Course website and materials

[dill]

Allison asks:

How would you like students to receive course materials? We spoke about them receiving lectures/materials on a memory stick. We could also provide a course management site – I tend to find if we put the course materials online, it provides the instructors and course managers with more flexibility to make last minute changes (adding late enrollees, or changing presentations or reference links). DEL has offered them in WordPress and in Canvas (Learning Management System). I tend to think this course might only need the WordPress level, but let me know your thoughts.

I'm inclined to think that the easiest option (for me) is to use github pages as we have done for the Distance website. We can then keep a common visual theme (if we want) and easily update the site (asynchronously). Please do say if you prefer WordPress or Canvas (I've never used either, so I don't know what I'm missing).

The implications for my strategy is that there's no way to ensure that only participants get the course materials (this may be an issue with WordPress too?). I strongly believe this is a positive attribute (and intent to upload my content publicly anyway), but maybe either/both of you disagree.

[erex]

I was intending to order thumb drives for participants such that they could load materials onto their laptops and not be dependent upon network connections. The material loaded onto sticks could easily come from Github, that's fine with me.

hmmm, sticking point about thumb drives. They'll need to be in Dave's hands, no good them being in St. Andrews with a workshop in Raleigh. Guess we can order them delivered to StA, Dave can take them back to NYC this summer...?

[dill]

I'd be fine with dealing with thumb drives, my thought though is that if we're expecting to rely on IT to the degree we are (Arc licences won't work without the network up, I believe), we may as well put everything online and save the expense and waste of the USB sticks.

Those brining their own laptops will be asked to install software, so part of that can be downloading the other materials.

(I would guess that environmentally speaking a USB stick is worse than printing everything we put on it.)

[jjrob]

Either way is fine with me. The classroom workstations will have wired network connections, and attendees are welcome to put their laptops on the Duke wireless network. Networking is good. The MGET part of the workshop will involve downloading covariate values from NASA, etc. so is already dependent on network access. (We will have prepopulated data files in our back pockets, in case NASA is down)

[erex]

On 05/05/2015 16:49, DL Miller wrote:

I'd be fine with dealing with thumb drives, my thought though is that if we're expecting to rely on IT to the degree we are (Arc licences won't work without the network up, I believe), we may as well put everything online and save the expense and waste of the USB sticks.

Those brining their own laptops will be asked to install software, so part of that can be downloading the other materials.

(I would guess that environmentally speaking a USB stick is worse than printing everything we put on it.)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/DistanceDevelopment/spatial-workshops/issues/13#issuecomment-99121734.

whoops; sticks went into the budget for FAS

Eric Rexstad 20 West Braes Crescent Crail Fife KY10 3SY

[dill]

Oh well, USB sticks all round then...

On 06/05/2015 04:49, erex wrote:

On 05/05/2015 16:49, DL Miller wrote:

I'd be fine with dealing with thumb drives, my thought though is that if we're expecting to rely on IT to the degree we are (Arc licences won't work without the network up, I believe), we may as well put everything online and save the expense and waste of the USB sticks.

Those brining their own laptops will be asked to install software, so part of that can be downloading the other materials.

(I would guess that environmentally speaking a USB stick is worse than printing everything we put on it.)

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub

https://github.com/DistanceDevelopment/spatial-workshops/issues/13#issuecomment-99121734.

whoops; sticks went into the budget for FAS

Eric Rexstad 20 West Braes Crescent Crail Fife KY10 3SY

— Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub https://github.com/DistanceDevelopment/spatial-workshops/issues/13#issuecomment-99385458.

[jjrob]

It may still make sense to distribute the materials via network rather than USB sticks. But we can offer the USB sticks as a simple way to allow users to exchange data between the Duke machines and their own laptops.

[erex]

Happy to have my name added to "instructors" list. Recognise that the 5 hour time difference will need me to get out of my bed early on Tuesday the 27th; but I'll not be teaching in St. Andrews on that day, so that is good.

[dill]

With some trepidation, given my usual ability to get timezones very wrong: would the course not cause you to stay at the office later rather than get up early?

[erex]

I can see that the brain cramps I experienced last week with amakihi have persisted through the weekend and haunt me yet today. Yes 0900 Duke time is 1500 St. Andrews time.

[erex]

No, that's not true either; 0900 -> 1400...

[jjrob]

Regardless of whether you are correct, you should double-check as we get close to the course. It used to be that the dates of this course would fall during Eastern Standard Time, but the candy lobby (among others) successfully persuaded the U.S. Congress to extend Daylight Savings Time so that it always includes Halloween (to allow children to stay out longer, producing more demand for candy...) Anyway, there is always the potential to be off by one hour, due to DST.

[dill]

Site is now online at the Nic School WordPress site, linking to the distancesampling.org page (which I am updating right now).