Launchpad Entry: ubuntu-education-app-bundles
Created: December 07 2008
Contributors:
Packages affected:
Summary
Education Application Bundles
Provide a way for the user to select a bundle of Education Applications which are appropriate for a particular education level:
- by school level option
- by age option
The requirement is in effect a simple way to do a "bulk selection of apps" for "bulk" installation from the application list available from the repository(ies)
Release Note
This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)
It is mandatory.
Rationale
Currently, the available education applications are not categorised or described in such a way that is is simple for the average:
- teacher
- school network admin
- home user student
- home user parent
to identify which applications are applicable / suitable for their requirements.
It would be useful to have the bundle selection available:
in Add/Remove as selections under {Education category
- Included as an install option when using the Ubuntu Education CD
Use Cases
1. Mr Jones : Parent
Mr Jones has installed Ubuntu on his home PC. He has a daughter who is 10 years old and attends school in Grade 4. He is aware of that the Applications menu has an Education category and decides to open Applications → Add/Remove ... to find and install more education applications. Inside Add/Remove ... he selects the Education category and finds 4 bundle options at the top of the list:
- Pre-School Bundle
- Primary Bundle
- Secondary Bundle
- Tertiary Bundle
He then:
highlights Primary Bundle and reads the description, and finds that this best fits his daughter's profile.
selects the Primary Bundle checkbox
sees Primary Bundle (community-supported as he has "All available applications" selected and finds more suitable applications.
selects the Primary Bundle checkbox
clicks Apply changes
- is presented with a list of applications that are about to be installed as per his bundle selection.
2. Ms Smith : Teacher
Ms Smith has Ubuntu installed on her school PCs. The school covers Grades 1-10. She is aware of that the Applications menu has an Education category and decides to open Applications → Add/Remove ... to find and install more education applications. Inside Add/Remove ... Se selects the Education category and finds 4 bundle options at the top of the list:
- Pre-School Bundle
- Primary Bundle
- Secondary Bundle
- Tertiary Bundle
She then:
highlights Primary Bundle and reads the description, and finds that this partially fits the school profile.
selects the Primary Bundle checkbox
highlights Seconday Bundle and reads the description, and finds that this also partially fits the school profile.
selects the Seconday Bundle checkbox
clicks Apply changes
- is presented with a list of applications that are about to be installed as per his bundle selection.
Note that there will be overlap of applications across Primary & Secondary
- Note that there may be applications in a bundle that are already previously installed
Assumptions
Design
The following 8 bundle options are proposed:
- Pre-School
- Pre-School (community-supported)
- Primary
- Primary (community-supported)
- Secondary
- Secondary (community-supported)
- Tertiary
- Tertiary (community-supported)
The user would be able to choose one or more of these options, and this would select all the apps that match the level(s).
See attachment for categorisation of applications Ubuntu-Edu-Apps-education-&-games.ods
Requires a review of:
- Any new Education applications for Jaunty
- Any removed Education applications for Jaunty
A second eye to go over the School Classification levels to confirm 1st pass by RichEd
- A quality check to gauge which applications should be included or excluded
The current Edubuntu metapackage/seed structure will change as follows:
- edubuntu-addon-meta, along with the addon-kde, addon-legacy, addon-science, addon-young seeds we be deprecated and removed.
ubuntu-edu-meta source package will be created in Main for Canonical-supported bundles: ubuntu-edu-preschool, ubuntu-edu-primary, ubuntu-edu-secondary, ubuntu-edu-tertiary
edubuntu-bundles source package will be created in Universe for community-supported bundles: edubuntu-preschool, edubuntu-primary, edubuntu-secondary, and edubuntu-tertiary
the edubuntu-desktop will depend on ubuntu-edu-* + additional misc. packages for a "full" educational desktop
Implementation
UI Changes
In the Education category of the Add/Remove window:
- 8 new options available for selection
Pre-School
Pre-School (community-supported)
Primary
Primary (community-supported)
Secondary
Secondary (community-supported)
Tertiary
Tertiary (community-supported)
- The community-supported bundles will not appear if "Canonical-maintained applications" is selected. The community-supported bundles will be in the Universe repo.
- bundle options should appear at the top of the list
requires a new general description against all 4
- what the concept of a bundle is
- what a bundle selection will offer the user
requires a new specific description for each of the 4
- what user school level this specific bundle is aimed at
- what user age level this specific bundle is aimed at
note that school classification varies across countries ... needs to be general
Code Changes
Mvo is to make changes to gnome-app-install to make the bundles appear at the top of the Education menu. LaserJock and Edubuntu team are to create metapackages for the bundles including proper .desktop files for gnome-app-install.
Migration
data migration
assumption is none
- get consensus
redirects from old URLs to new ones
assumption is none
- get consensus
how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things
requires user documentation on http://www.edubuntu.org
suggested "feature offering" on http://www.ubuntu.com/education
- suggested "feature offering" on press release for Jaunty
- suggested "feature offering" on edubuntu mailing lists
Test/Demo Plan
It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during testing, and to show off after release. Please add an entry to http://testcases.qa.ubuntu.com/Coverage/NewFeatures for tracking test coverage.
This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.
Unresolved issues
This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.