Thoughts, ideas and suggestions

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• This kind of de-wikified embedding has long been on my wishlist — kudos for making it happen! I am going to try it in a blog post and will report here in case of problems. Do you have any plans to turn this into a widget (like those for Wikipedia or iframe)? --Daniel Mietchen 13:05, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

I set up a basic widget for embedding WikiEducator pages on other Mediawiki wikis. Would be glad to see your scripted version along with it. --Daniel Mietchen 22:53, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

The script is toward the end of http://WikiEducator.org/Mediawiki:Monobook.js. (See the anonymous function marked hide some navigation and other spurious elements if in an iFrame.) --JimTittsler 01:23, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• It is the most right thing that OERF can do - THANKS A LOT! because remix is the ideal application of freedoms offered by OER - without that Freedom would become just another dynasty name for license regime :)

Anil Prasad 04:07, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• This is what I have been looking for, for a while. I have added an iframe of my wiki pages to my Moodle site and it works a treat. I used a course that used navigation templates and it works perfectly (just as I imagined). --Jacqui Land 21:13, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jacqui -- thanks for taking the time to test this and give feedback -- I think its a simple but smart solution to integrate content easily into the LMS -- we need to tweak the UI a little on the WikiEducator side to make it easier to generate the <iframe> syntax for specific pages. All work in progress --Wayne Mackintosh 00:07, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

• Wonderful. Tested it out and it works as promised. I will likely use this feature to embed WE pages in an LMS for an upcoming course I'm teaching. Suggestion: I'd prefer to have the pages that come from WE include attribution or some sort of listing that the information originates from WikiEducator. There was nothing about WikiEducator mentioned when the test page was added to my LMS. --Alison Snieckus 18:46, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Alison -- Have noted your suggestions re attribution (see comment below as well). We will need to build this into our implementation --- some footnote or link which incorporates attribution detail. So its on the development roadmap. --Wayne Mackintosh 23:42, 18 August 2010 (UTC)

Feedback openly contributed

Why not do it both ways? Does wikiEducator allows the easy embedding of resources using that iFrame technique? The mediawiki extension that would allow for it doesn't appear to be enabled: http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Extension%3AWebsite_in_iFrame

<websiteFrame> website=http://wikieducator.org/Learning4Content/Workshops/eL4C41/Day_1 name=WikiEducator </websiteFrame>

Sure there are issues of copyright for any non WikiEducator / CC resource.

"Since iframe embeds a document into another document, it is comparable to copying as opposite to linking (in the strict sense of the word). Thus, you normally need a permission from the copyright holders of the "inline framed" document, and you should provide adequate authorship information if that document is not yours. "Inline framing" is in this respect similar to normal framing. And the more you hide, intentionally or unintentionally, the fact that you're framing someone else's document, the more probable it is that someone will consider a legal action. (For example, the suppression of borders could mean such hiding.)" (Source: Using inline frames)

Appreciate your feedback and ideas :-). I agree, it would be great to do this both ways. As you point out there are challenges regarding copyright. As you know, WE subscribes to free cultural works licensing and we have a values-based commitment to ensuring that all OER hosted by our project meets these requirements, including access to editable versions in open file formats. Of course there are many resources available on the web that would qualify, but our immediate challenge relates to the capacity to "audit" and "manage" inline frame content from external sites which may not meet the requirements of free cultural works licensing. I hope that in the near future we can find smart ways to automate this -- eg checking for appropriate licenses and editable file formats, and possibly automated conversion services where appropriately licensed content is not available in free file formats. You make a very good point about "hiding" the frame as well as proper citation of authorship and intellectual property rights. With reference to our outgoing <iframe> content we must inlcuded the relevant authorship and licensing information (which is not currently implemented in the proof of concept). We will need to fix this. Wayne Mackintosh 01:22, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

But there is still benefit to allow the embedding external resources for which the user holds the copyright.

