Creating a course / learning project needs to be made clearer. The current structure of the course panel is very long and can be intimidating to read through. The new site should make use of tabbed information and JQuery features to break up the creation and management process into either steps or relevant sections. For now a simple way of tidying this up will be to provide sub headings for different sections and linking to them from the top of the page so users can navigate more quickly.

I've also added a couple of extra fields about project type, project status / help request, proposed meeting times etc etc. 

I've also suggested a weekly email summarising new projects and projects calling for help (see Line 120 or so)

Create and Manage Learning Projects love "projects"!

Project Information

Project Name: *

Short description: *
Think of this as a tweet inviting people to participate in the project. This field is limited to 140 characters. It's best framed as a question or challenge! 

Project Image:
Upload an image to be displayed on your project home page, elsewhere on the P2PU site and promotional materials.

Project Status:  (NEW)
What's the current status of your project idea? Do you need any help from the community?
This project status will be displayed on your project page, in the P2PU activity stream and shared with the community in weekly emails.

Project School: *
Select the primary school that the project belongs to:
See "bright ideas" section on research club: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ci-m9ZryrLtdzdq61bp3U4IT7FcTPNqno3jZHXyl5e8/edit?hl=en&authkey=COaAhNsD

Summary: *
Provide an overview of the topics you plan to cover in your project and anything you plan to create as a group. You may want to pose the key questions you'd like to answer, and list the main thinkers and authors you plan to refer to.  
If participants will be working towards  a specific practical project eg. a short book,  a piece of software please describe it here.


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Educational / Learning Information 
*******I'm not sure how to phrase the name for this section - It should be meaningful but it shouldn't  scare people away****

Project Type:  (NEW ???)
[If we're trying to offer more formats beyond the traditional course it might be an idea to prompt organisers to other formats . some ideas here - each option we provide should ideally have associated help and handbook text that we can link people to]
other: description box

Learning objectives: *
**we may want to phrase this differently - Project Learning Goals? This may be more meaningful for non-pedagogic geeks :-)***
Link to information about learning objectives / goals 

Prerequisite Skills or Knowledge:
What prerequisites skills and knowledge should project participants have?

Sign-up task: 
[Ideally, Sign-Up information should be on a separate page that allows the organisers to set dates for when sign-up opens and closes etc]
Please outline a short assignment that users have to complete when they sign-up for your project. This should give an indication of the work load  and commitment required in the project - and the types of things users will be doing. Don't make it too easy - but don't make it too hard either.

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Project Structure

Project Dates *
Each standard course cycle runs over a set time period, as indicated by the default "From date" and "To date" values. If this doesn't suit your project format, you may change these dates.
From date: 
Format: 2011-02-15
To date:
Format: 2011-02-15

Communication Methods:  (NEW)
(Checklist box)


other description

Proposed Meeting Times (NEW)
(Day of Week, Duration, Location 
(URL of BBB meeting or etherpad / wiki with dial in info / physical meetup)  
Define the meeting time that is best for you and which you can commit to for the duration of your learning project. If participants wish to have an alternative meeting time they are encouraged to organise this themselves.

[Process: Meetings need to be scheduled so that the primary organiser meets first. We need to provide resources and help about how to take notes and report backs in project meetings - these outcomes should be the primary archive element for live meetings and also act as a guide for participants scheduling alternative meeting times]
[Ideal:This meeting time should export an ics reminder and be added to a project calendar]
[Ideal:There should be multiple meeting times that can be created for a project]

Project Places:
Formerly No of Seats
How many people would you like to have participating in the project? You can always accept more or fewer later if you get very few or very many excellent sign-ups.

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Project Membership
Ideal Participants:
What type of participants do you want to attract to the project? Are they experts? Risk Takers? Mathematicians? People with short attention spans who need buddies helping them to study?

[Primary organiser's] Goal For The Project:
A little bit about your background/motives / goals for this project. 

Add Co-organisers:
Text entry  to select co-organisers by username (should auto-suggest user names)
[Each co-organiser is set as admin and has a "Goal for the Project" field added to the course management page]



[Things to get rid of] -
 About the Course Organiser - 
 This is redundant information that should be drawn from the existing P2PU profile information
 agreed
  the original user profile[s] should be embedded / linked to from  on the course page. What SHOULD be included is each organisers goal for the project]
  agreed





New Project / Project Status Weekly Email Concept

SLIGHT TANGENT - Obviously one user needs to take the initiative to create the first draft for a course - but we need to make it easier and inviting for people to participate earlier in the course development process.  Longer term we can structure the new site so that it's easier for initial organisers to invite participation at particular levels eg "I need content experts to advise" / "Add your items to the syllabus".
see section on public school + alan's comments: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ci-m9ZryrLtdzdq61bp3U4IT7FcTPNqno3jZHXyl5e8/edit?hl=en&authkey=COaAhNsD

I wonder if for now we can request an extra field in the course design page eg: Call For Action / Status which lets organisers add specific requests for participation pre-sign-up? Weekly we can send out a summary of new courses that have been created and also provide updates for the community about what is going on / where help is required.

Eg

New Projects This Week:
Surf Board Engineering and Design - Want to shape your own surf board? Learn surf board engineering principles together.
Call to Action: Looking for open resources. Can you help? [link]

Godel Escher Bach - Let's read this book as a book club / study group and work through open courseware exercises together!
Call to Action: I'm a musician, looking for a mathematician co-organiser. [link]

Projects Needing Help:
School of Webcraft
First Steps to Web Development - What skills and equipment do you need to create your first website? What are the first steps and the questions you should start answering?
Call to Action:  We want to document this project and create a reusable resource / book for newbies. What open and free tools can we use? [link]

SoSI
...
School of Math Futures
...