Creating a "Labs Handbook"

Open Knowledge Labs
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This is an idea not a final proposal

What

Create a Labs “handbook” containing key learning and instructional materials.

  • Introduction to concepts around labs - civic tech, data wrangling, open tools etc
    • Participating in the community - getting started with Labs - tbc
  • Basic introduction to tooling
  • Learning data wrangling
  • Learning civic tech - tbc

Would live either at a subdomain or a subpart of the main site.

Context

Having a “learn” route of engagement in Labs

See this github issue:

Data Patterns

The current Data Patterns site - this could merge into the handbook (e.g. data wrangling section). This way we would have one consolidated set of instructional materials.

Bad Data

This would logically merge into the Handbook Data Wrangling section … Bad Data - Open Knowledge Foundation

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Despite the fact that Labs is divided into many different projects and, thus, one can contribute to many ends, I believe knowing this basics is key, specially those like me that do not possess a technical background. In the beginning it may be tough and people can get unmotivated to do things, specially when there is not a linear learning rate if you are alone. This would also help writing better documentation since we would hear and learn from “the students” and important questions could be added to the many FAQ we have outstanding.

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@rufuspollock, as you’ve noted on the various Github repos there is a great need to consolidate the various outputs and guides of the Labs community. I think a guide could also serve as a rough outline of what is within the Labs perimeter.

:+1: :+1: :+1:

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Yeah, I like it. We have a lot of nice new sources to use to make a practical introduction to concepts. Like Data on the Web Best Practices and Publications | Categories | D-CENT.

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This course is really newbie-friendly, specially for those who didn’t have statistics in college.

Also nodeschool.io also has a couple of introductory courses, specially for those who are not developers.

As to creating a “learning route”, I can try to suggest something.

Edit: I created this trello board to help me managing tasks, tips and suggestions from everyone and also to put in practice some agile concepts. Feel free to participate, comment and suggest improvements!

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@gsilvapt this is great. I would say for this rather than create the trello board which may be come “yet another location” we just use the github issue tracker we already have plus this forum thread (if we need high level updates):

e.g. we already have the Current milestone you and I made the other day:

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Yes, I totally agree @rufuspollock. The Trello project is just a place to merge everything. The Issue tracker is kind of confusing - at least for me. I can always arrange something for that but I’d rather focus on the development because I am incredibly slow with web design - not I skill I am particularly comfortable with :stuck_out_tongue: