Categorisation for DEHub
Hi all,
Great project. I look forward to your contributions to WE.
The categories workgroup is working on creating a more effective category structure for WE. Although the workgroup is still in its formation stage, one guideline that we are discussing (here) and trying out is that all pages that are part of one project or resource be categorized together. Then that category can be assigned as a sub-category to other categories, creating a connecting structure to help users find resources.
For example you could create a category called "Distance education hub" (or something more specific, e.g., if you are thinking this is a clearly Australian resource) and then code that category on all of the pages in the project. One way to do this is to code the category onto the project's navigator template (so every page that includes the navigator, includes the category).
The next step is to think about what categories DEHub belongs to -- maybe Category:Australia and Category:Distance Education and feel free to create new categories (see current existing categories at Special:Categories for a list of what exists already). To create these connections, just add the code for these categories to the category page for the specific project.
I'm happy to help with the codes and set up of the categories, if you are interested.
Hi, Thanks for you comments. I've had a look and added myself to the Australia page but can't get edit into the category Distance Education to put a DE Hub link in on the section where the other links are located eg those listed under P and U. Can you help me out with this? Cheers, Alan.
Hi Alan,
Glad you are interested.
To add a page to a category, you enter the category tag, e.g., [[Category:Distance education hub]] to the bottom of the wikitext on the page. If you look at the bottom of the edit version of your userpage, you'll see the code that adds your userpage to Category:Australia. I looked at the history of your userpage and noticed that Wikirandy added the tag.
What I'm proposing is for you to create a new category that would list all of the pages that you've created in DEHub. My inclination would be to spell out the name (see the example code above), so when other people see it in a listing, they'll know what the DE stands for. One way to put all of the DEHub pages into this new category is to put the category tag on the Template:Dehub_nav page. Just add the category tag code at the bottom of the template page -- this will transclude the category tag onto all of the pages that include the template. If there are any pages that don't include the navigator, you can add those pages to the category by adding the category tag, directly.
After the category is added to the page it will display as red, because the page doesn't really exist yet. Click the red category link and it will take you to the edit page for this category. You'll notice that all of your DEHub pages are listed--a rather handy listing of everything. It's a good idea to add some explanation to the category in the edit window (it displays at the top) about what kinds of things would be listed here. It is here that you should add the category tag, [[Category:Distance Education]], to make the new 'DEHub' category a sub-category of the distance education category. Your 'DEHub' category will now list as a sub-category on the Category:Distance Education page.
And you can add the 'DEHub' category as a sub-category of anything else that seems relevant, e.g., Category:Australia. Just add that category tag to your 'DEHub' category.
For more details on adding pages to categories see:
- Help:Category
- the Using categories in the WE tutorial
Thanks so much for your interest in trying this out. The categories workgroup is at the beginning stages of organizing categories and one of the efforts we are working on is how to help authors make sensible category connections. Hope this helps.
Hi, Many thanks for the detail on the categories. I think I've added them correctly.
I have a suggestion or perhaps a question regarding your Node template. I noticed that the Header is optional as are Right and left second on further boxes but the first right and left are mandatory. If you take a look at DE Hub Research Themes you will see that I have created, what looks like a series of headers after a mandatory right and left set of boxes using a html script. I did this as it suited the content more that repeating the Node template. Is there any reason that we can't have a template were all the elements are options so we can generate the boxes and text areas to suit the nature of the content? Cheers, Alan.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for your work on the categorisation. Let me know if you find it to be beneficial in your work to have all of the project pages organised on the one category page.
Also, do you want to categorise DEHub in the broader distance education category? The way to do this is to add the code [[Category:Distance Education]] into your Distance Education Hub category page. (Note that I revised the categorisation of Australia as a subcategory of Distance Education Hub so that Distance Education Hub is a subcategory of Australia by reversing the tags -- hope that's what you intended.)
As for your suggestions re: Template:Node_page. I like your idea of a template where all of the elements are options (although I have to say that I have VERY limited abilities in building complex templates, so I can't speak to any possible coding issues). If you are interested to have a template like this, I think you should make one. Another option is to list your suggestion on the bottom of the [page] in the section "Thoughts for improving this template and supporting instructions".
Hope this helps.
Hi, One aagin many thanks for the help. I'll see what I can do in creating a template. I have to admit I haven't got my head around creating template but will be exploring this option soon. Cheers, Alan.
Hi Alan,
Somehow the category allocation got messed up. I straightened it out to the following
Category:Distance Education includes Category:Distance Education Hub includes DEHub pages
Hope that's OK. <smile>
I also added some coding so the category page would sort by the subpagename and the templates would sort separately under τ. See what you think. I'm interested in your thoughts on this.
Alison
P.S. Your work on this project is really wonderful. I'm pretty new to distance education...my backgound is educational measurement. The research themes include lots of very useful research links. I look forward to seeing the results of some of the 2010 research efforts. Thanks for sharing.
