Mindmapping is a great technique for visualising our own or group thoughts on a topic, and its relationships.  Electronic mind maps can extend the typically manual mind mapping process with new capabilities. There are several opensource offerings which are particularly suited to the development and sharing of scientific and general academic research outcomes. Which tool is best for your purposes...depends...

Getting feedback on a project's progress or maybe operating a helpdesk ... particularly for rural development projects or in areas with limited communication options ...It is essential the target stakeholders can let us know about progress, how well we are supporting them, and any emerging issues ... and ask the questions needed to get themselves going. Not everyone has the access, or knowhow, or maybe are simply uncomfortable in using a particular methodology.. or technology, for giving us the feedback we need. Flexibility in a system will allow manual addition of adhoc face-2-face, post (snail mail) and telephone enquiries, as well as data from formal surveys and adhoc web portal, SMS, email, and social media inputs. A web based system can provide all this ... and automated collection and collation of the electronic sources ....

I have often thought how useful it would be to have parallel verse comparisons with English, Tok Pisin (Buk Baibel) and Tok Ples translations in an electronic format. This is now possible following granting of necessary permissions and a lot of work by dedicated people. The available electronic translations for the Pacific Islands are compiled at Pacific Bibles, including a link to 229 PNG language translations.  There are several ways to get the print versions of Bible translations in an electronic format.... using document and pdf formats, HTML, and various software formats such as the Sword Project, GoBible mobile formats, eSword, and the MySword Android Bible App which has many Papua New Guinea translations available for Android phones and tablets at the MySword site. Its confusing, but the "eSword", "mySword", and "Sword project" formats are different and not interchangeable.  The "sword project" modules are the most common, and can be used with many front ends, on all platforms - IPod/IPad/IPhone (PocketSword} , Linux (Xiphos, BibleTime), Mac ( MacSword , BibleTime), Windows (Xiphos ,BPBible, BibleTime), and Android (And Bible , BibleTime_mini). While conversions of Tok Pisin and Tok Ples texts  to sword modules are not yet readily available, it is a work in progress by several developers. The attached image shows an early stage in developing Tok Pisin and Bukawa Tok Ples modules in the "sword" format. We'll let you know here when these are available.

 

Tag: e-bible

 

Version 2 of the online library is now well on the way. with a fully functional framework in place for testing.  This update has implemented a completely new backend, based on the PostgreSQL database, a new interface with popup previews, and a number of other new features and improvements. The attached images give a preview of the things to come, albeit showing "dummy" test framework data. The library component of the  version 2 development version can be seen here.