ELJ II
Contents
1. At the same time it must be admitted that the best tools will not make a poor designer produce excellent training con tent Really good tools have been used to camouflage poor design It is certainly easier for an incompetent instructional designer to produce much poorer training deliverables with an XML content reuse system than when working alone with MS Word Assuming competent designers some of the most important limitations and disadvantages of the cottage industry approach to instructional development are e Inconsistency Since every project is independent of every other it is very difficult to create and enforce stan dards Even if templates are used designers tend to create exceptions e Inefficiency There are many oppor tunities for reusing content that are missed either because designers are unaware of legacy content that could be adapted or because the legacy content is in a format that makes it difficult to adapt to their current project e Inaccuracy Because each project recasts some of the same information in a different way there is no way to globally update information and reis sue training when changes occur e Scalability As workloads increase and staffing levels decline there is no way to maintain output and quality lev els Designers become frustrated when they re unable to meet the ex pectations of their audience e Tool Costs Reliance on outmoded tools different ve2. A shared drive acces sible to all team members with read and write permissions to all 2 Version Control System A collection of documents stored by document ver sion to protect against accidentally overwriting files 3 Document Manager A software sys tem that provides different levels of access to documents based upon selectable criteria 4 Learning Management System LMS A system that provides access to learning content for students authors and editors The modern LMS usually provides some kind of virtual campus paradigm 5 Learning Content Management System LCMS A system that divides up learning content into man ageable components which can be dynamically revised in some or all of its instances in the curriculum 6 XML Repository A system that applies content taxonomies to organ ize content into associative and struc tural classifications so that content can be created and managed with maximum efficiency Not every organization progresses through each step in an orderly manner It is often the case that different groups within a learning organization implement different steps at different times and then face significant challenges integrat ing the results Table 1 on page 3 sum marizes some of the objectives and limi tations of each step in the progression When computer networks became common in the workplace people aban doned the file cabinet for the file server They soon
3. e004 THE LEARNING DEVELOPERS Strategies and Techniques for Designers Developers and Managers of eLearning THIS WEEK DESIGN STRATEGIES XML and Content Reuse Systems for Instructional Design Part Il Implementing Content Repositories amp Selecting Tools BY HENRY MEYERDING his is the second in a series of three articles for experienced instructional designers about XML and content reuse systems The previous article in this series discussed the basics of XML as it applies to learn ing content management XML a derivative language from SGML that represents a simplified and optimized approach to creating databases is an object language that allows you to create learning objects and transform them into a variety of different forms This article focuses on many of the methods and benefits of organizing content into reposi tories and the tools that can be used to create the content stored there Taxonomy Our scientific understanding of any topic is founded upon taxonomic process es we take things apart to see how they work We can gain a better understanding of the intricate parts of a whole system by examining its parts and then combin ing them together gradually coming to understand how those parts interrelate In a very basic sense what a content reuse system does is to scientifically divide content into associative function al or structural taxons See the sidebar on page 14 Def
4. content and have very similar advan tages and disadvantages to Word Other Microsoft programs such as Publisher or Front Page pose another order of magni tude of difficulty in interoperating with content reuse systems Adobe and FrameMaker A structured document view for creat ing valid XML several different levels of styles and the ability to discard excep tions to styles are three of the most important features that impact XML For this reason Adobe FrameMaker is the WYSIWYG authoring tool of choice for XML applications FrameMaker 7 0 includes a wealth of features that make authoring XML content much more effi cient and practical There are direct exports for both HTML and PDF docu ment instances Authoring in the struc tured view provides designers with an excellent means of understanding and using FrameMaker to create valid XML documents A couple of points about valid XML documents may be important to the reader s understanding Well formed XML conforms to the syntax rules of XML it is tagged correctly Valid XML is well formed XML that conforms to the data structure defined in the DTD All valid content is well formed Not all well formed content is valid Adobe FrameMaker imports the XML data elements into a template That tem plate defines styles associated with the element definitions in the element defini tion document EDD The EDD is the imported copy of the DTD used by FrameMaker to validate th
5. learned that file servers have their own defects when it comes to shar ing important information The next logi cal step was to try to remove the most glaring defects of the file server by imple menting a version control system The version control systems made it safer to put your documents onto the network and easier to find things but when large numbers of people put large numbers of documents into the system it became harder again Then came the document manage ment system which made it simpler to find things but which usually locked you into tools and processes that rapidly became outmoded A good example of this last hurdle to progress was a large legal firm that implemented a complex macro language driven documentation system that interoperated with their doc ument management system When the next version of MS Word arrived they were very upset to find that there was no backward compatibility so they remained with the older version of MS Word for ten years Learning management systems LMSs are primarily student facing applications Their purpose is to present training to a student population and to track student performance Over time more and more content management facets have been sneaking into these learning delivery platforms That is not their core function which is to deliver existing content to students efficiently Although learning content management systems LCMSs are designed to efficiently ma
6. table low fidelity thin bandwidth or high fidelity wide bandwidth distrib uted content Lo fi and hi fi Web content Lo fi Web content is primarily text with a few graphics and moderate interac tion it is suitable for thin client delivery Hi fi Web content is highly graphical with strong user interac tion video Flash and Authorware content are hi fi WebDAV Web based Distributed Authoring and Versioning dering It is usable with any XML docu ment and features tables lists images special characters clipboard undo redo and easy customization e Ektron eWebEditPro XML A brows er based XML word processor like edi tor that enables business users to apply XML to Web content It provides a user layer between the XML tags themselves and user actions Scripting and commands work together to con trol which tags the user has access to and where the tags can be used Business users will not realize they are working with XML tags but instead think they are working within a set of content parameters definitions or rules Customization is required to implement the DTD and produce valid XML but once this is done there is lit tle need for further integration e GenDoc formerly GenDiapo An XML editor based on an existing proj ect MerlotXML It can use two kinds of plug ins DTD and or action The DTD plug in can be used to customize the editor for a DTD and an action plug in can be used to publis
