[seul-edu] ISO and Phase 1 evaluation

[Doug Loss <drloss@suscom.net>]

I've had a few people ask privately about how they can participate
in the ISO project, so I'm going to write a moderately detailed plan
for how to do a Phase 1 evaluation.  If you have any questions of
suggestions for improvement, send them to the seul-edu list rather
than directly to me so we can all get the benefits of the
discussion, OK?

First, go to http://www.seul.org/edu/iso.html and read through the
project outline.  That will give a reasonable idea of the overall
goals of what we're planning.  We're currently working on Phase 1 of
the project.

Next, go to http://richtech.ca/seul and familiarize yourself with
the layout of the SEUL/edu Educational Applications Index.  For our
purposes the right column (Application Categories) will be the most
useful, I think.  Pick a category that you have an interest in and
some knowledge of if you're a teacher or administrator.  If you're a
techie who is helping a teacher or administrator whose assistance
you've enlisted, let them pick the category.  You'll notice that
some of the categories have many more entries than others; this is
because we were inexperienced when we created the categories.  We'll
break these large categories down into smaller, more specific ones
soon, but for now we'll have to live with the structure as it is.
As Phase 1 proceeds, I expect that some of the categories won't get
much evaluation (if any).  If you notice that happening, please make
an effort to go through these under-evaluated categories.

In each category, read through the description of each application
in its Index record, and visit its website.  At the website, look
over whatever information is presented; if demos are available, try
them out.  Don't download the applications and install them--that
will be for Phase 2.  What we're looking for in Phase 1 is a first
rough screening.  I expect some applications will obviously not be
useful in a scholastic setting; we need to flag those as "not for
the ISO."  Others _will_ obviously be useful; those we need to flag
for Phase 2 testing.  The difficult part of the evaluation will be
for those applications that are in the fuzzy area between
scholastically useful and not useful.  If you're not sure on which
side of that line a particular application falls, flag it for Phase
2 testing.  Phase 1 is just to weed out obviously non-scholastic
apps.  If you find an application that _would_ be scholastically
useful if just one or two things were changed or added, note those
things and send a polite email explaining what we're doing (I'll
write up a template and send it along later) and how these changes
would help to the listed author/maintainer of the application.

When you've finished evaluating a category, please send a message to
the seul-edu mailing list with this information:

Name of evaluator
Qualifications of evaluator (teacher, administrator, subject(s)
taught, age levels, etc.)
Category evaluated
For each application, the name of the application and one of these
flags:
   N (not for the ISO)
   P2 (Phase 2 evaluation)
   E (Phase 2 if the following enhancements are added; then list the
enhancements)

I'd like to get Phase 1 finished by the middle of July if we can.
There's no hard-and-fast deadline for the ISO, but I don't want us
to lose momentum by not having goals.  I don't expect us to have
this ready before January 2003, but I want to have it ready to go as
soon as possible thereafter.

One more thing.  You have probably noticed that I add applications
to the Index whenever I find them.  If you see an announcement for a
new app in the Index that is in a category you're comfortable
evaluating, please look it over and give us a Phase 1 eval
immediately.  The SEUL/edu ISO isn't to be a snapshot of the apps
available at a particular time, but a regularly updated collection
of scholastically useful applications that run on Linux.

--
Doug Loss                 All I want is a warm bed
Data Network Coordinator  and a kind word and
Bloomsburg University     unlimited power.
dloss@bloomu.edu                Ashleigh Brilliant