Factbook vs Guide vs Workflow
I got asked a question which made me wonder how others would answer this question: What do you see as the differences between Factbook, Guide, and Workflow?
My answer:
- Factbook is where I go to get information sort of like an Almanac
- Guide is where I go to get my data to digest and turn into information
- Workflow is where I go to be walked through how to convert data into information or to see how to teach others to do so
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ I like how you defined it.. [Y]
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Factbook is topic focused study and research.
Guides are pericope/primary text focused study and research.
Workflows provide suggested processes for different types of study and research.
Edit: on review, I am thinking of the PG and EG here. There are topical and theological guides that fall outside my definition... so I'll go with MJ's.
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Hi MJ. This may be more information than you're looking for (I think you were primarily after a big picture view) -- but here's a little chart I created. It's only guides found in the Logos 9 Starter package, and even then -- not all of the guides, but I hope it may be of some help!
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Nice chart. Thanks for sharing.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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Thanks Scott. That is a great chart that must have taken a great deal of time to create.
Using adventure and community to challenge young people to continually say "yes" to God
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MJ. Smith said:
What do you see as the differences between Factbook, Guide, and Workflow?
Factbook: Alternative to Wikipedia.
Guide: Powerful research tool.
Workflow: N/A.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Bruce Dunning said:
Thanks Scott. That is a great chart that must have taken a great deal of time to create.
Thanks Bruce! It's one of the charts from the Logos Manual.
Manual download links:
https://community.logos.com/forums/p/182780/1057673.aspx#1057673Manual Covers (for the Logos Version) for download here:
https://community.logos.com/forums/p/182780/1057871.aspx#1057871
https://community.logos.com/forums/p/182780/1149830.aspx#11498300 -
I'm still struggling to decide when I should use Factbook and when to use Topic Guide [^o)]
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Hi Scott,
Logos/Verbum 9 has designed the Factbook to be the starting point. It will provide links to the Topic Guide, Sermon Starter and Theology Guide depending on the topic selected. That doesn't mean you have to start there, but as i have tried it out, i have found it the best place to start.
The guides can be customized to include collections of books that allows me to see what my library has to say about the subject that would otherwise be missed or require multiple searches.
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John Fidel said:
Logos/Verbum 9 has designed the Factbook to be the starting point. It will provide links to the Topic Guide, Sermon Starter and Theology Guide depending on the topic selected. That doesn't mean you have to start there, but as i have tried it out, i have found it the best place to start
The L9 Factbook is now the place to begin for everything. See the free webinar by Morris Proctor New to Logos? Start with the Factbook! | MP Seminars It has revolutionised my appreciation and usefulness of L9. I cant recommend this webinar highly enough if you are still wondering about how to use Logos effectively and simply. (Do the webinar not just read the web pages. You will get so much more out of it).
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Scott shared charts above which clearly took time to do. However, the things has has marked as not appearing in Factbook (Journals, Sermons, etc) all appear in my Factbook. It just depends on the resources you own.
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John Fidel said:
Hi Scott, Logos/Verbum 9 has designed the Factbook to be the starting point. It will provide links to the Topic Guide, Sermon Starter and Theology Guide...
This is more helpful than you know John. I just upgraded, and started using the Factbook for the first time -- about a week ago. Some of the questions in my mind are (John, I'm not necessarily directing these Qs at you; just throwing them out in general):
1) Will Factbook recommend all the guides that are pertinent for a given search, or only a limited set (e.g. Topic, Sermon, Theology, etc)?
2) Should we use Factbook for Passage searches, as well as Topic searches?
3) Since Factbook is a Tool (not a Guide) -- does that mean we're not able to create a custom version of it (i.e. a Custom Guide for Factbook)?0 -
Great questions Scott
Some (possible partial answers):
Scott David said:1) Will Factbook recommend all the guides that are pertinent for a given search, or only a limited set (e.g. Topic, Sermon, Theology, etc)?
It doesn't seem to. Taking Demons as an example, it does link to the Theology Guide but not to the Topic Guide. Note, I don't know if this is how it is designed, or the current implemenation status.
Scott David said:2) Should we use Factbook for Passage searches, as well as Topic searches?
