All projects and content in the WordPress project follow a set of guidelines to ensure standards. Some examples include the WordPress coding standards, the WordPress documentation guidelines, and the WordPress.tv guidelines. Hence, it’s time to start thinking about a basic set of guidelines for the Learn WordPress platform as well. The purpose behind having guidelines for Learn are two-fold:
- To avoid any confusion amongst workshop creators on how to create videos.
- To ensure that Learn WordPress videos have some form of uniformity and standards, instead of being radically different from each other.
Here are some ideas on those things about Learn that we can standardize.
- Length of the workshop: A maximum of 90 minutes. Anything more than that could potentially be broken down into a series or multiple workshops.
- Workshop title image format: We could potentially request workshop authors to create title cards similar to WordPress design standards. We can provide a sample title card with the necessary fonts and designs that creators can fork for their use.
- Fonts/formatting for titles and overlays: Ask users to add content similar to the WordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ design language? We should be able to provide assets to help creators.
- Slide format: If the presenter uses slides, can we provide them a slide format or a template that they can use? (in .key, .ppt or on Google slides format). The training team already has guidelines for slides, which we can potentially use for Learn. For workshops based on existing lesson plans, it would be useful to make use of existing slides, or to add new slides to lesson plans. We will also need guidelines on the storage and accessibility of slides.
- Suggestions/recommendations on the structure of the workshop How should the organizers present their content? Should workshop organizers present slides along with the workshop? How should organizers switch from screencasts/slides? Here are some thoughts:
- New presenters are encouraged to create workshops based on existing lesson plans, as they already contain objectives, assessments, and slides for Learn workshops.
- Presenters should aim to make their videos as interactive as possible.
- Add more Slides/writings/written-text on the video workshop.
- Include screen shares if we’re talking about a technical topic that deals with development or the WP dashboard.
- Use jargon-free and straightforward language for the workshop.
- Share any code that was used in the workshop video.
- Video and audio format guidelines: The video can be recorded using any camera, but aim for a 720p or 1080p video. The video size should be less than 1 GB so that it can be uploaded to WordPress.tv. The audio should also be of good quality. All participants should be able to clearly hear the audio content in the workshop.
- Subtitles and captions: As much as possible, each Learn WordPress video should be accompanied by subtitles in the workshop language, as a baseline requirement.
- Learning objectives, comprehension questions, and quizzes: Each workshop should have 4-5 learning objectives and comprehension questions (for discussion groups). Additionally, since the team is working on integrating quizzes with Learn WordPress, it would be good to have workshop creators submit quiz questions and answers with each workshop.
Training team guidelines on lesson plans
The training team already has some guidelines in place for the lesson plans. These will be excellent resources as we prepare the guidelines for Learn.
Each Learn WordPress workshop is unique. The purpose of these guidelines is not to make each workshop look like the other. On the contrary, each workshop author should have the freedom to craft the workshop in whichever way we want. The idea behind these guidelines is to ensure that all workshop authors keep a few things to make their workshops have compelling content and are useful for our participants.
These guidelines can be placed on the page where applicants submit a workshop idea – possibly as part of the confirmation page once the workshop idea is submitted. They can also be placed as a reminder and guide for someone who’s just getting started. Alternatively, these guidelines could be placed more prominently – such that a contributor actively agrees to them before even starting on their submission.
The suggestions listed in this post are just the boilerplate. We need a broader discussion to explore this idea more and would like to have feedback from members of the community on the following points.
- Is it feasible to set up some guidelines for Learn?
- If we decide to go ahead with these guidelines, do you have any suggestions on where we can add policies in Learn?
- What are your suggestions on the guidelines listed in this post?
- What are some additional guidelines you’d like to see added?
Please share your feedback on the following questions in the comments by November 30, 2020 (Monday).
A big thanks to members of our community for your continued support for the Learn WordPress program!
This post was jointly-written by @camikaos and I.
The following people contributed to this post: @angelasjin @azhiyadev @chaion07 @courane01 @evarlese
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