Workgroup:Categories/Proposed map

A proposed category map
The proposal that follows was developed based on the current habits and categorisation tendencies as evidenced in the current map.

The categories contained in Category:Contents, the proposed root (top) category in the structure (see discussion of what to name the root category here), would be of three types: educational content, content maintenance, and WikiEducator community.

Note that generally speaking, plural category names are preferred. Many current WE categories are written in the singular. If the "Use of plurals" guideline is approved, these will likely be changed to the plural form.

Educational content
Contents &rarr; About education &rarr; Creating OER &rarr; Portals &rarr; Programs of study &rarr; Resources by subject or topic &rarr; Resources for specific ages, levels, or grades &rarr; Resources for specific countries, regions, or cultures &rarr; Schools, colleges, institutions &rarr; Types of learning resources

About education
Includes categories related to educational research, methods, and philosophies. May need a substructure. This category would include categories such as:

Category:About education &rarr; Category:Blended Learning &rarr; Category:Distance Education &rarr; Category:Education &rarr; Category:Education research &rarr; Category:Open schooling

Creating OER
Includes categories for organisations, projects, and collaborations, as well as tools and collections that are used in the development of OER on WikiEducator. May need a substructure. This category would include categories such as:

Category:Creating OER &rarr; Category:Images &rarr; Category:MITE (Monterey Institute for Technology and Education) &rarr; Category:OER Foundation &rarr; Category:OERNZ &rarr; Category:Templates &rarr; Category:WEcollaborate &rarr; Category:Wikieducator Tutorials

Portals
Includes categories used to group portal pages, as well as individual portal pages. This category exists, although in the singular:

Category:Portal &rarr; Category:Portals under construction

Other categories to include:

Category:OERNZ School Portal

Programs of study
Includes categories that describe programs of study offered by a school, college, or other educational institution; a program of study may result in a credential of some kind: certificates, diplomas, degrees, and licenses.

For now, there are not many of these categories. Might be fine to include them directly as subcategories. For example:

Category:Programs of study &rarr; Category:CCNC (commonwealth computer navigator's certificate) &rarr; Category:MHRM (masters in human resource management)

Note: Category:Curricula already exists. A curriculum is essentially a program of study, but it seems like "program of study" is more readily and broadly understood. Consider moving members of Category:Curricula to new Category:Programs of study, and adding the category redirect to Category:Curricula.

Resources by subjects or topics
Includes categories that describe what the resource is about. The category is very broad--any kind of learning resource is appropriate. It doesn't need to be on a school curriculum somewhere. Resources used with informal learning are just as appropriate as traditional school subjects like math, science, history. This category would include high-level categories for the different topics/subjects for which resources are available (will need to work these out). Classification branches under this category might look something like

Category:Agriculture &rarr; Category:AOER

Category:Life science &rarr; Category:Biology &rarr; Category:Biology in elementary schools

Category:Mathematics &rarr; Category:Math glossary

Category:Technology &rarr; Category:Architecture &rarr; Category:MyHomeYourHome Project

Category:Social sciences &rarr; Category:Community Empowerment

Category:Community-based training &rarr; Category:Community Empowerment

Resources for specific ages, levels, or grades
Includes categories that describe the target audience for the resource, with respect to growth & development and/or experience. There are many different ways to classify by "level", which differ depending on perspective (e.g., school vs. informal learning). Not sure how the resources in this category might be organized. Some of the existing categories in this class are:

Category:Resources for specific ages, levels, or grades &rarr; Category:Biology in elementary schools &rarr; Category:Developed for third grade &rarr; Category:Developed for third and fourth grade &rarr; Category:Biology in middle schools &rarr; Category:Developed for grades five and above &rarr; Category:OERNZ School &rarr; Category:OERNZ Primary school &rarr; Category:OERNZ Secondary school

Resources for specific countries, regions, or cultures
Includes categories about learning resources that are targeted to learners in particular geographic regions.

