PanDocElectron/Presentation

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Screenshot PanDocElectron

PanDocEletron[edit | edit source]

PanDocElectron [1] is a tool that is able to convert documents

  • from Wikiversity directly via download and any supported format of PanDoc (Presentation, LibreOffice, Word, PDF, LaTeX, ...)
  • Can convert the downloaded file into a series of output formats using PanDoc.

There are basically two main PanDocElectron source formats[2] in Wikiversity:

  • PanDocElectron-SLIDE: Main headings are used as titles for the presentation sheets. The following section defines the contents of the respective film. In PanDocElectron, web-based presentations are generated, which can then be directly used as a substitute for powerpoint presentations in the lecture.
  • PanDocElectron-TEXT: are standard articles and learning units, which are essentially as office documents (eg in LibreOffice or [https: //de.wikipedia. Org / wiki / Latex LaTeX]) can be further processed. This format is used mainly for documents from which flow texts are e.g. For further processing in LibreOffice [1] and Word can be created by conversion.

In contrast to Wikiversity articles ( PanDocElectron-TEXT ), which can also be further processed with PanDocElectron, Wikiversity presentations are marked with PanDocElectron-SLIDE . The keyword is also linked to this Wikiversity page, so that authors / lecturers deliberately keep the text passages in the sections deliberately. Through long text passages the direct use in the presentation layout is made impossible or after the download with PanDocElectron then much manual postprocessing is required. Without the label with PanDocElectron-SLIDE , Wikiversity authors can not know that the page, e.g. For a PanDocElectron export to 'reveal.js' [3] is optimized or provided for.

Demopresentation formats[edit | edit source]

The tools shows the possible use of the PanDocElectron presentations if the text length of the sections does not exceed the limits of the slide capacity for presentations e.g. in RevealJS[4]

Demo sources for PanDocElectron-SLIDE in Wikiversity[edit | edit source]

Installation[edit | edit source]

Installation procedure is maintained on GitHub. PanDocElelectron was designed as multiplatform application for Linux, MacOSX and Windows in NodeJS.

History of PanDocElectron[edit | edit source]

PanDocElectron has been implemented as a lecturer tool for the support of on-line studies at the University of Koblenz-Landau. To create a web-based presentation on a PDF slide set (export from Powerpoint) and to make the transition to PowerPoint easier to streamline web-based presentations for teachers. The web-based slides can be provided with audio commands by PanDocElectron and then played by the students.

Acknowledgement to the Philosophyprofessor John MacFarlane, who has developed the "swiss army knife of document conversion" PanDoc, which has developed. Without this OpenSource tool PanDoc, PanDocElectron would not exist. PanDoc is command-line-oriented and unsuitable for the wide use of PC users. PanDocElectron closes this gap as a Linux, MacOSX and Windows application.

Collaborative Development of Wikiversity Learning Resources for Lectures[edit | edit source]

Compared to Screencasts of lectures, the web-based presentation can be better maintained in a collaborative way just like any other wiki article. The use of PanDocElectron can be used to maintain and customize folio etching in Wikiversity, making it accessible to the community of teachers and learners as Open Educational Resources.

Future and Extension of Concepts[edit | edit source]

PanDocBrowser and On-the-Fly Document Generation of from Wikiversity[edit | edit source]

Future releases will still use the Node Package management NPM, but will transform the PanDocElectron application into HTML5 web application that runs totally in a browser. The work plan needs a replacement of PanDoc (written in Haskell) with Javascript module that can still be used in NodeJS applications but also allow standalone browser application, that fetch the Wiki page and convert that in different output formats, that the used might want to have. A major milestone on this route is the work of wtf_wikipedia that parses runs in a browser application, fetches the wiki markdown sources from an article provided e.g. by Wikiversity and parses the document like Parsoid. Main libraries for document generation with in browsers are:

  • wgetjs as simple async retrieval of remote image, audio, video files over http or https from the MediaWiki API or from Wiki Commons. Necessary to create e.g. LibreOffice document from a sequence of article bundled into Wiki book.
  • archiver is able to create a ZIP file from a subdirectory. ODT office document created by LibreOffice has the extension ODT but is in fact a ZIP document. From LibreOffice you can export to commercial office formats or edit the document in LibreOffice or OpenOffice.


Evolutionary Community Developments of Content[edit | edit source]

OpenContent evolutionary Workflow

With an evolutionary collaborative content development, a large part of the work is provided by the community as a user. Only the expansion and improvement of the content is a workload for the users of open educational resources. The following figure shows how individuals benefit from the community of open educational resources through reduced workload.

The picture was taken in the context of AT6FUI and is published here by the author under the Creative Commons license.

Technical background[edit | edit source]

PanDocElectron is essentially a graphical user interface for PanDoc, which can be found in / Electron was developed. The application uses other OpenSource tools in the background:

  • PanDoc - swiss army knife for converting documents from a source format into a destination format.
  • LaTeX - PDF generation
  • ImageMagick - converting images and split a PDF documents into images for a RevealJS presentation.
  • Ghostscript - PDF generation
  • Git

The application was implemented in Electron (HTML5 / Javascript) to make platform-independent applications available for Linux, Windows and MacOSX.

Free access to educational content[edit | edit source]

If educational content is freely available and is easily usable without the cost of educational institutions, financial hurdles for access to content are reduced. The educational content should be

  • Text documents, e.g. No online access is available to learners,
  • As presentations in educational processes.
  • Be adaptable to the needs of learners and teachers.

Publishers are commercially oriented and have to earn money. With this economic orientation, companies can not operate with a purely humanitarian orientation. Therefore, in commercial setting there must be at least one group in educational institutions that had to pay for learning and capacity building material, i.e.

  • Teachers,
  • Learners/Students or
  • the educational institutions itself.

This is applicable to scientific publications and to content used for learning and teaching as well. Wikiversity, in contrast to commercial profit orientation, provides the environment with the ability to deliver educational content at no cost to teachers and learners, and PanDocElectron or PanDoc provides the ability to process these content in a variety of formats and use them for educational objective.

The Expert Focus Group on Space and Global Health[5] uses the concept of Open Educational Resources as foundation for the open sharing, adaptation, remix and improvement of Open Educational Resources. The Open Community Approach

  • Green Open Access, with a versioning system like GitHub, quality-assured versions of a wiki article can be provided which are not changed by the public But for example Only by a group of scientists who have reviewed the content and, at certain intervals, reviewing this content. At the same time, an editable version of the content in Wikipedia or Wikiversity is available to the general public for further improvement. If a quality assurance has been made, the page information, e.g. A ZIP file on GitHub, which always contains the packed quality-driven content a group of experts.
  • Creation of a Wikibook in 15min. Try creating your own Wikibook in Wikipedia for yourself.

Links[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

  1. PanDocElectron Installation - http://niebert.github.io/PanDocElectron - GitHub Page by Jörg Rapp and Engelbert Niehaus (21.10.2016)
  2. PanDocElectron English, English documentation in Wikiversity, (16.12.2016)
  3. reveal.js - http://lab.hakim.se/reveal-js - The HTML Presentation Framework by Hakim El Hattab ( 14.10.2016)
  4. RevealJS - A framework for creating presentations using HTML - Source Code on Github https://github.com/hakimel/reveal.js
  5. Expert Group for Space and Global Health - former AT6FUI - see http://at6fui.weebly.com