Now that the heading has got your attention, I probably need to disappoint you; this is not a post about travelling through time or how to harness the power of lightning to drive clocks. Instead it’s on the more mundane subject of classifying our site content according to knowledge and skill levels. This is something I planned to do in the future, wanted to set up the ground work now (and while writing this post have implemented some of it).
myElectrical has readers for all over and of differing levels of technical knowledge. To cater for everyone, our content varies in level from beginner to more advanced. Something I have been thinking of is having a mechanism for classifying posts and Wiki pages depending on the level of the content. A few weeks ago, I was browsing The CPD Certification Service site in the UK and thought their knowledge level definitions worth considering:
Entry Level – material is introductory and designed to impart basic awareness of the topic. Fundamentals and key issues will be addressed
Intermediate Level – material is appropriate for all levels. Novices and experienced participants alike will benefit, gaining general understanding and comprehension of the material
Advanced Level – material is advanced and geared for those with a firm grasp of the subject. Participants should have prior experience to apply this material to existing skills
What I liked about this is that it is simple. Only three categories and the purpose of each is really self explanatory.
I envisage at some stage in the future having knowledge level tagging built into posts and Wiki pages, perhaps with graphics and icons making it visually obvious. While it is on the to do list, it is low down in priorities and will take some time to get around to. During the wait I ‘ll have the opportunity to look at any feedback/discussion and build this into things.
Full implementation is in the future. Back to the present (had to give the title some meaning), while writing this post I did realise it would be easy to set up knowledge categories for site posts and get the idea moving. This is something I have done - if you are writing a post and do want to categorise the knowledge level, please do so. I will be making the effort to categorise all my future posts.