why doesn't the category page suffice? - because the &action=raw trick fails with a category page. It doesn't return the list of categories - it just returns the source of the category page. Which is something quite different. As I noted in those talk page comments, I'd like to use the category page. That would obviously be far more elegant. I need something like an &action=expanded parameter, or a mediawiki extension which does the same thing. Ie. which delivers the expanded wikitext of a page, after processing all templates etc.

• If you need a special page as your directory, a suggestion might be that you should use a user subpage off your user account. Strange pages in the main namespace might be vulnerable for tagging for deletion, but your user pages will be safe. - thanks, but I do feel that providing this completely new channel for using wikiversity quizzes is significant enough to merit a single non-userspace page. If someone deletes it before 0.9.3 is released it's no big drama (I'm just using it for testing), and hopefully the release will generate enough interest that it will be safe afterwards!

• Or are you displaying Wikiversity pages as HTML, exactly as is? - as dealt with above, no. I'm simply reading the quiz extension wikitext and rendering it using appropriately-designed J2ME forms.

Any clearer now? :) Cheers, --Joe Gittings 14:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

• In other words, it retrieves the source of a wiki page. Then it parses the code that's between the <quiz></quiz> tags. So are you having fun turning the wiki-markup into something java can read! I thought about this myself, and decided it would be a bad idea. For my own little projects, I'll just be exporting to wiki-markup, not importing. Less of a headache. This brings me back to the point of mine which you seem to have skipped over - i.e. introducing a more convenient format for people like you (and me) to import with. As said above, this has been very tentatively discussed. If a couple of guys came up with a concrete proposal, something might happen in version 2.0 of the quiz extension.
  • Suggestion 1a: &action=sqf on a page with a wiki quiz gets it to spit out the quiz in SQF format (Simple Quiz Format, yet to be defined), or some horrible industry-standard instead ;-)
  • Suggestion 1b: a couple of guys with java projects work out a SQF format and present it to Louis-Remi and ask "can do?". (Or ask him if he prefers the 'orrible industry-standard format instead.)

-- McCormack 15:12, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi McCormack. Sorry, the only reason I skipped over the point about an alternative format is that I thought you'd suggested it because you thought I was having to scrape the HTML... which of course I'm not having to do. To be honest, the quiz extension syntax is very easy to parse: blank lines separate the questions, and the type is defined by the type= directive. So it's not tricky to code in Java.

I'm very open to the idea of supporting some more standard format instead, but it's not something I actually need in order for the mobile phone client to read wikiversity quizzes. As I say, the existing format is pretty easy to parse.

Anyway, wait a few more days and you can have a play with the phone software for yourself... which should make the whole thing a bit more concrete! :) --Joe Gittings 15:41, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

OK - good to hear that it's easily parsed. I'll look forward to seeing your results. I'll post a notice on that page's talk page that it should be left alone. McCormack 16:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Cheers for the notice! That should do the trick for now. --Joe Gittings 23:15, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Not many quizzes here yet

Hi Joe. Looking at your comments attached to your postings... Yes, you've correctly noticed that the quiz extension hasn't been used much yet. And some uses are not categorised. The current situation is that we need new quizzes, or to import quizzes from elsewhere. Only then will we have much to export. That's rather why my earlier interest went in the direction of using your Chinese language materials here. We need stuff. BTW, I tried out your online demo the other day. I got rather lost - didn't really understand what I should do. But then you should see me trying to use a mobile phone to do anything! I'm probably not a suitable test subject :) -- McCormack 07:57, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi McCormack - well, do please try it again! Because as of about an hour ago, it now actually talks to wikiversity, which it wasn't doing before. I've also done some work on the demo page to hopefully make the instructions a little clearer. --Joe Gittings 08:02, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

Exciting

Hi Joe, your Occleve project is very exciting! It's a real step forward to have this kind of functionality - and, if it's working properly, it's the kind of thing I think we should be advertising from our main page. Unfortunately I do not have a nifty phone to test it, but I'll follow your news with interest. :-) Cormaggio ^talk 16:13, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your very positive comments Cormaggio... and since you don't have a phone that can run it, please get your friends to install it on their phones! And remember you can always use it via http://occleve.berlios.de/demo.html

I think running quizzes on a mobile makes sense for anyone who has to spend significant parts of their lives on buses/trains/etc. It's a great way of using up all those little bits of dead time in an average working day.

For me, the really interesting part will come when the mobile phone program can edit a quiz and upload it back to the wiki it came from. That functionality makes particular sense for language learning.

I've had this software running on my phone since last summer. And in fact an earlier version did let me edit and expand quizzes (but using an old and very defunct quiz format). In fact, if you go to the CVS you can still see the code for it, in the excludable.rapidadd and excludable.raweditor packages. As the package names suggest, these are currently excluded from the released version.

