21st March 2016

Content Development Process

As I mentioned in my earlier blog post my goal with the new content project is to engage the community early and often. I’m looking for volunteers from the community to help ensure that the content coming out of this process is of the best possible quality. I want to do this by rolling out content through concentric “rings of release”, much like those you’d use to release software. For now, there are only four of them:

Content author(s)

The original author(s) of the content and whatever internal feedback mechanisms they might be using. For me, this consists of getting input from colleagues in the office or friends and family, both with and without knowledge of the subject matter.

Content panels

This is a group of community members who act as a review and feedback panel for content, like Sushi cards, in a particular area. For example: a HTML5 content panel, a Python content panel, a Raspberry Pi content panel, etc.

The intention is that this panel would ensure that the content in this area is:

Correct — Devoid of errors and promoting best practice for the programming language in question.
Current — Not using outdated tools or versions of programming languages.
Engaging — Likely to be interesting to Dojo attendees and presented in a way that they will enjoy.
The ideal composition of a content panel would be:
- 3 subject matter experts (e.g. Python developers, for Python Sushi)
- 1 or 2 technical Mentors who are not familiar with the content
- 2 non-technical Mentors (e.g. CoderDojo Ninjas’ parents)
- 1 or 2 education experts (e.g. teachers)
- 1 or 2 Ninjas turned mentors
- Me

In practice, the panel would, at least initially, consist of a mailing group to which I would submit the content for review for some fixed period of time (maybe a week) before taking that feedback and incorporating it into the content.

Beta Dojos

Once the content has been reviewed, we will release it to our community of “Beta Dojos” who will read it, use it in their Dojos and offer feedback, which we will iterate on until the cards are deemed ready for release.

General release

Once a reasonably favourable review has been secured from the Beta Dojos, I will publish the content to the new Kata (details and an alpha version coming soon) for general community consumption and feedback.

Getting involved