Getting Started Writing for the GISCC
(revised October 21, 1998)
The NCGIA Core Curriculum in GIScience is being created, edited,
reviewed and published entirely on the web. It is a large project
and we have established a standard format to make it easier for all of
us to create, use and manage. The Format
Unit and completed
units demonstrate the full set of standards we're using.
However, we know that these formatting
rules may be overwhelming for those of you who are not HTML programmers.
As we want to get as many contributions to the new Core Curriculum as possible,
we don't want this to prevent your participation. Therefore, we offer
some options.
Option 1 - EASY
If you just want to write text in your favorite word processor or
text editor
Make sure to format your points so that secondary points are indented further
from the left margin than primary points. Use tabs or margin indents
to set these different indent levels. Or use your word processor's
outliner if you are familiar with that.
Although we're not expecting you to attend to all the items in the standard
Format Unit, it does contain some information which will help you prepare
your unit. In particular, you may want to read through the following
sections in the Format Unit:
You can send your document to NCGIA via any standard method, including
email attachment, ftp or just by posting the pages on a local website and
sending the URL. Just let us know what you want to do.
Option 2 - ADVANCED
If you are comfortable with HTML, or you want the challenge of learning
it
Complete instructions for preparing your unit are given in the Format
Unit. Included are instructions about the different files you
need to create, what subdirectories to use and how to index your document
so that it will be easy for us to drop your completed unit into the Core
Curriculum framework. We appreciate your efforts in this regard as
it will make it much easier for our us to get the work done quickly.