The main purpose of these project boxes is to categorise resources into one of five development status categories so that Wikiversity users can more easily sort out what they want to look at.
Article developers can zoom in on resources that are stuck at the earlier stage of development and help move them along. This can be done even more effectively if a parser function is run against the categories in question to additionally sort them by date of last edit, so that very old and undeveloped resources can be identified (this sorting has already been done using these project boxes).
Learners can quickly find well developed resources to learn from, rather than getting lost in the middle of undeveloped ones and running away with the impression that there aren't any learning materials that are sufficiently well developed to be of use.
Metadata extractors can work out which resources are sufficiently developed to be worth cataloguing in metadata exports for promoting Wikiversity in other OER projects.
Disadvantages: Wikiversity resources have many different kinds of development cycles, not all of which will fit with the simple system used here. Imposing a 5-level system of development status on any project (let alone Wikiversity) is, to some extent, arbitrary and may simply not fit some cases. However the usefulness of an approximate system of development indicators outweighs this. To compensate for any misleading or other inappropriate effect of completion status project boxes, a number of modification options are available to individual users, including change icon, change text and append text, along with a system of "fun-looking" default boxes that will appeal to some people (but not everyone). All of these methods can be combined so that one can tag a resource with a completion status and, at the same time, convey the impression one feels is appropriate to a particular resource's development cycle.
Tagging resource pages by completion status
Serious-looking boxes
Write the template code into your resource at any point on the page. As well as an attractive template appearing, the resource will be automatically categorised. If you change the template later, the categories will be automatically updated.
This is an alternative set of templates which is more fun. There are different names for these tags - you may prefer to use the short and friendly names like {{nearlythere}}. The percentages given are highly subjective - what really counts is how the templates categorise the resource. There are five categories for completion status, ranging from freshly started to complete. Some of these categories have two or more "fun" project boxes - e.g. {{launch}} and {{yawn}} result in the same categorisation ("partly complete"), but look very different on the page.
Please feel welcome to create alternative project boxes. Suggestions can go on the talk page, for example.
This section explains how to modify project boxes to suit your own preferences for describing educational resource development cycles. Please note that the important thing about project boxes is their categorisation function (which remains the same in the examples), along with the option to retrospectively apply parser functions via the template. The visible component of the project boxes is of secondary importance, so there's no harm in applying personal preferences when tagging resources which are mainly your own work.
Example #1
You can simply append some text, shown here applied to the "halfway" template.
This uses simple text modification, applied to the "halfway" template. This time we've change the whole text, rather than just adding some to the default.
We started this but ran out of ideas. Can someone give us some input, please? --User:Baah and Bahh
{{halfway|text=We started this but ran out of ideas. Can someone give us some input, please? --[[User:Baah and Bahh]]}}
Example #3
This goes a step further, modifying the icon as well.
We started this but ran out of ideas. Can someone give us some input, please? --User:Baah and Bahh
{{halfway|icon=Domestic Goat Portrait (aka).jpg|text=We started this but ran out of ideas. Can someone give us some input, please? --[[User:Baah and Bahh]]}}
Tagging resource lists by completion status
Sometimes you will want to put indicators onto list pages which indicate a resource's completion status. There's no room for a project box here; you need something smaller.
Blablabla Course (This course is not at all complete)
Blablabla Course (This course is a little complete)
Blablabla Course (This course is somewhat complete)
Blablabla Course (This course is fairly complete)
Blablabla Course (This course is complete)
Tagging resources with a bare category
If you prefer not to use a project box, then you can simply categorise the resource instead under one of the following categories. Please note that if you use a project box, categorisation is automatic. Percentages are only a very rough guide. Please note that if you tag with a bare category rather than a project box, you will prevent maintenance staff from including your resource in parser function sorting.
To use this automatic cataloging feature, the simplest ways is to add [[Category: completed resources]] (or the appropriate category) at the bottom of your page.
Meta-templates and template quick access (admin use only)
.jpg){kind=small}
(This course is not at all complete)
(This course is a little complete)
(This course is somewhat complete)
(This course is fairly complete)
(This course is complete)
