Building version 1.5 of Mozilla's Web Literacy Map

Mozilla

Alvar Maciel's thinking around representations of the Web Literacy Map at MozFest 2014
Mozilla’s Web Literacy Map constitutes the skills and competencies required to read, write and participate on the web. It currently stands at version 1.1 and a more graphical overview of the competency layer can be found in the Webmaker resources section.

Context

Starting last week we began working with the community on updating the Web Literacy Map to version 1.5. This is the result of a consultation process that initially aimed at a v2.0 but was re-scoped following community input. Find out more about the interviews, survey and calls that were part of that arc on the Mozilla wiki or in this tumblr post. The feeling was that we should double-down on what makes v1.x useful before moving to a v2.0 later in the year.
Some of what we’ll be discussing and working on in the community calls has already been scoped out, while some will be emergent. We’ll definitely be dealing with the following:

  • Deciding whether we want to include ‘levels’ in the map (e.g. Beginner / Intermediate / Advanced)
  • Reviewing the existing skills and competencies (i.e. names/descriptors)
  • Linking to the Mozilla manifesto (where appropriate)
  • Exploring ways to iterate on the visual design of the competency layer

On the first call we focused on the top item in this list – namely whether we should include ‘levels’ in the map. You can listen to the recording and read an overview of the decision we came to here. The consensus was that what might be ‘beginner’ in one context might be ‘advanced’ in another. So we’re not going to be including skills levels in v1.5 of the Web Literacy Map.

Get involved!

Please do join us every Thursday at 4pm UTC for the Web Literacy Map community calls (what time is that for me?). These will run to the end of March, by which time we should have created v1.5. Details of the calls are posted to the Webmaker list, or you can bookmark this wiki page.
In addition to these calls, we’ll almost certainly have ‘half-hour hack’ sessions at the same time on a Monday. These may include re-writing skills/competencies and work on other things that need doing – rather than discussing. Pay attention to the Webmaker list for more details on these!
Can’t make the calls? Please do add your feedback and ideas to the relevant section of the #TeachTheWeb discussion forum!

Image of Alvar Maciel’s notebook at MozFest 2014 CC BY Doug Belshaw