Posted by Admiral Katherine Dedul (Commandant) in Academy Textbook Discussion

Posted by Joe P in Academy Textbook Discussion

Posted by Admiral Katherine Dedul (Commandant) in Academy Textbook Discussion
Posted by… suppressed (4) by the Post Ghost! 👻
Hey All,

So I might have mentioned this in my last Academy report, but I want to start off a discussion about revamping the courses.

Cale has graciously rewritten quite a few and has added some others, notably the Marine & cadet courses, which is so amazing.

However, in the present draft form, they aren’t entirely suitable for the current library set up and I think adapting them to be “library appropriate” might result in key components of them being lost.

If anyone would like a link to the courses, just hit me up via email. Right now they are google docs and anyone with a link can edit, so I do want to obviously not have too many people being able to make changes to them.

You don’t need to look at the content of the courses to participate in this discussion though. To keep it simple, I’ve proposed a few questions that we can discuss to start the process of getting these courses live.

1. What alternatives can we use to the traditional library set up? How will that look for course takers and exam markers?

2. Should we be looking to remove the library from maintenance of these courses?

Now, my two cents on the two main questions:

1. I propose that we can do as the GM Department does, they link their updated course as a google document right on their MOTD. It would be as simple as linking each google document as we finished working through them. I think would grant a lot more control to the individual course tutors to maintain their own courses, which could be a good thing. The Academy Commandant would still have final approval on anything, as is usual.

2. I don’t see a major issue with removing the librarian from the equation. Right now, the Academy Commandant has final approval on any changes to the textbook, the librarian just executes those changes into the library.

Does anyone have any other proposals, questions or potential landmines that I haven’t spotted with this so far?

-Kat
Academy Commandant

Has there been any thought to creating wiki pages to house exams? I know there are benefits to keeping things under one roof, but there are a lot more visual representations that could be done that aren’t available in our current setup. One page, in particular, is Starbase 118.

-Ray

I actually haven’t even thought of that, it could potentially be something to look at. I’ll take a look and determine if there’s any potential legal issues with that idea, since it would be essentially an external page (no different than a google doc link I suppose).

Thanks for the idea Ray!

-Kat

I’ll answer the second question first. As long as there is a very limited number of people capable of updating the library content I would think it would be better eliminate the library from the equation. It makes a lot of sense to me to have the Academy able to update their own content without getting outside help to do it.

What I would do is handle it like the STF Zoo link in Ten Forward. When an updated version of the course is ready, the course proctor publishes a post on the campus board. Then the Commandant is informed and the Commandant can update the link on the MOTD when they are ready for it to be available for everyone. I like that this approach would cutting out depending on outside help to publish and also that it keeps everyone on our website.

Adam W.

That’s a great idea, thanks for your input Adam!

I did speak with Linds Bayes as GM Director, according to her, so far the google document seems to work, however there are some limitations obviously as you need someone with the edit access link to be able to make changes. However, it is a temporary solution as the GM Dept was hoping to include the GM Course and Exam once the new library went live.

I do actually very much like the idea of keeping people here on the site and using posts on the campus board could accomplish that, with me (or whoever happens to be Commandant at the time) updating the link whenever a new one once a new version of the course is written and ready. There would be very little in the way of having to manage changeover in the future as well.

Any other thoughts?

-Kat

The main problem with Google Documents is that if everyone who has access to them leaves the club, we lose access to editing the documents. This tends to happen quite often, since typically one or two people in a department give each other access to the documents and don’t really give them to anyone else. We can’t always go back to ask the person for access; sometimes they want nothing to do with us anymore, other times they’ve actually died.

I would also think it might be somewhat valuable exercise to be very clear about what exactly isn’t possible with the current setup. We can do absolutely anything as a static page on our own website that is possible to do on the web, whether it is in the library or not.

– Joe

Yes, that’s also a major concern of mine with a google document. Which is why I’ve pretty much immediately discounted it as a viable solution. At least in the club we can keep control of it better.

Perhaps everyone might find it useful to view one of the courses (I could link them all, but that could get a bit much I think for this discussion).

https://docs.google.com/document/d/15WBAnzstan9hqOu9uJ9fDkJ8Vrv__HW2Fhka01y2QXk/edit?usp=sharing

The other courses follow a similar pattern & structure. Let’s keep focused on the structure of the course and what might be the most viable option for it rather than the content of the course, please.

This course and the others will be opened for public review once we’ve determined the best and least headachey way to deliver them. :)

-Kat
Academy Commandant

I really like that! If we’re able to add the visuals to a static page, then I don’t see why we can’t use that instead of google docs. Perhaps in the near future, we can have more interactive functions. For instance, clicking on a Type 1f phaser will show a visual of the weapon.
-Ray