About this guide
Why OpenAccess?
A guide for students should be as easily accessible as possible. Especially with information materials such as these, it makes sense to offer them for free download. However, OpenAccess goes one step further: this guide may not only be downloaded from the server of the providing institution, it may also be redistributed free of charge. Due to the “Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike” license (CC-BY-SA 4.0), it is also permitted to make changes—as long as these are marked, and the new version does not give the impression that it is supported by the original authors.
The possibility of making changes is more often theory than practice: If texts are offered as PDF files, as is often the case, they can only be edited with considerable effort. It is therefore not only the finished result file that is important, but also the template from which it was created, such as a Word document, the LaTeX source file or similar.
This guide is offered in various formats, but the raw files are also available in Markdown format and can be easily adapted.
Why Markdown?
An earlier version of this guide was typeset in LaTeX. This is a good typesetting system for print publications, but it has two weaknesses for this purpose:
- It is much more difficult to produce versions of a LaTeX template for different output media such as PDF (print), HTML (online) and epub (mobile).
- LaTeX requires some training, so it can be a hurdle for collaborative projects.
Markdown is a simple text format that can be learned quickly and converted to different output formats for publication. For the web version, this guide uses the Static Site Generator Pelican, which generates an HTML website from the Markdown files. The conversion program Pandoc is used for the print version and the e-book.
Why GitHub?
GitHub is actually a hosting service for software developers where you can work together on the source code of applications. However, it is now also suitable for collaborative editing of texts, especially as Markdown files are well-supported and displayed online.
GitHub works with the concept of so-called forks for collaborative work: Each editor works on their own version, and the changes made can then be incorporated into a shared version if required. This model is particularly suitable for a guide like this one: Different degree programs have different detailed requirements. Each student can therefore take this guideline as a starting point and create their own version. Generally applicable improvements can be incorporated back into this version on request, but there is also nothing to prevent different editions being produced for different requirements in the medium term.