Difference between revisions of "ODEPO FAQ"

ODEPO Home :: Browse ODEPO

What is ODEPO (Open Database of Educational Projects and Organizations)?

ODEPO is a project of ccLearn, the education division of Creative Commons. Its aim is to enable networking among individuals and organizations involved in education, particularly those creating and expanding open educational resources (OER).

This wiki provides an interactive archive of potential projects, programs, and organizations for (open) education. This means that, on some level, these websites curate their own educational resources, or point to places that do. We have also included some non-curatorial organizations, especially those involved in the open education movement, such as the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Other websites are either highly informational, host online publications, or point to resources for research and higher education.

Although not all of these projects are involved in open education, we hope that this wiki will provide an initial and discerning tool for those interested in collaborating within the movement. For more information about OER, please see ccLearn's FAQ page.

Where do I begin?

The point of this database is to allow you (the educator, researcher, student or advocate) to find the projects, programs, and organizations appropriate to your needs. Therefore, we welcome you to first browse through our 1,000+ websites. Take a look at the information on the pages, and if you already have a wiki account with us, feel free to edit anything you find inaccurate or incomplete, adding additional description in the free text section if you feel you have helpful things to say about a particular resource.

How do I contribute?

Since this database is a community project, it will be fueled by your contributions and edits. It is set up in wiki format so you can add your own projects and give feedback on others'. If you don't already have a wiki account, you can create one. All you need is your full name and a valid email address.

After you have created an account and logged in, return to the ODEPO home page. From there, you can access the FAQ again, or immediately start browsing our database.

You can contribute by editing or adding projects, programs or organizations that you believe should be included in the database. We are particularly interested in projects and organizations engaged in open education and the creation of open educational resources (OER).

We especially encourage you to edit existing pages, adding descriptions and helpful tips wherever you can. More information about adding and editing is provided below.

How do I search for

Projects and Organizations?

You can search for existing projects and organizations by browsing by alphabet, or by entering the name in the "Search" box at the top right of every page. Note that this box searches the entire CC wiki, which includes more than just ODEPO's organizations. To see more information about this, go to Additional Issues.

Existing values?

On any given project/organization page, you will notice that all values are linked. See Creative Commons - ccLearn for an example. In the field column, all entries are in blue. This means they are linked to a search of all pages containing the specific value for that property. For instance, if you click on the value "nonprofit" under Property:Organization Type, you will be directed to a page listing all organizations whose type is nonprofit. The internal wiki link of this page is Special:SearchByProperty/Organization_Type::nonprofit. But you don't have to worry about that—just click on any value to find other organizations with the same. It's that easy!

Projects by more than one value?

Excellent question. Say you want to find all projects that are nonprofits AND licensed CC BY. Or you want to find all self-identified "open" sites that are CC licensed in some form or another. You can find either case—in addition to various combinations of different values—by running a query or more simply, by browsing the interface.

Browse Interface

This is the easiest way to delimit by property. The browse interface gives you a quick snapshot of the number of values under each property. You can then click on any desired property value and it will show only those organizations with the clicked value. Continue clicking and you'll see what I mean. For instance, if you click "yes" for Open or Free Statement, it will delimit organizations by those that have an open or free statement. Then if you click "nonprofit" under Organization Type, it will further delimit the organizations by those that are nonprofits, and so on. The browse interface also lists all projects and organizations alphabetically, after the property values.

How do I run a query?

Running a query is pretty simple. You've just got to remember a few key things like property and property values. The property is stuff like Organization Type, License provider, etc.—basically the names of the fields you want to fill. The value is what you put into those fields; for instance, Organization Type might be "nonprofit" or "corporation".

The query page consists of two columns: "Query" and "Additional printouts". In the "Query" column you always want to put "[[Category::Organization]]" because all ODEPO projects fall under the organization category. See http://wiki.creativecommons.org/Special:Ask?title=Special%3AAsk&q=[[Category%3A%3AOrganization]]&po=&sort0=&order0=ASC&sc=1&eq=yes. This link runs a query to list all pages with category of organization. So far, 1,000 plus organizations are in the database.