Factbook does work against passage but doesn't provide all the different sections in a Passage Guide, so being able to link to a Passage and Exegetical Guide from Factbook is helpful
Scott David said:
3) Since Factbook is a Tool (not a Guide) -- does that mean we're not able to create a custom version of it (i.e. a Custom Guide for Factbook)?That is correct, we can't make a custom Factbook.
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Stephen McCracken said:
See the free webinar by Morris Proctor New to Logos? Start with the Factbook! | MP Seminars
Thanks Stephen; watching it now.0 -
Stephen McCracken said:
David shared charts above which clearly took time to do. However, the things has has marked as not appearing in Factbook (Journals, Sermons, etc) all appear in my Factbook. It just depends on the resources you own.
Thanks Stephen, it's important to me to get that chart to be accurate... if anyone sees resources on the chart that should be RED CHECKED (i.e. "Shows up in Factbook") -- or has a link to a resource which can help me improve the accuracy -- please let me know. I'm adding Journals and Sermons.
By the way, my Journals and Sermons do show up in other Guides... hmmm... interesting...
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Graham Criddle said:
Great questions Scott Some (possible partial answers):
Wow, tremendous Graham... Thank You!
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Graham Criddle said:Scott David said:
1) Will Factbook recommend all the guides that are pertinent for a given search, or only a limited set (e.g. Topic, Sermon, Theology, etc)?
It doesn't seem to. Taking Demons as an example, it does link to the Theology Guide but not to the Topic Guide. Note, I don't know if this is how it is designed, or the current implemenation status.
It doesn't show up in your example because you have selected the Demons topic. Factbook has a separate page for the Concept and the Theology concept. Your screenshot has the Theology concept selected. Selecting the Concept will provide a link to the Topic Guide.
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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Hi Andrew
Thanks for the clarification - sorry I missed that.
But I do think that is potentially an issue.
I, as a user, need to know that I need to select two different Factbook entries to get both types of Guides. I understand why it is the case but it doesn't seem particularly intuitive.
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espite having similar names, the Theology and Concept entries are not equivalent to each other, and therefore must have separate pages. We try to communicate this with separate icons in the autocomplete popup.
It is definitely problematic, but I'm not sure how to make it more clear. Do you have any suggestions?
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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It is definitely problematic, but I'm not sure how to make it more clear. Do you have any suggestions?
I'm not Graham, but I would wonder about the possibility of a "See Also" or "Were you looking for...." section or something up at the top of applicable entries that would point to other articles in Factbook that are about the same thing, at least essentially, but are a different kind of entry. So, for example, the "Demons (Systematic Theology Concept)" article would link to "Demon (Concept)" and "Demons and Evil Spirits (Cultural Ontology)", which would link back and to each other.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Sine Nomine, sounds like you're thinking of exposing the equivalent references data which would be helpful for interpreting search data. If you came through manually entering the topic, you likely had to choose between them but if you used a link, equivalent references could be very useful.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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SineNomine said:
I'm not Graham, but I would wonder about the possibility of a "See Also" or "Were you looking for...." section or something up at the top of applicable entries that would point to other articles in Factbook that are about the same thing, at least essentially, but are a different kind of entry. So, for example, the "Demons (Systematic Theology Concept)" article would link to "Demon (Concept)" and "Demons and Evil Spirits (Cultural Ontology)", which would link back and to each other.
Part of the difficulty is that these items aren't actually the same thing just different kinds. If that were the case, they'd be combined into a single page. That said, I get what you are saying... display related entries.
This is the job of the See Also section, which shows many entries that are related in a variety of different ways. We don't yet have data that captures this particular concept of "similar but not the same". Promoting this kind of link to the top header area (when it's available) could be possible, but we have to take care not to go too far down the slippery slope of just adding everything into the header.
Note also that this doesn't particularly help ensure that users select the right entry in the first place.
Andrew Batishko | Logos software developer
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This is the job of the See Also section, which shows many entries that are related in a variety of different ways. We don't yet have data that captures this particular concept of "similar but not the same". Promoting this kind of link to the top header area (when it's available) could be possible, but we have to take care not to go too far down the slippery slope of just adding everything into the header.
Note also that this doesn't particularly help ensure that users select the right entry in the first place.