I see the benefits -- but as an open content project, we need to stay true to our values ;-). --Wayne Mackintosh 01:24, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

"our immediate challenge relates to the capacity to "audit" and "manage" inline frame content from external sites". This appears to be more about control than about openness. If control is so important, what about content such as this New Zealand Geography. The picture of "Fox Glacier, South Island, New Zealand" is marked as CC-BY. However, if I follow the flickr link, the license states "All Rights Reserved". This page about English_Levels_1-4 is a rip-off of Achievement Outcomes in English in the New Zealand Curriculum, without any manner of attribution. This suggests that there is no capacity for auditing and managing the content of wikiEducator for now.

Well -- a transgression of copyright does not make it "right" -- there is a method of auditing this -- the wiki keeps an accurate history of every edit made and thanks for pointing out the flicker link -- I will delete the offending image. And as you rightly point out -- community capacity to audit copyright is a real issue and the reason why we can't open up to hosting third party media on our site. In most cases of copyright transgression -- it is usually ignorance of licensing and attribution requirements. In the case of reusing the NZ curriculum, I suggest that we approach the Ministry for permission to reuse this content under an open license. I have left a note on the relevant page alerting the user to the copyright transgression. --Wayne Mackintosh 00:22, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

As a user, I can mistakenly paste copyrighted material into a WikiEducator page and it is likely to remain unnoticed. Still, you are happy to leave the responsibility to the user editing that page. What is the argument for treating the embed of a slideshare or animoto comic, prezi interactive that I would have authored any differently? If it is against your open values to embed interactive content, then why do it yourself? Such an embed was made on the Learning4Content page.

Well the Learning4Content embed example you cite is an exception. All content hosted by Kaltura using this widget is licensed under CC-BY-SA and is an open source project. The argument against using slideshare etc -- is finding automated ways to help manage breech of copyright. --Wayne Mackintosh 00:38, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

I am not sure I am following. Nothing prevents an educator to put copyrighted material in a Kaltura presentation. Nothing prevents an educator to release a slideshare presentation under a CC-BY-SA license. Kaltura is not the only exception. There also is Flash content on wikiEducator http://wikieducator.org/Flash_test. I think there was yet another page, but I cannot quite remember where it is.

Back the the iFrame debate. You presented this iFrame solution as pioneering. The iFrame solution has existed in the mid 90s! More importantly, this is an approach that is against some of the chore principles of the Open values or CC license that you adopt. Re-mix! According to Tuomi (2006) a higher level of openness is "about the right and ability to modify, repackage and add value to the resource. However, most existing initiatives offer the most basic level of openness - “open” means “without cost” but it does not mean “without conditions”." With iFrame, you stick to these most basic levels. To allow to have a full page, as an unbreakable entity, displayed in other persons page doesn't do anything for re-mix. It's does nothing more than let you show (off) some of the content that you have written. Worse, some content that could change altogether at any moment. If the iFrame is meant to help create a reference to a part of the page, then a variety of alternative solutions exist [Bounce App, [Aviary page capture]], [FireShot]

You are missing the point about free cultural works licensing -- almost all content on WikiEducator uses open and free file formats which can be edited openly. (Any non-free players are a legacy from the early days for a range of reasons unrelated to our commitment to free cultural works licensing) Users are free to copy text, remix adapt and modify without restriction. The iFrame solution is simply an easy way to get content which is hosted on WE into different LMSs without too much effort -- Its pioneering because it is simple and cheap and I'm sure there are many more elegant and sophisticated ways to deal with interoperability -- but we just don't have the funding available to do this. I have suggested that this is a No.8 wire solution -- it works and we're doing it :-) --Wayne Mackintosh 00:43, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Without too much effort. Possibly. Not quite sure though what the value is for the user. With your current settings, what I do is frame a live page... that is a page that can change at any point in the future. If somebody re-organizes that page to put the content that I wanted to appear in a subpage, my embed will look weird. Most likely, I won't be aware of the fact that the content changed and that the embed doesn't communicate the same information as I originally intended. Not ideal.

