The tasks for this snapshot challenge have been divided into four steps:

Instructions for students working as a team

The wiki supports collaborative editing, so students working in teams can work on the same ‘Outline page’ for producing a snapshot.

The co-ordinator (i.e. the co-ordinator specified in your learning contract) must take responsibility for setting up the shared ‘Outline page’, linked from their Userpage, and share the link with team members to bookmark in their browsers.

Please note the following requirements. (Make sure you change the URL below by replacing ‘username’ with your own username, OR the username of your team co-ordinator):

1. Teams must work together from the same ‘Outline page’ in the wiki.
2. A single outline page should be created as a sub-page of the co-ordinator’s user page.
3. Teams must publish their collective ‘Outline page’ to the co-ordinator’s WordPress course site (i.e. https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-course/ where the ‘username’ in italics is replaced with the username of the co-ordinator.)
4. The team co-ordinator must create user accounts for each of her/his team members, and provide them with administration rights so each member of the team can request a snapshot.
   • Go to the dashboard of the course site.
   • Click on Users –> Add new
   • Use the ‘Add Existing User’ option, because members of your team participating in this course will already have accounts on the https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/ website. Enter the email addresses which team members used for their WordPress Multisite accounts.
   • Change the Role of the new user to ‘Administrator’ (Administration privileges are needed to request a snapshot to your course site.)
   • Don’t tick the ‘Skip confirmation Email’ radio button.
   • Click on the ‘Add New User’ button on the bottom of the page.

Step 1 – Edit the title and homepage content linked from your outline sub-page

In the real world of collaborative OER course development, outline pages for course websites are normally set up as a sub-page of the main planning page of the course development project in WikiEducator. You will be developing your course materials in a live international wiki project. Consequently, in this EDT4OL course, we recommend that learners create their first wiki outline page as a sub-page of their Userpage. This means that you can practise your skills in your personal space in the wiki. In addition, this makes it easier for your facilitator to provide help and support as you progress through the course, because your development activities are linked from your userpage.

Key point

Technical requirement

The first bullet of an outline page must be an internal link to the homepage of your course site. The label text (or ‘Pipe’) will be used for the page title on the published site.

1. From your Userpage in the wiki, go to your ‘Outline’ sub-page. (If you haven’t set one up yet, follow the instructions on setting up an ‘Outline’ sub-page.)
2. Decide on the title for your course site homepage. (This is normally the name of the course)
3. Edit the pipe text of the [[/Homepage/|Replace this text with title of your course site]] by replacing the text in italics.
4. The title of your homepage should be a red link – click on this to create the content for your homepage:
   • Please provide your name and the context of the course site that will contain your learning pathway. For example, what would the course be about if you were developing a full course? Who is your target audience? Why did you choose this topic / area of the curriculum?
   • If you are working as a team, please provide the names of the co-ordinator and all members of the team on your homepage.
   • Remember to save your page.

Step 2 – Insert the wiki snapshot widget

The snapshot widget is a feature which will add a “Request snapshot” button to your ‘Outline’ page. This enables a collection of sub-pages to be published on a designated WordPress course website. The widget includes some optional settings for adding footnote pages and institutional logos. However, for the purposes of this course, we will use a simplified version of the widget.

1. Look at the #widget code used for publishing the snapshot of this course site.
2. Go to your ‘Outline’ sub-page, linked from your Userpage in the wiki. If you are working as a team, you should all work on the same ‘Outline’ sub-page linked from the co-ordinator’s Userpage.
3. Copy and paste the following wiki markup at the top of your ‘Outline’ sub-page (or ‘Outline sub-page of the co-ordinator for teams):

{{#widget:Snapshot
|url=https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-course/
}}

4. Replace the username text in italics above with your own registered username on the edt4ol.oerfoundation.org website. For students working as a team, you should use the username of the team co-ordinator. (Note your username must be lowercase letters).
5. DOUBLE CHECK THAT YOUR URL CONTAINS THE FOLLOWING TEXT: ‘-course’ (within the URL string)
6. Save your page

Notes

• WARNING: DO NOT USE THE URL FOR YOUR PERSONAL BLOG SITE (i.e. https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-blog. Double check that your URL DOES NOT contain the word “blog”. If it does, the snapshot will over-write your personal blog content, and we will have no way to recover your blog content.
• If you have done this correctly, you should see a ‘Request snapshot’ button on your ‘Outline’ sub-page
• Click on the button and check that the correct URL is displayed in the ‘Request snapshot’ pop-up form.

Step 3 – Create the sub-pages for your learning pathway

The accordion panels below provide a worked example of the ‘Snapshot process’ learning pathway in this course.

1. Review the boiler plate text (You should already have created an outline sub-page from your wiki Userpage. If not, go back and complete the Sub-page activity.
2. Review the worked example below. Look at how the boilerplate text has been replaced with wiki text to create sub-pages of the Outline page for User:Mackiwg
3. Create the sub-pages for a learning pathway based on the Learning pathway outline you created previously in the course.

Example

Notes for students working in teams

• The ‘Outline’ page for teams will list the sub-pages for each team member’s learning pathway (in other words, there will be more than one learning pathway on the page.)
• Team members are responsible for editing the wiki text of the sub-pages for their own learning pathway(s) themselves. Remember that the wiki provides a detailed history and attribution of edits. This means that your facilitator will be able to confirm that you completed your own work. To minimise the risk of edit conflicts (i.e. editing a page at the same time), try to liaise with your team and schedule your editing so that you can work individually at different times.

Step 4 – Request a snapshot

1. Check that you have set up the Snapshot widget with the correct URL in the form of:https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-course/
2. Check that you have a current WikiEducator session by re-loading the wiki page. (You should see your Username link displayed at the top of the WikiEducator page.)
3. Click on the ‘Request snapshot’ button. (Any member of the team may request a snapshot if you have given administrator user access to each team member on your co-ordinator’s WordPress course site.)
4. Enter your username (all lowercase) and password for the WordPress website at https://edt4ol.oerfoundation.org/username-course/
5. You will see the following message in the pop-up window: “Snapshot queued for processing”
6. Close the window

Notes

1. Depending on how busy the server is when requesting a snapshot, the snapshot may be completed in 1-2 minutes or could take up to 15 minutes to complete. Take a break!
2. You should receive an email notification when the snapshot process has been completed. (Check your spam folder if it doesn’t arrive).
3. Visit your course website to check the navigation of your site. The script will insert ‘This page is currently blank’ for pages that don’t have any content on them.
4. If you receive an email that the snapshot has failed, the most common errors are:
   • Incorrect username or password for the WordPress site you are publishing to
   • Your WikiEducator session was not current when requesting your snapshot
   • Incorrect URL for the target WordPress site
   • Errors in the technical requirements and structure of the outline page, for example:
     1. The first bullet is not a wiki page link
     2. Errors in the hierarchical structure, for example, except for the homepage, a parent bullet with children is a wiki page link.

Waiting game

While you are waiting for the confirmation email for your snapshot, you can play a round of the ‘Berry Memory Game’ by Joubel.

Need help?

Please post any questions you have about the snapshot process in the support forum for this challenge.

Posting support questions in the forum has the advantage that learners experiencing the same issue can check the forum for answers. Let’s help each other to succeed!

If you have a specific technical question relating to your own outline page, remember to share the URL link in the forum post. As an open wiki, your facilitators will be able to help you fix any obvious errors directly on the page and, by looking at the wiki history, you will be able to review any changes made.