I agree with the other commentators that, despite being imperfect, this is the best solution. The equivalent of Wikipedia's links to disambiguation pages. I am unlikely to scroll down to see the See Also section. Something as simple as a note in the header which says "There are several other entries with similar names. See all?" that has the same effect as Shift+Enter would be helpful for the average user.
Probably the most infuriating use case for me is when a biblical pericope and biblical event have the same name. The pericope "Abraham Sends His Servant to Find a Wife for Isaac" contains everything the event does and more. In cases like this, the end user would benefit from being automatically redirected to the more comprehensive entry. I can see why not every event is a pericope and not every pericope is an event, but it seems like a large share would be and that a new user would quickly get frustrated wondering which to use.
Using Logos as a pastor, seminary professor, and Tyndale author
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It is definitely problematic, but I'm not sure how to make it more clear. Do you have any suggestions?
I think SineNomine is on the right track.
I was looking at Atonement and looking at the Concept gives access to various Guides in the See Also section. But - as you have outlined - to get to the Theology Guide I need to select one of the Systematic Theology options
It would be really good to see the Theology Guide options in the See Also section for the entry on the right but it would mean linking the two related Systematic Theology concepts to it. Similarly, to see the Topic Guide for Atonement in the entry on the right would require linking the other way.
You mention that that data isn't available at the moment. If it were, and could be exposed in this way, that could be a real enhancement.
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Scott David said:
I'm still struggling to decide when I should use Factbook and when to use Topic Guide
As others have suggested, the answer to this is generally: use Factbook. That's where we're investing our data and development effort. It's possible that Topic Guide may get swallowed up as Factbook becomes more mature.
One useful summary of our intentions is "Start your study with Factbook". We won't put all the depth there, but we want to make sure that you can begin with Factbook for any of the dozens of "content types" we currently cover: Bible books down through sections and pericopes; lemmas, biblical senses; biblical people. places, things, events; dictionary concepts, cultural concepts, theological concepts; historical people, authors, and events; etc. Ideally you either get the information you need, or get started on the path to it elsewhere.
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SineNomine said:
... I would wonder about the possibility of a "See Also" or "Were you looking for...." section
We still have a lot more work to do in making it clear how different Factbook pages relate to each other. With more than 375 thousand pages (and continuing to grow), that's a major challenge. Many pages have a See Also section now: some are already crowded! But there's more to do both in expanding these connections, and providing better explanations for what the relationship is ("See Also" and "Related" are pretty weak assertions).
SineNomine said:... So, for example, the "Demons (Systematic Theology Concept)" article would link to "Demon (Concept)" and "Demons and Evil Spirits (Cultural Ontology)", which would link back and to each other.
Yes, though the second and third of these are quite possibly "equivalent enough" (as we say) and ought to be merged. But leaving most theology concepts separate from general biblical studies concepts is a deliberate decision: they're different kinds of content, certainly related, but not the same. But they should certainly link to each other, along with numerous other data items.
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Sean Boisen said:
Many pages have a See Also section now: some are already crowded
Yes, but when do we get the Senses section back in the Biblical Entity pages? I prefer more complete pages to more skeletons.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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SineNomine said:
I'm not Graham, but I would wonder about the possibility of a "See Also" or "Were you looking for...." section or something up at the top of applicable entries that would point to other articles in Factbook that are about the same thing, at least essentially, but are a different kind of entry. So, for example, the "Demons (Systematic Theology Concept)" article would link to "Demon (Concept)" and "Demons and Evil Spirits (Cultural Ontology)", which would link back and to each other.
Part of the difficulty is that these items aren't actually the same thing just different kinds. If that were the case, they'd be combined into a single page. That said, I get what you are saying... display related entries.
I am very alert to the fact that they are different things... but the (normal?) user writes "demon" or "demons" in Factbook and expects to learn about demons. All three of those articles are "about demons".
You'll notice that I didn't reference the "Exorcism (Cultural Ontology)" article, even though it's very much related and likely of interest to people looking to learn something about demons. I made that decision because the article on exorcism is not "about demons".
I actually do not want to Factbook to display related entries up in the header. I want Factbook to display entries that are also about the x that the entry in question is about, which, as you noted, does not mean that the Factbook articles in question are duplicates.