"free cultural works licensing". Yes, I agree, I am missing the point. I fail to understand how the iFrame approach is gonna work to help propagate the open values. If you stick to a CC-BY-SA license, the purpose of the SA bit is to encourage remix. Remix is not possible with the content that is embedded into Moodle, Ultranet, etc. At, least, it is not in the sense that the content cannot be modified. In your live examples, all "edit" buttons have been removed. It would be better if you had a little box appear a the top or bottom of the iFrame with either a link to the original document or an "edit" functionality. .

On the other side of the coin, and of critical importance, the SA bit of the CC-BY-SA license means that "If you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one.". Therefore, at the very least, the page (possibly a set of pages part of a set) that embeds any wikieducator content should be under a CC-BY-SA license itself. With content published in CMS like Ultranet, only accessible to school staff and students, embedding CC-BY-SA within an iFrame would most likely violate the terms of the license (disclaimer, I am not a lawyer).

Nº8 wire? Yeah, right! That's the kiwi way of preferring to spend time designing a rather square wheel that doesn't quite do the job rather than borrow a time-tested device from the neighbor, is it? This could be holding you back ;).

On the Kaltura widget that you use on Learning4Content, there is an "Edit Video" link at the bottom? This is the type of approach that what you need to adopt to present any interest to the 21st century teacher. The ability to embed the wikiEducator content, preferably at subpage level, with an "edit" this page button... Clicking edit would create a clone that you can edit and re-mix. The wikipedia model that you adopt here allows for the sharing of knowledge that is eventually co-operatively created. But it doesn't allow for easy re-mix. Sure, it is possible to copy and paste a paragraph or a full page. But as far I am know, on wikiEducator, there is no trace of the connection between the original content and all the copies that have been created from it. If you look at other open groups, you will find approaches like this one "If you derive a copy of this content using a Connexions account and publish your version, proper attribution of the original work will be automatically done for you." (source: [cnx, how to attribute]).

Some iFrame thoughts -Mverhaart 04:26, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

• Tested it on an HTML Web site. Can be confusing with Internal links as there is no obvious way to return back to the previous page (however browser back button does work).

That's a very good point -- All the examples I used had made use of WikiEducator's navigation templates but I can see that this will be confusing for pages which do not contain templates --- so we need to figure out some test for the Nav template, and substitute this with an alternate navigation link of sorts for pages that don't contain Nav templates. --Wayne Mackintosh 01:28, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• A more generalised format (using MediaWiki MAGIC Words) for cutting and pasting is (I have used a non-standard web-kit style)

<iframe frameborder="1" height="300" src="https://wikieducator.org/Thread:Thoughts,_ideas_and_suggestions_(1)" width="100%"><p> Your browser does not support iframes.</p> </iframe>

That's clever :-) and a good idea to build on. --Wayne Mackintosh 01:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Which could be incorporated into the wiki as a template {{REMIX|height|width}} with a default {{REMIX|300px|100%}}

A good interim solution -- Ideally I would love to have a more user friendly UI particularly for Newbies. We could think, for example, about a user friendly popup window or web form which then populates the template so that newbies don't need to see the template syntax. --Wayne Mackintosh 01:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• Not sure you want every page to have this enabled

Good question -- we need to think about this and also whether or not to cascade the iframe feature to include children of the parent in the case of structured learning modules. --Wayne Mackintosh 01:34, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

• as mentioned above - does not work in another MediaWiki Site unless iFrames is enabled. Have had MediaWiki complain about the security of an iFrame page - will need to test WE. (I use the IFrame widget http://www.mediawikiwidgets.org/Iframe for my MediaWiki )

We've not enabled all the widgets supported by the extension -- simply because we have yet to find a suitable and scalable solution for monitoring the external IP and file formats issue. --Wayne Mackintosh 01:37, 12 August 2010 (UTC)

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Mackiwg (talk)‎19:10, 14 January 2011