Ensuring Accurate Lesson Plans

The training team has recently initiated a conversation about how we will ensure that the lesson plans that our team produces will continue to be up to date when WordPress itself is updated.

Questions we have asked so far include:

  • When do we start tracking our plans to make sure they are up to date?
  • Do we start tracking after the plans have been copy edited and ready to test?
  • Do we only pay attention to completed approved plans?
  • How should we track the changes to WP and which plans they may impact?
  • How and who will do the updating of content?

In the fall of 2014 we explored an idea in our meetings and at WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. San Francisco about adapting the Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party or something similar for use in tracking changes from the dashboard of make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//training. This was an idea that was thoroughly researched and documented by @juliekuehl in this post: https://make.wordpress.org/training/2014/11/08/request-for-the-content-audit-plugin/. Moving forward, we should continue this conversation as part of the larger conversation about how to ensure accurate lesson plans.

The conversation has boiled down to two fundamental issues that we need to address, which are:

  • What process will we use to make sure plans are up to date?
  • When is a plan considered “complete enough” to start tracking to ensure it is accurate?

This post will be the place where we keep a running documentation of our conversation around this issue. Please leave your thoughts in the comments!

#content-audit, #procedures

Recap of August 4, 2015 Meeting

Slack Log  (Requires SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

  1. Welcome and recap of last meeting
  2. Recap of Slides Meeting
  3. Lesson plans status and questions
  4. Testing status and questions
  5. Status of abandoned plans
    1. Notify @bethsoderberg or @abuango of lesson plans missing from spreadsheet or status of lesson plans assigned to you. Current lesson plans out reviewed by @abuango and confirmations sought.
    2. Discussion to be announced later on what lesson plans could be connected together to conduct workshops.
  6. WordCampWordCamp WordCamps are casual, locally-organized conferences covering everything related to WordPress. They're one of the places where the WordPress community comes together to teach one another what they’ve learned throughout the year and share the joy. Learn more. Contributor Days onboarding
  7. Lesson Plan continuity with WordPress updates
    1. When do we start tracking?
      1. Concern about lesson plans not approved but being initially tested matching up with the current version of what instructors and students may be using
    2. How and who will do the updating of content?
    3. Review @juliekuehl’s request for content audit plugin.  Further discussion at August 18th meeting.
  8. Alternate weekly discussions between Slides and Content Audit

#content-audit, #contributor-days, #feedback, #procedures, #slides

Recap of July 14, 2015 Meeting

Slack log (Requires SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

  1. Welcome and recap of last meeting
  2. Lesson plan updates
  3. Testing updates
    • @melindahelt has testing feedback that she will submit this week.
  4. Slides
    • @bethsoderberg found some small font size and spacing issues when comparing the PSDs and Google Slides. We’ll check to see if @ariwinokur has a report on anything he’s found next week.
  5. Contributor DayContributor Day Contributor Days are standalone days, frequently held before or after WordCamps but they can also happen at any time. They are events where people get together to work on various areas of https://make.wordpress.org/ There are many teams that people can participate in, each with a different focus. https://2017.us.wordcamp.org/contributor-day/ https://make.wordpress.org/support/handbook/getting-started/getting-started-at-a-contributor-day/. logistics
    • @courtneyengle checked with the Outreach Team and found that they do not have a specific RSS/iCal/etc feed of Contributor Days at this time. The hope was to use this with some automation that @ariwinokur was working on.  However, we’ll need to stick to manual for now.
    • @bethsoderberg will start a draft plan for next week to handle contributor days for each of the following scenarios. @melindahelt will take on whatever needs to be done on the plan next week.
      • Someone from team can attend the contributor day
      • Someone from team can monitor Slack on the contributor day
      • No one from team can attend or monitor Slack on the contributor day
  6. Future logistics discussions
    • We all agree that we’d like to discuss lesson plan continuity in the future.  As updates to WordPress are released, we’d like our content to be reviewed to ensure that it’s current. When we have this conversation we’ll want to revisit the Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party conversation we had in October 2014. @courtneyengle is going to check with the WPTV team to see how the TV video plugin is developing and how they plan to maintain and address changes in content as WP evolves.