You can further limit the query by property and property value. Just like you enclosed "Category::Organization" in brackets, you can enclose "License provider::CC" in brackets, or "Organization Type::nonprofit" and etc.

The right column ("Additional printouts") is for what you want to see listed of each project. If you want to see organizations listed by property value, then you would put ?Property:Value. For instance, if you want to see which organizations have CC as their license provider, you would put "?License provider:CC". Or if you just want all organizations listed by all license providers, you would just put "?License provider". And so on.

Try messing around with it first. You should catch on pretty quickly. If you're still having trouble, see querying help on the semantic mediawiki how-to site.

Adding a project or organization

Does this organization already exist?
Since we have over 1,000 organizations stored in our database, it just might. To avoid duplicate pages, search for the organization or web site title to see if it is already in our archive at Category:Organization. The organizations are listed in alphabetical order for easy browsing. You can also search for the organization in the search box at the top of the page to the right.

Nope, it doesn't exist. How do I add it?
Great. Go to Form:Organization and type its name in this format:

"Organization name" - "Project or Website name"

For example, if the educational web page is titled "Biology" and your organization is the "Public Library of Science," you would put:

Public Library of Science (PLoS) - Biology

If there isn't a separate title for the site, just put the organization name.

Question 1: Should I enter it in exactly this format, with the space after the name, then dash, then space, then name again?
Yes.

Question 2: What about the abbreviation? Do I have to put one?
Only if it is a popular abbreviation. If it is (like PLoS), put the abbreviation in parentheses after the organization's full name. This will ensure greater searchability of the organization. For instance, NASA shows up: National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

I am ready to add my organization!
If you are satisfied with the titling of your project, go ahead and enter it at Form:Organization. Later, this will show up as the page name in big, bold letters at the top, so it is important that it is accurate and identifiable. If a page with that name already exists, you will be sent to a form to edit that page.

Editing or adding information

When adding a project, you will automatically be directed to a form with ten fields for you to populate.

When you want to edit a project, always click "edit with form" from the right-hand column of the page. This will direct you to the same form, and make it much easier for you to edit information.

What are the ten fields?
The ten fields are actually nine properties and a free text field whose value (what you enter in the field) is for you to determine. The ten fields are:

Affiliation
Main url
Resource url
Tags
Organization type
Open or free statement
License provider
License short name
License
and finally, the free text field (Notes about this resource...).

On the form, you will notice that these terms are linked to their property pages. These pages provide information about the properties and address questions about what to put in the fields. Go ahead and hover your mouse over each one and click for more information.

When it comes to the free text field ("Notes about this resource..."), we encourage you to type in a description of your project. See Creative Commons - ccLearn for an example. You can also add description on other pages and even comment on issues with a particular website.

Can I add more fields?
You can pretty much do whatever you want—as long as you know how. If you aren't familiar with Semantic MediaWiki outside of this FAQ, I would avoid making any changes right now. Instead, read up on Semantic MediaWiki (http://semantic-mediawiki.org) and Mediawiki (http://www.mediawiki.org), which is what SMW is based on. You'll find FAQ's and user manuals there. In the meantime, we'll work on creating an easier way for you to add a field!

Additional Issues

Some pages have two info boxes: "Organization Information" and "Content Directory". Why is this?
One example of this is China_Open_Resources_for_Education_(CORE). If you go to this page, it will show you two boxes, one with a light blue header—Organization Information—and one with a green header—Content Directory. This occurs because ODEPO's database is included in the general Creative Commons wiki. If you are specifically looking for organizations within our database, don't worry about the green box. All the information you need is under "Organization Information".

But when I run a search, how do I know the page I get is part of ODEPO, and not just part of the larger wiki?
As noted above, any project in our database will have a box with the light blue header. If it shows up in any other form, you can assume it is part of the larger CC wiki.

What is the weird box that says "Facts about ___" on the home and property pages?
If you don't already know, I wouldn't worry about it. It does not affect the networking function of ODEPO; and for those interested, it provides an RDF feed. To find out more go to Semantic MediaWiki's browsing interfaces page.