The litmus test for the sort of articles that I think should be linked in the header is basically some version of this:
"For specific topic x, if you asked me for a Factbook article about x, would I be able to give you a link to either one of these articles to satisfy your request?"
My three example articles above meet that litmus test if you ask me for an article about demons. As has been noted by Justin, a number of Biblical Event and Pericope articles pair up the same way: e.g., if the topic is "the death of Moses", I can point you to https://ref.ly/logos4/Factbook?ref=bk.*deathmosesepisode or https://ref.ly/logos4/Factbook?ref=bible.5.34.1-5.34.12. For the specific topic "depression", I can link you to three articles: a Concept, a Preaching Theme, and a Counseling Theme. They all share the same title: "Depression". The articles are not duplicates, but they are all about depression. Now, Factbook also has a number of articles on different kinds of depression (Postpartum, in Marriage, etc.) and on things related to or relevant to depression, such as "Anxiety" and "Seasonal Affective Disorder", but I would not have any of those linked to in the header. If you ask me for an article about "Seasonal Affective Disorder", I'm not going to give you a link to one of the ones titled "Depression", and vice versa. I would leave those related articles in the present "See Also" section, where they will only be seen by people who care to read that far.
The stuff I want in the header of any given article is the stuff that I think everyone who accesses that article should see.
Sean Boisen said:We still have a lot more work to do in making it clear how different Factbook pages relate to each other.
I agree.
Sean Boisen said:With more than 375 thousand pages (and continuing to grow), that's a major challenge.
I agree.
Sean Boisen said:("See Also" and "Related" are pretty weak assertions).
They are, which is why I do not think that that section should be moved into the header.
Sean Boisen said:But leaving most theology concepts separate from general biblical studies concepts is a deliberate decision: they're different kinds of content, certainly related, but not the same. But they should certainly link to each other, along with numerous other data items.
I agree.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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SineNomine said:
I am very alert to the fact that they are different things... but the (normal?) user writes "demon" or "demons" in Factbook and expects to learn about demons. All three of those articles are "about demons".
Several years ago when FL screwed their data (language intentional although I understand why FL did it and recognize that the tradeoffs then differ from current tradeoffs) by attempting to merge concept, topic, and preaching theme, I was on the side of keeping distinctions that were being hidden. But I have a sufficiently large library that it is easy to make Factbook unusable because it buries me in related data ... I'm better off running my own searches where possible. However, I also understand that the vast number of users have small libraries where the issue is one of getting sufficient information.
I'd like to frame the issue in terms of equivalent references as the users are already familiar with the concept from the search. I'd also like to suggest that while having them in the header is a pain for me, I suspect it is where they belong for the general user with a small library ... they are not apt to scroll down sections of little or no results in hopes of finding an alternative that might have actual results.
Orthodox Bishop Alfeyev: "To be a theologian means to have experience of a personal encounter with God through prayer and worship."; Orthodox proverb: "We know where the Church is, we do not know where it is not."
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MJ. Smith said:
I'd like to frame the issue in terms of equivalent references as the users are already familiar with the concept from the search.
I personally wouldn't want to call it equivalent references within the user-facing part of the Factbook, but I that is the basic idea I'm going for.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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Putting disambiguation links of "nearly equivalent" or confusingly-close subjects (e.g., Demons/Theology and Demons/General) up top in the article might be useful. This is the strategy Wikipedia uses (selectively): for Demon - Wikipedia
(Wikipedia calls these Hatnotes). We considered adding hatnotes or some other navigational device but weren't able to accomplish that for Logos 9. But improving navigation between similar pages is on our list for attention this year.
SineNomine said:
They are, which is why I do not think that that section should be moved into the header.
Nor do I: related but distinct information is currently at the bottom of the article, and that seems like the right place for it. However, defining "equivalent" and "distinct" in practice is tricky business, as this discussion (and many others we've had internally) shows.
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Here is a comparison of the topic "Temptation" using Factbook, my custom Topic Guide and the Counseling Guide. The Temptation topic use was the counseling theme, but the preaching concept, while providing more general information on the subject failed to produce many books in my library on the subject. The Counseling Guide failed to produce any. The topic guide with my collection of "counseling resourses" did a great job.
Not complaining, just demonstrating the power of customized guides.
