Exercise as it relates to Disease/Teaching

This pages provides some of the background teaching behind the Exercise in disease site.

Writing a fact sheet tutorial
A fact sheet is typically an important, at-a-glance tool used in public relations to provide an overview of a large issue. Fact sheets can stand alone, but commonly supplement a news release, a chapter of a book, or replace a brochure. The point of a fact sheet is to get the reader to do something. More information than you need to convince them is a waste of the reader's time and risks losing their attention. Make it as easy as possible for them to take action.

Fact sheet elements
A fact sheet is generally one or two pages and includes “the who, what, when, where, why and how” about a chapter or event. Here are some tips on creating a fact sheet.
 * One page is best
 * Make it readable
 * Keep the text brief - no one wants to read tons of information in a small font
 * Keep the most important information in the first paragraph - what the issue is, what action is needed, and label the main message(s)
 * Give references for more information - in electronic communications you can offer links
 * The fact sheet must be self-contained - do not refer to previous documents or assume that the reader remembers the information
 * Use bullets when you can
 * Leave lots of white space
 * Make it very clear what you want the reader to do - bold type face, text boxes, and graphics add emphasis
 * Give the reader all the tools he/she may need to take action

Tutorial Steps

 * 1) In groups of two discuss potential options for a fact sheet topic.
 * 2) Find a majority view on what type of information would be useful for this fact sheet.
 * 3) Determine what related information would be too much or not suitable to the fact sheet.
 * 4) Discuss ideas on what visual aids could assist in the fact sheet.
 * 5) Discuss what kinds of information people may want to know more about, but for which you don't have enough space on the fact sheet. How can you point the reader towards this further information?

Note that some of these points discussed above relate to style. For the purposes of this exercise, we ask you to only sytlise within the wiki (which is quite limited).

Here are some examples of health related fact sheets
 * Black Dog Institute - Exercise and Depression (PDF). Note that the topic is broad and consequently too long for this assessment item, but the coverage in the sections is a good start.
 * Sudden Death and exercise (PDF) is a one page SADS fact sheet, but I don’t think it covers the sections outline above and appears to only make recommendations without a background.
 * Sports Medicine Australia, diabetes and exercise fact sheet (PDF). Similar to the depression fact sheet above, this covers sections well but is too broad in its approach for this assessment.
 * British Health Service, exercise recommendations for children (PDF). covers

recommendations very well.

Technical Wiki Support
Mediawiki - is software that allows many commonly used online wikis to work. Different programs work in slightly different ways, learning how mediawiki works will enable you to work on many different websites and is recognised as a format which will allow you to work in other formats with ease. Common mediawiki sites include: Wikipedia, Wikiversity and WikiBooks. You will use Wikibooks for your assignment.

Objective
 * To get you familiar, comfortable and experimenting with the technical skills of a media wiki.

Register for account

 * Go to wikibooks.org and register for an account (top right of screen). You may choose to log-in with an existing log-in if you already have one). Wikibooks has a help section for setting up a user account

Notes on usernames
Video: Wikimedia foundation - Username

Think carefully about your username. There are both potential negatives and positives to using a username that can be linked to your person. Do you want (or not want) to be linked to the work you are doing? Particularly poor or offensive work may not help you in the future, but good work can help. You can’t change the username associated with work written in the past.

Email your name and username (once registration completed) to the unit convenor.

Edit your profile
Once completed click on your username (the link will be red - red denotes that there is no content behind that link). You are now in a space which relates to your username profile, it is here we will practice editing a mediawiki before moving on to your fact sheet.


 * Click edit

Video: Wikimedia foundation - Edit

Here we have set a number of tasks to help you get used to working in the wiki.

Resources to get you started
 * Wikibooks help section on how to edit a page
 * Youtube - Howcast - how to: quick overview of wikipedia editing


 * 1) Introduce yourself - write a couple of sentences about yourself. Click save and view it.
 * 2) Click back on the edit button, and create the following section headings:
 * Background
 * Interests
 * Wikibooks projects


 * 1) Save and make sure you have subheadings present.
 * 2) Click on edit and add information to each section. - add the Exercise in Disease site to your profile, you will add detail of your particular fact sheet once it has started
 * 3) In the top section, add an image of yourself.

History
Now have a look at the page you have created. Now click on “history”. Have a look at the different edit history. The wiki will save all your work so you can always go back to previous versions. This can come in handy if you make a major mistake or if there vandalism to your site.

Evidence Base
As with all evidence-based writing, you need to add sources/references to your claims. Have a quick look at the short video: Youtube - Wikimedia Foundation - Verifiability

In the work you have completed so far about yourself, find (or add something] that you can support with external evidence. Use the reference tool in the wiki to add the evidence. Save and check out the format. You may need to play around with the format until it makes some logical sense.

Other Resources

 * How To Edit A Wikibook
 * Account management

VIDEOS


 * Youtube - Editing a Page on Wikipedia - Tutorial
 * Youtube - How to Edit a Wiki: Part 1
 * Youtube - Creating wiki pages in MediaWiki
 * Videojug - editing a media wiki