Category:Resources for specific countries, regions, or cultures &rarr; Category:Countries (many country categories incl both resources and users--see note under Wikieducators--countries) &rarr; Category:OER Africa &rarr; Category:OER Israel &rarr; Category:OERNZ

Schools, colleges, institutions
Provides access to resources grouped by institution. Each institution's category or a link to their main page would be included. Broader institutional or country portals could be included, arranged under a separate sort key

Category:Schools, colleges, institutions &rarr; Category:ANDC (Acharya Narendra Dev College) &rarr; Category:OERNZ School Portal &rarr; Category:Otago Polytechnic

Resources by type
Includes categories that describe how the resource presents the material (sort of). Not sure how the resources might be organized within type. Some of the existing categories that would be included are:

Category:Resources by type &rarr; Category:Essay &rarr; Category:Handbook &rarr; Category:Student project &rarr; Category:Quiz

Support for creating/maintaining content
Contents &rarr; Templates &rarr; WikiEducator &rarr; WikiEducator administration &rarr; WikiEducator help &rarr; Workgroups

Templates
Includes sub-categories of related template pages, and individual template pages until it is clear how to subcategorize them.

See subcategories already in place at Category:Templates.

There are likely other template categories which can be added.

WikiEducator
Includes pages and categories related to the support of WikiEducator as an online resource. The pages and categories included here may well include ones categorized in the other support categories in this section. The duplication seems useful, although we may decide to revisit at a later point (for example wikiversity categorizes all of its support pages in Category:Wikiversity.

See subcategories already in place at Category:WikiEducator.

Need to evaluate usefulness of Category:Wikieducator (with a lower case 'e') and whether to merge with upper case 'E' version.

WikiEducator administration
Includes categories and pages related to the administration of WikiEducator. This category already exists, with the following subcategories:

Category:WikiEducator administration &rarr; Category:Licensing &rarr; Category:Public Domain &rarr; Category:Needs Categorisation &rarr; Category:Uncategorised &rarr; Category:Unlicensed

Others that would go here:

Category:Governance &rarr; Category:Policy

Category:Workgroups

WikiEducator help
Includes categories and pages that are used to provide instruction in how stuff works, in WikiEducator specifically.

Category:WikiEducator help &rarr; Category:L4C...including its current substructure (but renamed Learning4Content) &rarr; Category:Wiki Tips and Tricks &rarr; Category:WikiEducator glossary &rarr; Category:Wikieducator Tutorials...including its current substructure &rarr; Category:Wikis...including its current substructure

Note: Category:Help is the original category for this topic. Converting to Category:WikiEducator help narrows the focus of the category, distinguishing it from other possible help-type categories (e.g., OER help). A redirect has been added to Category:Help pointing to Category:WikiEducator help

Workgroups
Each workgroup should have its own category. Probably to start, the workgroup categories are listed directly in this category. Maybe also include some tools used by workgroups related to consensus, charters..., This category already exists, with the following subcategories:

Category:Workgroups &rarr; Category:Charters &rarr; Category:Categories workgroup &rarr; Category:Style guidelines workgroup &rarr; Category:Proposed guidelines &rarr; Category:WikiEducator Workgroups

Note: "Workgroups" is a general term, although used only for community workgroups at the moment. The community may choose to use "workgroup" to characterise a group working to create a learning resource. If/when workgroup is used in this broader fashion, this grouping might be better named "Community workgroups" under the larger "Workgoups" category.

WikiEducator community
Contents &rarr; Featured works &rarr; Learning4Content &rarr; Wikieducators

Featured works
Includes the various subcategories and pages related to the Featured works project. Suggest the following structure, although this is not how it's currently set up.

Category:Featured Works &rarr; Category:Featured L4C Graduates &rarr; Category:Featured User Page &rarr; Category:Featured Works Request &rarr; Category:Featured Works Reviewer

Learning4Content
Rename Category:L4C to Category:Learning4Content. Organize the L4C pages according to the different workshops, adding other categories as needed.

Wikieducators
Includes categories which group members by self-identified characteristics. Category:Wikieducators &rarr; Category:Countries &rarr; Category:Language &rarr; Category:Specialties &rarr; Category:Projects &rarr; Category:WikiMaster recognition