7. the Guild serves its constituency well We are honored to have their active engagement and participation The Guild has also established two com mittees made up of active members who help steer its events program and research efforts Discounts Discounts Discounts Guild Members receive discounts on all Guild conferences and on other selected products and services Your Guild membership will save you 20 off the list price of Guild events Become a member today Join online at www eLearningGuild com GU or007 Z AMWNYGad TWNUNOL SHIdOTINIG ONINWVITG FHL
8. your exclusive needs and convenience If your needs or tools change so can the repos itory You have created for yourself an Open Source solution For that reason the XML repository is simpler and less difficult to upgrade than many propri etary solutions XML and SGML were developed specif ically to provide a structure and method ology for content reuse Many of the les sons learned from early SGML implemen tations were built into XML which pro vides a more streamlined and less labor DESIGN strategies intensive means of achieving high quality content reuse Question If XML repositories are so great then why doesn t anyone market an XML repository as an LCMS Answer Practically all LCMS vendors are organized according to a service con sulting business model They invest mas sive amounts of time and money to cre ate efficient systems which they practi Cally give away for free They do this so that they can sell you customizations service training maintenance and sup port A pure XML repository system could be serviced and maintained by a wide variety of vendors so they might never earn back the investment they made in creating the solution The proprietary product offer does tie the business to the vendor but it also ties the vendor to the business because the vendor has a huge stake in the out come of the LCMS implementation TABLE 1 Objectives and Limitations in the steps to a XML repositor
9. A19 JHL DESIGN latrategies FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL 14 oriented than the preceding sections In general open source solutions require a more technically oriented user To make up for this they may contain extremely powerful features that are not available in other products at any price let alone for free Many Open Source software solutions are available without acquisi tion cost though the real cost of owner ship may be considerably higher Some examples of Open Source tools include e Bitflux Editor A browser based WYSI WYG XML editor written in JavaScript that uses XML XSLT and CSS for ren SIDEBAR Definitions Taxon A taxon is a category of information An internally consistent collection of taxons constitutes a taxonomy Open Source solution An open source application is one in which you have access to every line of code If you have the expertise you can modify it in whatever way is nec essary for your own purposes rather than bartering with a vendor to get changes implemented sec ond hand COTS Commercial Off The Shelf ISO International Standards Organization This is a network of national standards institutes from 147 countries working in partner ship with international organizations governments industry business and consumer representatives It is a bridge between public and private sectors Bi fi This term refers to selec
10. HTML generated by Webworks from Adobe FrameMaker files may not behave well in Macromedia Dreamweaver as noted earlier in the section Adobe and FrameMaker Dreamweaver has less tol erance of HTML code that it interprets as badly formed XML HTML is well formed when it conforms to the syntax of the version of HTML supplied in the docu ment definition It should be noted that using Adobe FrameMaker to write HTML results in Web sites that lack many of the features needed for richly interactive e Learning The combination of Web works and FrameMaker works best for document based learning where a large volume of information must be provided to the student as reference material The big advantage of Macromedia Dreamweaver is that many people feel comfortable with it It is another learning step but a relatively easy one to under stand how to import and export XML in Dreamweaver Again it is of paramount importance that the templates into which XML is imported are used verbatim It is a very good idea to have those tem plates generated by expert consultants if sufficient Dreamweaver specific expert ise does not exist in your organization Authorware and Flash It is perfectly possible to create learning objects in Flash or Authorware and store them in the XML repository It is usually a good idea to break up longer Flash and Authorware segments into scenes In this way you can reuse particular content without having to modif
11. L environment designers still find the abili ty to easily query the database invalu able It should be noted here that no con tent management system can stand in for the designer s knowledge and under standing of the corpus for which training is developed XML has no real impact upon the analysis or discovery phases of new training development XML is only a set of tools Having the skills to manipu late those tools does not in and of itself result in training any more than reading a manual makes you an expert How the content is organized into new instances is a question of authoring tools not XML Multi sourcing Multi sourcing has been the Holy Grail of the documentation industry for a gen eration Simply put information goes in the hopper press button A and a good marketing document results Press but ton B and you get a User Manual and pressing button C creates the getting started pamphlet that goes in the box with the product The heart of multi sourcing is content reuse Until the advent of SGML content reuse was impractical until the advent of XML content reuse was out of the reach of all but the largest organizations and institutions But in the last 30 years tremendous advances have been made in content reuse technology to enable multi sourcing of documents Whenever the notion of content reuse is raised one hears the same kinds of objections voiced time and time again These kinds of question
12. L in this sense is like a common form of notes with which we annotate each others work so that we can access it and reuse it when that is the best thing to do e How can leave out technical infor mation in one document but include it in another This becomes something of a tool question What are you authoring with You may collect the entire content for a document and run through it individualiz ing it for this instance cleaning up any transitions and outputting the result Instead of copying and pasting text between documents you are attaching document objects to one another like a jigsaw puzzle Pieces that work well con secutively have the right shape to fit together that way They add up together you edit them as needed and produce the finished product e What prevents this from resulting in documents that seem mechanized and impersonal This is not a machine imitation of human communication This is human beings using a system of shortcuts to make their work easier and more produc tive Certainly it can sound mechanized and artificial but it doesn t have to be so When the same item or process is described identically in five different places in four different classes is that mechanical or is it using repetition to reinforce e What about the shifting voices of the authors won t that cause confusion Do you have more than one instruc tional designer on your staff now Are your students confu
