Talk:TAO/How to participate in the TAO Community of Practice?

Basic Idea

• Create a learning module to teach new participants of the TAO Community of Practice how to use the Wikiversity platform and how to start participating in the community
• There are four prototypical learning modules that will be developed within the TAO project team starting from November 2011: See TAO/Activities. They can be used for the identification of concrete user needs.
• This learning module will not deal with questions relating to the development of new learning modules. These questions are covered by the learning module How to create a learning and/or research module?
• This learning module may provide an occasion to introduce active Wikipedians into the TAO Community of Practice who are motivated to help out with technical issues or to act as mentors to new community members

Step 1: Understand

Goal: The working group participants have clarified their “mission”; they have a rough idea of their resources; they have identified what it would need for them to consider their mission to be “successful”.

Just brainstorming, please join in...

Goal of the module

• facilitate newcomers' first steps - both with regard to using the Wikiversity platform (Wiki / particular Wikiversity rules which may differ from Wikipedia rules), and with regard to the TAO Community of practice.

Working hypotheses

• We'll get newcomers on a successful integration path if we manage to engage them in meaningful interaction as quickly as possible - meaningful for themselves (cf. user centered design), but also meaningful for the TAO Community of practice, its projects, and learning activities.
• Newcomers will differ regarding their needs for support and orientation. We'll need to tailor the learning activities to their needs and expectations. Getting a better grasp of the needs and expectations of the target group will be the goal of "step 2".

For a start we may roughly distinguish between:

• members of the TAO project team (researchers, community partner representatives);
• further target groups addressed by other learning activities

A second distinction may be made between:

• People who are more or less familiar with MediaWiki (and the way it is used for Wikipedia and its sister projects)
• People who are for the first time using MediaWiki (and maybe not particularly keen on learning new technologies, but rather motivated by taking part in the TAO Community of Practice)

• In order for the learning module to be sustainable on the long run, we'll need to find some mechanism to get more experienced users to help newcomers to get around and to integrate in the Community of Practice. This mechanism should be built into the learning module.
• The learning module should be divided into various sub-modules, in order to keep each sub-module concise and to target it at a particular user group and experience level.

First steps

• Develop a first learning module for the members of the TAO project team, with a focus on:
  • Getting them to make their first steps on the wiki, providing meaningful content for the TAO Community of Practice
  • Getting them to reflect on their first steps, and to articulate their needs with regard to further orientation
• Organize a short introductory workshop for the TAO project team members (16 November)
• Find out what would be meaningful inputs from newcomers from the point of view of other working groups
• Address step 2 (Observe) in a more systematic fashion

Step 2: Observe

Goal: The members of the working group understand the characteristics, motivations, needs and interests of the key stakeholders of the learning module.

Step 3: Point of View

Goal: Together with the key stakeholders and/or by consulting the key stakeholders, the members of the working group have reframed the problem and their mission. They understand what goals need to be reached for the learning module to be successful in their specific case.

Step 4: Ideate

Goal: A lot of alternative solutions to the problems (as many ideas as possible) have been suggested by the members of the working group (and key stakeholders); mock-ups and blueprints have been produced. The mock-ups and blueprints have been tested with the main stakeholders, who were able to modify them where necessary, bringing in their own ideas. The members of the working group have come up with totally new solutions based on the feedback gathered and got it “validated” by key stakeholders, so they are ready to implement a prototypical solution.

Step 5: Prototype / Test

Goal: The members of the working group have implemented a prototypical solution / carried out a pilot test. They have improved their prototypical solution over several testing cycles. The solution has been tested for its usefulness (for the users involved), for its feasibility (technology), and for its viability/sustainability (long term perspective).

Step 6: Feedback / Iteration

Goal: The members of the working group have gathered feedback from the relevant stakeholders concerning the learning module and its effectiveness. They know whether they are ready to implement their approach on a broader scale / on a long term basis, whether they need to iterate, or whether they would like to abort the experiment.

How about using also a table below the text in target group section?

e.g. like this (below the text?), would help make it easier to understand, ----Erkan Yilmaz uses the Wikiversity:Chat + Identi.ca 22:15, 1 February 2012 (UTC)

Totally agree. We'll need to find ways to reduce the reading effort... --Beat Estermann 09:28, 23 February 2012 (UTC)

I want to participate in the TAO Community of Practice	familiar with MediaWiki	familiar with Wikiversity	start with
yes	no		1
yes	yes	no	1
I need some guidance about the TAO Community of Practice	yes	yes	2