Wikisoba project/Development plan

This page is kept as an archival reference.If you want to raise a point about it, please start a discussion thread on the community forum.

This is an outline development plan for the Wikisoba tool, as of December 2014.

Version 1

This will be the first complete tool with a upgraded graphical display, and its design will be such as to host the content of the WMUK VLE, including quizzes. It will be supported by smartphones and devices, as well as PCs. Videos will be made possible, from wiki pages, by means of an HTML workaround (the video will work in the tool but not from the source wiki page). In other words a Wikisoba clone of the VLE then becomes possible.

This version will aim for display only: no significant backend, and no editing support. Input and export will be in GIFT and the custom JSON formats.

Version 2

Added features will then bring the tool up to "edulite" usage (timed tests and logging of scores, in particular). This will presumably be done by versions 2.0, 2.1, ... as features are incorporated.

Proposed version 2.0 would be a "community" version, assuming a Wikipedia account, and an OAuth module for logging in. Badges for tracking and successful completion of quizzes would be added to a subpage such as [[User:Charles Matthews/Wikisoba tracking]].

To add then:

• Back end for scoring and assessment, including hints and response system.
• Editing tools, question identifier, metadata and versions system so that collaboration and reuse can take place with proper provenance and attribution, as required by CC-by-SA licensing.

This step would lay the basis of a participatory and browsable repository of quizzes. In fact there could be multiple repositories for the tool: no assumption of just one system.

• Allow publishing dates for timed release of test material.
• Text input handled by smart natural language processing.
• Other types of questions, surveys ... to cover standard education sector paperwork.
• Moodle uploader, to translate Moodle lessons into JSON (needs to be per Moodle version).

Wikisoba adventure

This would be a specialised tool developed from Wikisoba 1, possibly in parallel with Wikisoba 2, for a simple type of assessed work that could be run in schools. The idea is to have a structure with conditional jumps, so that classic text adventure scenarios can be set up, and also allow (per student) live editing of embedded wiki pages (to test comprehension). The wiki page diffs would be stored so that teachers could assess them, and scoring would be by progress through the adventure, plus marks for diffs.

Wikisoba 3

The longer-term goal would be a "hardened" educational version with security and fuller tracking features. The idea is to emulate much of Moodle's functionality in its lessons, leaving aside its organisation by courses with separate enrolment, however.