#content-audit, #contributor-days, #slides, #testing

Recap of December 16, 2014 Meeting

Slack log (Requires SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. login to view. Set one up if you don’t have a Slack account)

Status of Lesson Plans in Progress

  • Managing Media (@mikemueller)
    Mike shrank the video down to 4mb and was able to upload a mp3. He is all set to finish the lesson plan.

Other Items

  • Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party (@juliekuehl)
    Julie did a blog entry on requesting the Content Audit Plugin https://make.wordpress.org/training/2014/11/08/request-for-the-content-audit-plugin/ She will also ask about it on the meta channel.
  • Profile icons (@suzettefranck)
    Suzette gave us an update. The automatic icon system is broken, so icons have to be entered in manually. They are working on fixing it.
  • Supportflow (@liljimmi)
    Tracy chatted with @iandunn at the Community meeting and he is going to help get us up and running with Supportflow.

#content-audit, #procedures

Request for the Content Audit Plugin

With some of the tasks that have been assigned to the Training Team, there was a discussion on how to assign and keep up with the lesson plans moving forward. I had recently written a blog post on the Content Audit pluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party and it seemed to address many of the needs we were identifying.

Knowing that you don’t just simply install any old plugin on make.wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ it was suggested that we identify the key features of this plugin that address our needs to see if it is worth the process of vetting it to be added or perhaps writing something custom to suit the team and make.wordpress.org at the same time. It was also evident that other teams might have similar needs, especially the docs, accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility), and theme review teams (or anyone else that has handbooks or guidelines that need to be kept up to date).

So here’s my attempt to identify the key features from the Content Audit plugin that would help the training team with its duties. For purposes of this list, I will refer to “lesson plans” which are Posts currently, but it can be used on Pages or whatever terms other teams use.

  1. A Content Audit Overview dashboard that indicates the status of the various pieces on content under the stewardship of the team. It indicates how many have been audited (and are therefore in good shape), are outdated, or are under review.
  2. The ability to identify “Content Audit Attributes” which are really stages in the workflow and could include such things as “approved,” “outdated,” “under development,” “ready for review,” “available for testing,” etc.
  3. A custom fieldCustom Field Custom Field, also referred to as post meta, is a feature in WordPress. It allows users to add additional information when writing a post, eg contributors’ names, auth. WordPress stores this information as metadata. Users can display this meta data by using template tags in their WordPress themes. that allows for notes to be attached to each lesson plan. This could be used to indicate what work has been done or needs to be done, or any other message specific to that lesson plan.
  4. The ability to assign a lesson plan to a “Content Owner” who is different than the author. It can help identify who is currently responsible for that lesson plan.
  5. An expiration date. Any content that should be reviewed on a regular basis can have an expiration date that will provide automatic reminders that eyeballs are needed on that lesson plan. In the Content Audit plugin this can also include email reminders being sent to the Content Owner. It also displays messages on the front end for logged-in users with the proper permissions.
  6. Columns are added to the All Posts screen that indicate the Content Owner, Content Status, Notes, and Expiration date. This makes for a very quick overview that contributors could use to identify the highest priority (or low-hanging fruit) from the list of things to be done.

I feel that the Content Audit plugin would be of tremendous help to the team. I believe it would help us be more effective in getting good, up-to-date lesson plans created more quickly, and make it easier for volunteers to contribute and for team members to manage the project (it could eliminate the need to manage progress and tasks in spreadsheets!). I also think that other teams deal with many of these same issues and could benefit from such features. I know it’s a rather large plugin, but we’re asking it to do a rather large job. I would like for it, or something like it, to be considered to help the Training Team get its job done.

Questions? Comments? Input from other teams? How do we proceed?

#content-audit, #requests