13. Manager of e Learning TDS Telecom used to create more and more instance documents those documents become progressively less expensive to create manage and update It makes it possible to do the previously unthinkable e Provide an individualized training syllabus for every employee e Implement weekly updates across training syllabi e Create monthly updates to training e Ensure global identification of misinfor mation e Provide personalized Web based train ing tied to employee reviews By increasing the efficiency with which content can be created the quality and timeliness of all the training deliverables can be increased without raising the cost into the stratosphere Process As H L Mencken said For every human problem there is a neat simple solution and it is always wrong This section describes the develop ment process used to implement the XML content reuse system Each descrip tion includes a discussion of the costs and benefits associated with each process Manual reuse systems In traditional project oriented design settings each new project was a sepa rate entity Analysis development and production were defined by the time line and requirements of each discrete proj ect and instructional designers pro duced design and content as an artisan custom crafting a product for a customer When this process has worked correctly it has worked very well Students receive curriculum t
14. abilities There are two approaches to legacy content that are usually successful e Identify a small select team of design ers who specialize in converting con tent They do nothing else until the original body of required content has been put into the database e Spread the conversion duties among all the design team Each member converts documents among their other duties but at least a fixed minimum number of hours per week The advantage of the first method is that you generally obtain a more consis tent conversion with fewer errors The advantage of the second method is that you train your entire group in the XML database and process You also may learn some things early on that allow you to modify the database or your process es so that they are more applicable to your training As with any complex operation when there are advantages there are also risks The risk inherent in the first method is that it may result in a fully functional content base but with no one trained to use it properly The second method risks creating a database with so many inconsistencies that it is practi cally useless The correct method for each organization depends upon the technical background of the team and their workload Organizations with lower levels of technical proficiency and higher per capita workload generally do better with the first method Using chunked content The theory of developing new docu ments from legacy c
15. anager e ID GL Adobe InDesign GoLive combination e DW Macromedia Dreamweaver e AT Arbortext Editor e XM XMetaL e OS Open Source tools in aggregate for the same return Arbortext Epic Editor is the best of a series of content editors that have attempted to get the most out of XML structure allowing users to see a visual representation of their output Given that the designer understands XML and the learning content Epic can out perform FrameMaker as a tool for importing and creating new content The Epic editor is very often imitated by LCMS vendors that work in structured document for mats Corel XMetaL Corel XMetaL is part of a suite of XML applications It is an ad vanced structured editor that is relatively easy to use and highly customizable for applications based on well known DTDs It provides three views of an XML docu ment a plain text view in which you can view the underlying XML code a tags on view in which elements are represented as symbols in a formatted document and a normal view that displays the for matted document and hides the markup XMetaL supports use of cascading style sheets CSS to control the formatted Documentation Vv DESIGN strategies view of the document on screen Unlike an HTML editor such as HoTMetaL that works with a fixed tag set XMetaL is meant to be used with any DTD and therefore requires cus tomization You will need a cascading style sheet an
16. anager for creating editing and organizing presentation templates and related assets a metadata manager for viewing and defining content types and associations a category browser for managing a hierarchy of subject headings that may be applied to con tent items and administrative and management tools for creating and editing user attributes and tracking global work flow statistics e OpenLMS A LMS made at the Department of Geography Norwegian University of Science and Technology NTNU The system is a fully function al LMS with support for group collabo ration file sharing distribution of lec tures and other supporting features It is a good tool for distributing lecture notes to groups of students and for facilitating collaboration for groups of students and teachers e Moodle A LMS for producing Internet based course Web sites It is written in PHP and is easy to install and use on Linux Windows and Mac OS X It has been designed to support modern pedagogies based on social constructionist theory and includes activity modules such as forums resources journals quizzes Surveys choices and assignments It has been translated into 30 languages with more on the way Moodle offers a free alternative to commercial software such as WebCT and Blackboard and is being used by a growing number of universities schools and independent teachers for distance education or to supplement face to face teaching e An
17. and production people get used to using the system to produce the required results productivity increases and frustration decreases There will be some people who simply cannot adjust to the new work methods just as there were some very talented people who could produce marvelous typed documents but who could never quite make a word processor work right Some authoring environments such as Epic Editor work from the data struc ture to the content At the beginning these tools can be difficult for some designers to understand and use effi ciently After the designers become famil iar with the database structure they rap idly learn to navigate through the maze of information they encounter on cross functional teams to find the parcels they want In practice authors working with common standardized documents rapid ly learn the five or six elements they must identify to generate the greater por tion of their training It is more difficult Publish Select Output Format Define Objectives Search Legacy Content Validate Legacy Content Supplement Legacy Content FIGURE 2 The authoring process is an iterative cycle Z 007 Z AYYNYAId IYNYNOF SYIdOTINIG ONINYWIT9 FHL E FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL DESIGN latrategies in the beginning than cutting and past ing content but once you get into your stride it becomes 10 times faster and easier to do your job Even in a pure XM
18. d in most cases a set of macros for data entry for each new DTD XMetaL supports the Windows Scripting Host which means that you can write scripts in JavaScript VBScript Perl or Python to process XML documents or to create custom data entry interfaces XMetaL is intended to be integrated as a component of a broader XML solution such as a content management system The new Version 1 2 adds a built in XSLT transformation engine Open Source Tools In addition to the commercial offerings from vendors in the XML tools market place there is a considerable body of other tools that have been produced to support SGML and XML content manage ment by the academic and open source communities NOTE This section is more technically O avvreviatlo elt OT tapie Format conversion Y hS S sS LMS integration Native XML Online Help Y Support available Training available Y VISAIS Valid XML support Well formed XML S S S WYSIWYG v XML training Visadvanta oraq QISISISISISISIS INSISTS SN Costly SN Extensive prep required Conversions required Y Inefficient v SX SN Not an XML application Y Steep learning curve Y Training required Y Uncertain future SX SISISYS SISISISIS Very technical 0 p ord Paper A Y Web Y Other online XML EF t007 Z AYYNYJII IYNUNOF SYIdO19NIG ONINUW