Here is one that shows my collection of monographs by various authors considered "Christian Living":
Starting with the Factbook is good and targeted, but we still need customized guides to complete the study.
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John Fidel said:
... Starting with the Factbook is good and targeted, but we still need customized guides to complete the study.
John, I have a similar situation; the Factbook leaves out many valuable resources. I started using Factbook less than two weeks ago, but now I need to run another tool / guide in order to get at the data. I would imagine that, over time -- some of this may be consolidated as Logos continues to build data sets.
I don't mind running these different searches, but as I'm trying to influence others to purchase Logos (or utilize a Logos that they haven't touched in a year) - it does present a little bit of a problem (i.e. complexity); then I need to be apologetic as they ask me, "Why don't I just google it then."
In college my professors would always say, "If you can learn what I teach you, in a book or online, then ask for your money back." [:O] That's part of the beauty of Logos - valuable and curated information that can't be had anywhere else (or at least not practically... without going to a seminary library and spending hours in research).
My next comments may reveal my ignorance (about Logos, the Factbook, or deeper usage of Logos by scholars)... Logos, overall, continues to become simultaneously: simpler to use, and more powerful. I think it would be great to have the Factbook and Topic Guide consolidated into one tool.[;)]
For folks like MJ (e.g. large libraries, more experience, more complexity, and / or more technical proficiency) -- a consolidated Factbook / Topic Guide that was highly customizable (MJ could custom craft her own Factbooks in a similar fashion to Custom Guides).
I've gotten most of my family, and many of my friends and constituents to use Logos. My ~80 year old mom loves it! For folks like her (smaller libraries, less experience, less complexity, and /or less technical proficiency) -- a full featured integrated topical search tool would make Logos simpler and more fun to use. Of course, I have no idea as to the technical programming difficulties / impossibilities for what I'm proposing -- and likely this has already been hashed out some other place on these forums. [;)]
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Scott David said:
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My next comments may reveal my ignorance (about Logos, the Factbook, or deeper usage of Logos by scholars)... Logos, overall, continues to become simultaneously: simpler to use, and more powerful. I think it would be great to have the Factbook and Topic Guide consolidated into one tool.
I disagree. Factbook is FL curated, but the Topic Guide is customizable. We need customization for those users that want to determine how the guides interact with their library. FL will never satisfy everyone. SO... Factbook is the starting point and if you want more then go the the various guides. Customize those guides to allow for best access to your library.
Just my opinion.
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Scott David said:
MJ could custom craft his own Factbooks in a similar fashion to Custom Guides
Just so you know, MJ is a lady.
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John Fidel said:
... Factbook is FL curated, but the Topic Guide is customizable.
Yes, but what if we could pull the Factbook Queries into a Custom Topic Guide, so that:
- Advanced Users can just use Custom Topic Guides (and still get everything)
- Other Users can focus primarily on the Factbook if they wishMy main point isn't that Factbook should pull in everything, but rather that I would like to be able to create something that can pull in those additional Factbook query results that don't return in my Topic Guide (i.e. we wouldn't have to run two searches when we want to do an in-depth topic search).
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Sean Boisen said:
Putting disambiguation links of "nearly equivalent" or confusingly-close subjects (e.g., Demons/Theology and Demons/General) up top in the article might be useful. This is the strategy Wikipedia uses (selectively): for Demon - Wikipedia
(Wikipedia calls these Hatnotes). We considered adding hatnotes or some other navigational device but weren't able to accomplish that for Logos 9. But improving navigation between similar pages is on our list for attention this year.
Hatnotes. Yes, that's exactly what I had in mind. Thank you for supplying me with the correct term for it.
Sean Boisen said:SineNomine said:
They are, which is why I do not think that that section should be moved into the header.
Nor do I: related but distinct information is currently at the bottom of the article, and that seems like the right place for it. However, defining "equivalent" and "distinct" in practice is tricky business, as this discussion (and many others we've had internally) shows.
Definitely tricky business. But worthwhile. I would far rather a Factbook that occasionally omitted hatnotes that I thought ought to be there and had some others that I thought ought to be omitted than a Factbook with no hatnotes at all.
“The trouble is that everyone talks about reforming others and no one thinks about reforming himself.” St. Peter of Alcántara
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