[Mediawiki-l] Namespace recommendations for using MW in universitycourses

[Serých Jakub]

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 at lists.wikimedia.org 
> [mailto:mediawiki-l-bounces at lists.wikimedia.org]On Behalf Of 
> Christopher Fuhrman
> Sent: Thursday, January 25, 2007 1:53 AM
> To: mediawiki-l at 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.)
> 
>