19. d many more see http fresh meat net and search topic Learning Management Editor s note The third and final arti cle in this series will be published in The Journal on February 16 2004 ie REFERENCES Adobe Adobe solutions for document gen eration http www adobe com products server pdfs document_generation_wp pdf December 2003 Adobe Safeco http www adobe com financial pdfs safeco pdf March 2003 Daly Paul and Watchorn Helen Word and XML Making the twain meet Journal of XML Europe 2001 2001 Horton William and Horton Katherine E Learning Tools and Technologies Wiley Indianapolis IN 2003 Hughes Michael Keeping just in time from being way too little Performance Improve ment 42 6 37 40 July 2003 ISO Online International Organization for Standardization ISO Online Web Site 2003 Paille Gerry Norman Solvig Prescott Klassen John Maxwell The Effect of Using Structured Documents SGML in Instructional Design http naweb unb ca proceed ings 1999 paille paille html February 1999 AUTHOR CONTACT i Henry Meyerding is an instructional designer with experience in the telecom munications and software industries Trained in Engineering Henry s career gradually changed from doing engineering to explaining to others what engineering had accomplished More than fifteen years in the field of technical documentation provided many lessons
20. e XML con tent This means that it is not neces sary to parse the XML and XSLT together to result in a formatted document in stance As the document is created by adding structural components to the cur rent document the user sees the final format of their document This only makes sense when you are using Frame Maker as your publication tool Other wise what the author sees is only the best approximation the XML programmer can make with an XSLT of the normal output from FrameMaker styles Adobe FrameMaker can export files directly through Webworks to HTML See the notation under Dreamweaver later in this article about working with Webworks generated source code as an HTML output This is an option for train ing projects that rely extensively on inter related print and online media It can be easier to coordinate and publish the required learning materials if they are developed as a single source project The base content is available from the XML repository either as FrameMaker files or directly as XML Adobe FrameMaker also exports into Adobe Acrobat very well Creating Acro bat files with FrameMaker allows you to include a lot of advanced Acrobat fea tures such as bookmarks different kinds of linking different security modes and so forth directly in the FrameMaker document rather than having to modify the resulting PDF with Acrobat later Creating Acrobat files with other pro grams such as Microsoft W
21. ent The eLearning Developers Journal The Guild publishes the only online e Journal in the e Learning industry that is focused on delivering real world how to make it happen in your organization information The Journal is published weekly and fea tures articles written by both industry experts and members who work every day in environments just like yours As an active member you will have unlimited access to the Journal archive People Connecting With People The Guild provides a variety of online member networking tools including an Information Exchange and a Job Board These services enable mem bers to discuss topics of importance to ask others to help them find infor mation they need and to provide leads to other members About the Guild Resources Resources Resources The Guild hosts the e Learning indus try s most comprehensive resource knowledge database Currently there are over 4 500 resources available Members have access to all of these resources and they can also post resources at any time Guild Research The Guild has an ongoing industry research service that conducts sur veys on a variety of topics each year These topics are identified by the Research Committee The data col lected is available for all Members It s About Leadership The Guild draws leadership from an amazing Advisory Board made up of individuals who provide insight and guidance to help ensure that
22. ent information In addition documents can draw upon multiple sources to populate document instances XML content PeopleSoft SAP LMS and other server content can combine into a single docu ment instance that the user receives Adobe has many products and ser vices designed for XML based solution environments XML technology and Adobe software work together in a highly com plementary fashion See Figure 3 below representing the Adobe Document Ser ver solution implementation of XML This is not an accident Adobe InDesign and GoLive Page orient ed software used for brochures and pre sentations allows a lot of flexibility and precision in placing content on each page Document oriented software used for manuals and other books is intend ed for larger more complex documents Connectivity SOM WTN POF Library XML Developers Toolkit FIGURE 3 Adobe Document Server solution implementation of XML BE t00z 2 AYYNYJId TUNYNOF SH9d079NI0 ONINUWA19 JHL De FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL DESIGN strategies where management of cross references indices and other features is more important Adobe InDesign is page oriented soft ware that includes built in extensible support for importing and exporting XML files InDesign also allows you to export pages directly to Adobe GoLive 6 0 to use in dynamically generating Web pages It supports Scalable Vector Graphics SVG and shar
23. ert XML content into a doc or rtf for mat so that it can be brought into Word For example if you are working with an XML document instance you can pro cess that instance into rtf format and send it to a reviewer who prefers to edit in Word The problem happens when that review is returned to you and you wish to transfer those edits back into XML con tent People quite often learn to use Word by trial and error without instruction They seldom know how to use templates or the styles they contain When they want to have something in a different font or size they apply that change from A structured docu ment view for creating valid XML several different levels of styles and the ability to discard excep tions to styles are three of the most important features that impact XML For this reason Adobe FrameMaker is the WYSI WYG authoring tool of choice for XML applications the tool bar instead of applying a stan dard style to the text Some Word users seem addicted to the space bar instead of setting tabs appropriately they achieve their indents through the use of multiple spaces Word documents often contain revisions highlighted text and complex section breaking This kind of formatting makes programmatic chunking very diffi cult Because users seldom use Microsoft Word properly it is rarely possible to con vert Microsoft Word files to XML pro grammatically Therefore using Word decreases the producti