It was great - I was wandering around Shanghai, typing new vocab straight into the quizzes as and when I came across it. Rather like Henry Higgins and his notebook - but without the same talent for languages. :) I really miss that functionality at the moment! So I'm looking forward to adding support for that back in, in the near future. Stay in touch! --Joe Gittings 13:05, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I definitely want to stay in touch about this, as well as finding out more. Not only do i think mobile phones are handy for those "dead times", I think it's a way for Wikiversity (and other OER projects) to widen access and participation in the developing world, where people are far more likely to have access to a phone than a computer. I have to say, this is fascinating... Cormaggio ^talk 17:20, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The point about developing countries is very interesting, and is something I hadn't thought about at all.

And it makes me wonder if something I'd pondered but dismissed as a bridge too far, might be worthwhile after all. That would be to make Occleve able to browse regular wiki pages, downloading the raw wikitext and rendering it locally (as it does for quizzes), and offering the option to save it for offline reference.

Could be useful... For small phones, I can certainly imagine it being a much nicer way of browsing wiki pages than a regular web browser. On initial loading, just the section headings would be displayed. Clicking one of those will expand out that section. And so forth. --Joe Gittings 14:02, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Sounds interesting - but I have to say that I don't fully understand how it works at the moment, and so consequently, how it could be improved. Are you familiar with any other similar readers - ie Wikipedia for mobile phone (eg MobilED and Wapedia)? User:Teemu is involved with MobilEd, and would be a good person to talk to... Btw, will you be going to Wikimania? Cormaggio ^talk 15:42, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd heard of MobilED but not Wapedia. Wapedia is a proxy rather than software, ie. it's designed to be used thru your regular web browser, and delivers wikipedia pages in a more compact format. Handy, but not the same thing as an offline reader. I think I need to install MobilED on my phone and get my brain around it! And then I'll drop Teemu a note. No, I'm not going to Wikimania, alas... Cheers, --Joe Gittings 16:18, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I hadn't understood that MobilED was an offline reader - that's interesting. Shame about Wikimania, but let's keep in touch... :-) Cormaggio ^talk 17:16, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

which mobile

Hi joe i'm currenly working on some tests for the french wikiversity about indonesian-french vocabulary , so i'm really interrested about your mobile stuff, unfortunately i dont't have cellphone yet, so do you know where i can get a list of "java ready" handphone , so i can try to get a 2nd hand cellphone ( the older/cheaper the better :D), only to enjoy tests facilities ????

Thks in advance

pls, could u reply here Serpicozaure 09:50, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Thks for your reply Joe, so there is plenty of students around me so i could be able to test the software with different phones, may be before making my choice of phone, do you want me to follow a special procedure like to give u some feedback about the different model i'll test ????

Minimum java standards supported means like if the phone comply with java 1.0 or java 1.2.1 ( i don't know exactly now , but i've seen those 2 norms already ) then the software won't work in the current version ????( i don't want to bother you with work just because i don't want to buy a "recent" phone )

Ok that's all for now , i'll try to find some relevent models to start the testing asap.Serpicozaure 06:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

How to acces to quizz in other wikiversites

Hi joe , as far as i understood with the demo page of your site it's only possible to download quiz from english wikiversity or from your page right ????

what about like french wikiversite for example ???? or do we need to move all the qizz in english wikiversity and put some tag on the page and the quizz will be enlisted and downloadable with your demo page as well as with the mobile ???

Thks Serpicozaure 01:47, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Hi Serpicozaure, that's right. At the moment, the mobile phone software will only download from the English wikiversity or from Occleve's own wiki. But it will be a simple matter to add the ability to download from the other wikiversities. I think I'll do an interim maintenance release (0.9.3b) in order to add that. There are a few other quick-and-easy tweaks I'd like to add too.

For the time being, you can put your content in the english wikiversity and I'll try to update the phone software in the next week. Or you can just wait for the 0.9.3b release... --Joe Gittings 05:36, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Collaboration

Sorry for getting back to you took this long. The Occleve is very interesting. Please, send me an email and let's start to think what we could do together. --89.27.30.111 06:56, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Topic:Primary School Science

Hi. I've created a bit of infrastructure around your new page which gets it linked into the main portals and subjects. --McCormack 10:30, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Cheers, McCormack. :) --Joe Gittings 10:31, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

I've also added some project boxes at the bottom. I don't know if you like these - feel welcome to change them. Project boxes also help make a resource more accessible to other users, because of their categorisation properties. --McCormack 11:44, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

Thanks, they look fine. One other thing - could you please add the quiz to the ListOfQuizzesForMobileClient? --Joe Gittings 11:58, 23 May 2008 (UTC)