Hi,
I use MW on our highschool for course materials. MW is used just for
theorethical learning materials (something like interactive textbook). For
other type of courseware (projects, tests, discussions, homeworks etc.) we
use Moodle system. The problem of such server is, that it has very small
number of articles compared to for example wikipedia. So the search tool,
which works perfectly in wikipedia doesn't work good in such environment. My
solution are categories. On the main portal I have links to all courses
taught on our school, and these are just simple categories. When I write new
article, I just add the right course categories, so it is registered in the
apropriate courses. It seems to me much easier and better organised than the
idea of namespaces. If you would like to look at the pages, it is
http://panwiki.panska.cz and
http://panmood.panska.cz, but it is just in
Czech language. (It was installed autumn 2006, so it is not very filled with
the materials yet.)
Jakub Serych
-----Original Message-----
From: mediawiki-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of
Christopher Fuhrman
Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:53 AM
To: mediawiki-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Subject: [Mediawiki-l] Namespace recommendations for using MW
in universitycourses
Hello,
I'm very pleased to learn that my university department has
put in place a
MediaWiki server for use in our courses, IT support, etc. However, I'm
writing to ask for advice about a good "pattern" for name
spaces in such an
environment, as our technicians prefer to just let us "have
at it." I have
seen a few live wikis at universities, and there doesn't seem
to be a set
pattern, per se, on how to do this.
As an instructor, I've already set up a few wiki pages for use in the
context of one of my courses, using MediaWiki on a free web
site. During
this trial, I realized a few problems. First, certain terms
have definitions
that are relative to my course. For example, I teach an intro
to software
design (LOG120 is its course code), and I expect my students
to learn the
very basic concepts of "coupling" and "cohesion". If one
looks up the global
(wikipedia) definitions for these terms, they may or may not
be useful in
the context of my course (not to mention that software
engineering is a
"young" field and we don't all agree on terms). So, this
means I have to
prefix my pages with a context of my course (project).
Second, I had to be
very careful while rapidly creating my pages on this site not
to "steal" the
global definitions (which happens if I forget to prefix a link with my
namespace and I accidentally create it.)