24. g in common with the WRONG way with the added disadvantage that it may actually make your application or their documents unstable Unfortunately for anyone who is facing the prospect of converting documents from various formats to XML there is a considerable amount more WRONG and OTHER than there is RIGHT out there to be converted Computers are infinitely stupid and must be told precisely what to do In order for consistent content to result from an automated conversion to XML consistent base content must be available Consistency in the use of content cre ation applications is not a hallmark of most groups of instructional designers Designers on a deadline are pragmatic and care more about making it work now than about finding out how to make it work right later It is paradoxical that a less intuitive tool which requires more instruction and has a steeper learning curve may be used more correctly and consistently than the naturally intuitive tool that everybody figures out for them selves Microsoft Word Microsoft Word is the ubiquitous tool that does not play well with others It has a long history of file format changes and inscrutable macros Whether it can be used in conjunction with an XML con tent repository and how well it can be used comes down to two things styles and templates To use Microsoft Word as an authoring tool is certainly possible It is a fairly simple process to create an XSLT to con v
25. h docu ments in HTML or PDF format The edi tor is composed of three views tree view attribute view for current ele ment and a styled view The aim of styled view is to show the document with a visual aspect e Morphon XML Editor A validating WYSIWYG XML editor that lets you cre ate and modify XML documents in an intuitive manner Using DTDs and CSS the editor guarantees the integrity of your XML documents and presents them in a consistent and user friendly way The XML editor is bundled with the Morphon CSS Editor that can be used to customize your CSS allowing you to change every aspect of the way the XML editor presents your docu ment while editing The CSS editor can also be used stand alone to directly create CSS for the Web e exchanger The eXchaNGeR XML browser is a browser and editor frame work written in Java that visualizes elements in a XML document The user can browse through and manage the visible elements in the document with external services or make changes to the content of the XML document with the built in XML editor e Arsdigita CMS A powerful content management system It has a task list for production staff to track assign ments and the status of current work items a site map browser to view and organize pages and content items and determine access control to branches of the site a standard interface for creating editing approving and deploying content items a template m
26. hat is specifically fashioned to address their needs Trainers and designers can be student advocates at many different levels Everybody wins However there are some important limi tations to this methodology It is important to understand that these limitations and disadvantages are not a function of the skills or artistry of the designer However dedicated and tal ented a designer might be if armed only with a typewriter and a mimeograph machine he will be at a disadvantage compared with someone of perhaps more pedestrian talents who is provided with computers and Web based delivery options Do you have an interesting strategy or technique to share Get It Published in THE L_EARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL This publication is by the people for the people That means it s written by YOU the readers and members of The eLearning Guild We encourage you to submit articles for publication in the Journal Even if you have not been published before we encourage you to submit a query if you have a great idea technique case study or practice to share with your peers in the e Learning community If your topic idea for an article is selected by the edi tors you will be asked to submit a complete article on that topic Don t worry if you have limited experience writing for publication Our team of editors will work with you to polish your article and get it ready for publication in the Journal By sharing your e
27. ification to accomplish For example consider an Offer Brief a document that quickly informs sales staff of new offers pricing and condi tions that apply to selling a product or service within a given market These things are constantly changing It is a major task to keep this kind of training content accurate and timely Most of the documents have a similar look and feel There may be specific types for different audiences or products but a single item of information may find its way into 30 or AO different presentations Along the way it may get a different style it may appear in a table here and in a para graph of text there but the data behind it is identical It is possible with each new iteration to do a keyword search through a documentation set and locate all known matches then copy in the revised information That usually takes too much time and trouble to be worth doing on a regular basis unless it is very special information In comparison with a properly consti tuted XML repository the process is much more direct Instead of working backwards from finished documents to find the appearance of specific content in context the source content is already organized according to what it contains The author goes to that container revis es it refreshes the repository and the next time the document instance is called it collects its source content from the updated source applies the proper formatting and comp
28. iles the finished document All 30 or 40 documents that touch this same source content are thus automatically updated There was more work done in the very beginning to properly analyze and attrib ute the content but as the content is April 19 21 2004 Boston Massachusetts I U M Flash is one of the most used web tools for e Learning develop ment but until now there hasn t been an event for you to really Definitely the most valuable conference I ve ever attended This symposium format allows for discussion debate reflection and ideas exchange and L FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL learn how you can leverage the power of Flash in your e Learning applications The eLearning Flash Developer s Symposium will get that s where the REAL you under the hood of Flash to teach you the tips and tricks that value is Thank you for will help you create more effective e Learning You will discover making the faculty time saving techniques learn from practical case studies and gain war available for questions insights from e Learning Flash experts A wide variety of examples and discussions throughout the entire will be used to illustrate the many ways you can use this versatile development tool event Register Today To learn more about The eLearning Management Symposium go to www eLearningGuild com Sandy Ellis Byre Associate
29. in information systems most of them relevant to learning design The focus of Henry s career came to center on instruc tional design largely through participation in rework of documentation masquerading as training so that it turned into actual training He found that he enjoyed working with stu dents to overcome obstacles to learning and as a result Henry has concentrated on devel oping blended learning solutions He lives in Sultan WA with his wife and four children After being outsourced for the second time to the same outsourcing firm he is currently seeking other opportunities and working on a book project to explain practical instructional design theory and method to technical docu mentators Contact Henry by email hwm goomba com Additional information on the topics covered in this article is also listed in the Guild Resource Directory F THE ELEARNING hb UILD The eLearning Guild is a Community of Practice for design ers developers and managers of e Learning Through this member driv en community we provide high quality learning opportunities networking services resources and publica tions Community members represent a diverse group of instructional designers content developers Web developers project managers con tractors consultants and managers and directors of training and learning services all of whom share a com mon interest in e Learning design development and managem
30. ing of native Photoshop and Illustrator files and it can share these with GoLive Through its tagged Adobe PDF support InDesign exports graphically sophisticated eBooks that can be viewed on different devices InDesign also supports Adobe Extensible Metadata Platform XMP for embedding metadata in documents Because it is a page oriented develop ment tool as opposed to document ori ented Adobe InDesign is a good choice for small two to five page documents where consistent look and feel is very important marketing materials offer briefs and so forth Many users find FrameMaker difficult to use in smaller graphics intense documents InDesign can be an excellent alternative Adobe GoLive is Adobe s competitor for Macromedia Dreamweaver It does just about everything that Dreamweaver does only a little differently What it does not do as well as Dreamweaver is integrate as well with Authorware and Flash Both GoLive and Dreamweaver will send you scurrying into the source code at edit time The WYSIWYG editing mode is very nice and handy but it is madden ingly imprecise If lo fi Web development is practically all your output then GoLive may be an excellent choice particularly if you are wishing to integrate more closely with print deliverable development using FrameMaker If hi fi Web content is the majority of your online offering then Dreamweaver has the edge in integrating with Flash and Authorware Macromedia Drea
31. initions This taxonomy of information makes useful reuse feasi ble The application of this useful taxono my to enterprise information is what determines whether the content reuse system produces benefits for the organi zation or becomes just another expensive good idea All learning objects are defined by tax onomies These taxonomies express the Continued on next page p fawn et rannego QL JOURNAL Two weeks ago the first article in this series introduced the basics and the termi nology of XML for designing and using learning objects In designing content reuse systems for e Learning the big gest issues are the taxonomy the pro cess and the tools Read this article for a complete review of these issues and a summary of tools that you may consider for your own content reuse implementation A publication of L THE ELEARNING E FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL THE LEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL Publisher David Holcombe Editorial Director Heidi Fisk Editor Bill Brandon Copy Editor Charles Holcombe Design Director Nancy Marland The eLearning Guild Advisory Board Ruth Clark Conrad Gottfredson John Hartnett Bill Horton Kevin Moore Eric Parks Brenda Pfaus Marc Rosenberg Allison Rossett Copyright 2004 The eLearning Developers Journal Compilation copyright by The eLearning Guild 2004 All rights reserved Please contact The eLearning Guild for reprin
32. ld s ONLINE FORUM SERIES The eLearning Guild has created The Guild Online Forum Series a new series of online events that will be held throughout 2004 On the 2nd Thursday of every month except January you can register to participate as an individual or as a group in a one day virtual conference that includes four highly interactive seventy five minute sessions designed to Here s how the Online Forums work set up your meeting 7 _ 7 neem room and have your Mi PN E gt f e Learning team i _ raimu participate in an J _s Coles hee EH Here s a brief descrip tion of the first Online Forum in the series FEBRUARY 12 2004 Managing and Delivering High Impact Synchronous e Learning Acquire a comprehensive understand ing of how to manage and deliver syn chronous e Learning Discover how instructional design for the synchronous environment differs from design for the classroom or asynchronous e Learning Learn how to develop the skills needed to be an effective online trainer Target Audience This Online Forum is geared for anyone who is exploring the acquisition and deployment of syn chronous e Learning technologies and for those looking for ways to maximize their current use of synchronous tech nologies To learn more about each upcoming Online Forum and to register go to www eLearningGuild com more use of each others work as reuse content XM
33. mweaver For online content Macromedia Dreamweaver is one of the most popular WYSIWYG HTML editors Unfortunately like Microsoft Word it is often misused Many people learn Dreamweaver by using it without any training Like Word Dreamweaver has many buttons and widgets that are convenient but don t result in very good or consistent HTML For example some The big advantage of Dreamweaver is that many people feel comfort able with it It is another learning step but a rela tively easy one to under stand how to import and export XML in Dreamweaver Again it is of paramount importance that the tem plates into which XML is imported are used verbatim one may have extensive experience cre ating Web content with Dreamweaver but not have a clue about using templates Dreamweaver s WYSIWYG editor is as noted above imprecise and you cannot make many edits without having re course to the source code Templates are very important Dreamweaver uses templates much in the way that Frame Maker does to add format to XML con tent Dreamweaver imports XML into templates and generates HTML directly Dreamweaver also exports XML content which is efficient for people who like to work in HTML but want the advantages of an XML repository NOTE Dreamweaver does a good job of exporting the editable portions of tem plates as XML However it only checks whether the content is well formed XML not whether it is valid XML
34. nage con tent they suffer from a lack of flexibility and timeliness Everything that is true of document management tools locking you into par ticular tools and processes is also true of LMS LCMS deployments only much more so Most LCMSs have their own content creation tools which may be very well intentioned but which also may fall very short of the functionality and finesse represented by other commercial applications Of course most will work with major content generators more or less such as MS Word and Adobe FrameMaker but they increase the com plication of version upgrades by several orders of magnitude This is a significant expense that must be factored into the cost of ownership and operation of these systems The best of the available LCMS sys tems are blended XML solutions These systems use XML XSLT technology as a transformation mechanism but retain a proprietary data architecture for data base functions In this way they have many of the advantages of XML technolo gy such as interoperability SCORM com pliance and access to XML enhance ments and they can also customize the database engine to provide better sys tem performance for content manage ment functions OutStart Evolution Aspen and learn eXact are all exam ples of blended XML systems Once you have an XML repository your repository can inter operate with other systems such as LMSs or even LCMSs but the content is organized for
35. nd repurposed much more efficiently than legacy content The content does not hide in a forest of words When need ed new and legacy content can be efficiently blended to create education al tools to suit different needs of dif ferent student audiences e Learning content is organized for use Related content is accessible Related procedures and policies are obvious as are conflicts and inconsisten cies e Because the relationships between concepts and ideas are mapped according to the taxonomy by which the content was chunked identifying content for reuse and the updating of legacy materials is significantly streamlined e Content conforms to Information Tech nology standards to ensure portability and long term use There are three steps in the process of implementing an XML content reuse system 1 Analysis 2 Chunking 3 Op eration The process is very simple in theory e A document type definition DTD is selected and tested e The repository is created using tables that mirror the DTD e Legacy content is converted to XML e XML content is placed in the repository e Users query the database to construct new documents e Users add new content to the reposito ry as needed As mentioned before the initial analy sis is perhaps the most difficult stage of the implementation and it is the one stage that has the most persistent effects Having once decided upon the one and only way of parsing the conten
36. nt reason for having a repository is to facilitate collaboration between content creators editors and production staff One mistake often made with a complex repository is to make customized views that are not shared between different team mem bers This can be frustrating and time consuming Once everyone has gone through the arduous task of chunking and labeling their legacy content this content needs to be put into a repository where it can be easily accessed The best way to do this for instructional designers is to put the content into a version control system that is linked to a database ClearCase for example is a version control application that can present sev eral different views of the repository for different uses One view presents a virtu al file server that contains all the most recent versions of the training docu ments Another view presents selected documents to a Web server or LMS Yet another view presents the XML database elements Other views can be developed for specific uses such as creating archives of content presenting catalogs of approved artwork or source content for other servers such as Adobe Document Server or FrameMaker Server The road to XML content reuse is sim ply a progression of responses faced by learning organizations Generally speak ing there are six steps taken on the path from no content sharing and reuse to a comprehensive XML repository system 1 File Server
37. omponents is fairly simple if the repository is implemented properly First the designer needs to know what previous training this new training is similar to This is accom plished by querying the database and seeing what existing content comes fairly close to the current need If it is com pletely new and dissimilar from other training then the designer gets nothing from the repository but templates Hav ing made a shrewd guess about some other similar training the designer has to define how this new training is differ ent from the similar training that has been identified One method of handling the query process is by a Web page containing drop down field list properties Define five or six of these properties and then add in some more specific customizing terms click SUBMIT and get back a list of matching content It is just like doing a Web search except that the Web you are searching is a discrete database What is returned from the search can take many different forms FrameMaker DESIGN strategies documents raw XML Word documents or HTML When the query results in more hits than desired then reformu late it to be more specific If little or nothing results then try a more general query until you get the desired results The authoring process is iterative a succession of repetitive operations per formed to collect modify and upload new content See Figure 2 below As time goes by and the authors
38. on board for each article The articles contained in the Journal are all written by people who are actively engaged in this profession at one level or another not by paid journalists or writers Submissions are always welcome at any time as are sugges tions for articles and future topics To learn more about how to submit articles and or ideas please refer to the directions in the box on page 5 or visit www eLearningGuild com DESIGN strategies way in which each object is understood used and maintained In evaluating how to construct learning object models for an XML repository it is very important to understand that these models are used to define queries The value of the sys tem depends upon the ease and accura cy of queries Many organizations discov ered too late that they had expended substantial resources in creating an XML or SGML repository that provided no additional benefit over cutting and past ing documents from a file server be cause their content authors could not find anything in the repository Repository design A content repository has several differ ent purposes e To store controlled versions of docu ments e To store current versions of learning objects e To store in work versions of learning objects e To publish content to Web servers e To publish content to other servers Learning Management Systems abbreviated as LMS e To function as an ISO Repository The most importa
39. ord is much less efficient unless the advanced fea tures of the Acrobat format are not needed The downside of Adobe FrameMaker is that all this additional capability comes at a cost it is not really very intuitive especially for designers who are accus tomed to Microsoft Word It requires spe cialized technical expertise to set up cor rectly Once it is set up designers must be extensively trained in how to use FrameMaker properly Many Word users are frustrated by the additional structure imposed by using XML On the plus side FrameMaker helps users to construct valid XML and informs them when their content is not valid Of course once they know that their content is not valid they may need to have someone handy who really knows FrameMaker and its tem plates to help them fix it Templates are the key It is absolutely necessary to employ a dedicated Adobe FrameMaker expert to create templates Most organizations do this on a consult ing basis with one of the many Adobe FrameMaker consulting firms Adobe has extensive training resour ces available for a fee They have a great deal of experience in implementing Adobe FrameMaker as an enterprise tool If your organization makes a top level commitment to pursue an Adobe enabled XML solution you ll find that the kind of support and expertise available from Adobe is unequaled elsewhere in the industry FrameMaker Server Adobe FrameMaker Server provides an opportuni
40. rable adapters for Documentum Oracle CM SDK formerly named iFS and FileNet Panagon Content Services Arbortext s other repository partners pro vide adapters to Epic Editor including BroadVision One To One Enterprise empolis SigmaLink Progressive Information Technologies Target 2000 and XyEnterprise Content Arbortext offers separate products for content conversion and publishing The Enterprise E Content Engine E3 con verts content from Microsoft Word Adobe FrameMaker and Interleaf docu ments to XML and publishes dynamic content to print or PDF and Web or wire less To publish to CD ROM Arbortext offers the CD ROM Composer This E content Engine is an off the shelf parser that can be used to auto mate many different kinds of legacy chunking operations It does not work miracles nothing will correctly parse badly formatted Microsoft Word files That process requires human interven tion and exercise of good judgment However it does provide to the enter prise a tool the equal of or better than many learning content parsers that typi cally require a much higher investment Summary of tools Table 2 right provides a quick refer ence for some of the important tools that have been discussed in this sec tion The following abbreviations are used in Table 2 e Word Microsoft Word current XP version some features available at additional cost e FM Adobe FrameMaker FM Server Adobe Document M
41. rsions of standard tools and fringe tools complicates things and makes people less effi cient The cost of maintaining learning materials sourced in multiple tools is enormous Standardization on a few tools and methods makes a substan tial difference to the production cycle XML automated systems Figure 1 below describes a content authoring and delivery system for both online and hard copy training deliver ables In this example light blue indi cates tools from Adobe orange indicates tools from Macromedia yellow indicates tools from Microsoft and purple indi cates tools for open source components or outputs This is only one of many equivalent solutions The structured approach to instruction al design is seen to have the following benefits as William and Katherine Horton point out in e Learning Tools and Technologies e The same courses are delivered across multiple media and delivery environments Just because it hap pened to be developed by X using Y this doesn t stand in the way of it being reused in a completely different environment or with different tools e The structured development model supports a consistent instructional design and development process FrameMaker Document FIGURE 1 This content authoring and delivery system produces both online and hard copy training deliverables Designers have many new options that come from an efficient production design e XML content can be analyzed a
42. s are entirely typ ical and a natural reaction to the concept of content management and reuse Adopting an XML or other reuse system asks people who already know how to do something well to change their process and to adopt methods they do not know The following Frequently Asked Questions FAQs are the four most com mon questions asked by seasoned designers e How will XML help me to tailor my materials to meet the needs of my audi ence When you are creating training now if you have a good useful piece of content that speaks to the same point in another class don t you copy and paste it in If you could do this more often and maintain the same quality of output would you do it We all do that within the body of our own work and some times from other authors too We use our own documents as a source for reuse because we are intimately familiar with them We know we can find that great paragraph we used to describe that weird thingamajig More seasoned auth ors annotate their own works with notes that help them find those good opportu nities to reuse content If we work for long enough with another designer who does the same we can get so that we can read each other s notes and make explore a specific topic Individual or Site Registration ip Participate as an individual or you can pay a site fee Online Forum as a group e Learning for e Learning Professionals The eLearning Gui
43. s than a fully developed product offer ing and do not offer the reliability fea tures or performance of commercial off the shelf COTS solutions Reusing content Legacy content comes in many differ ent forms Most of these forms repre sent document instances Most organiza tions attempt to maintain a repository of these document instances according to some meaningful hierarchy ISO docu mentation standards are an example of this kind of document centric hierarchy If documents are correctly named stored and updated then the information they contain can be reused but the process is slow laborious and susceptible to human error The utility of simple file sharing is inversely proportional to the number of documents to be shared When existing content is chunked it usually begins in documents that are broken down into component topics and THE ELEARNING FLASH DEVELOPER S 5S Y MP O then broken again into smaller pieces identified as introduction main body and transitions Content should sound natu ral and appear to have been written specifically for each use Content also is chunked by audience and complexity so that relevant material and more complex discussion can be added or removed easily Audience plays a big role in content reuse Identifying specific blocks of infor mation as appropriate or inappropriate for different audiences can simplify docu ment creation immensely It also is the hardest class
44. sed by having to attend classes created by different peo ple in isolation When everyone else s work is more available and when oppor tunities for collaboration and knowledge sharing are facilitated by the system instead of being hampered by it will that not help these different people find a more common voice If you never sing in a choir you never get the knack of sing ing like everyone else Single sourcing All printed documents since Gutenberg were multiple copies of a single original source single sourced documents until quite late in the 20th century Advanced it must be admitted that the best tools will not make a poor designer pro duce excellent training content Really good tools have been used to camou flage poor design It is cer tainly easier for an incom petent instructional design er to produce much poorer training deliverables with an XML content reuse sys tem than when working alone with MS Word printing technology allowed compositors to create multiple versions of documents by reusing the same printing plate sources in different permutations Computers made practically anything possible but only a comparatively tiny slice of the possible became routine In an enterprise environment there are many uses to which information is put Some of those uses include docu mentation training knowledge base applications and marketing Traditionally these disparate uses have all main tained
45. t staff members are carefully trained in how to accomplish the chunking of lega cy content into the system Legacy content chunking Whether this chunking process is slow and manual or quick and automated real ly depends on how much legacy content was created by properly using standard ized styles and templates If practically none of the content was created using standard styles and templates then there is a great deal of manual evalua tion that must be done The most important aspect of the chunking process is to have the people doing the chunking UNDERSTAND what they are doing This is best accomplished by providing them with thorough training support and supervision Consistency is the key Select a single process train everyone in that process and execute the process without exception NOTE The importance of thorough and consistent content editing increases by several orders of magnitude when con tent is entered into the database Enter it wrong once use it wrong many times Michael Hughes says it best Organizations that implement highly configurable or customizable products need to rely on their software vendors to meet the early training needs of the plan ners and technicians To the degree that they wish to own or control product con figuration customization and the ongo ing support of those modifications they also need to be prepared to invest in the staff development required to enable those cap
46. t permission The eLearning Developers Journal is published weekly by The eLearning Guild 525 College Avenue Suite 215 Santa Rosa CA 95404 Phone 707 566 8990 The eLearning Guild is an operating unit of Focuszone Media Inc 1030 Beatrice Street Eagan MN 55121 The Journal is included as part of Guild membership To join the Guild go to www eLearningGuild com The eLearning Developers Journal is design ed to serve the industry as a catalyst for inno vation and as a vehicle for the dissemination of new and practical strategies and techniques for e Learning designers developers and man agers The Journal is not intended to be the definitive authority Rather it is intended to be a medium through which e Learning practi tioners can share their knowledge expertise and experience with others for the general betterment of the industry As in any profession there are many differ ent perspectives about the best strategies techniques and tools one can employ to accom plish a specific objective This Journal will share these different perspectives and does not posi tion any one as the right way but rather we position each article as one of the right ways for accomplishing a goal We assume that readers will evaluate the merits of each article and use the ideas they contain in a manner appropriate for their specific situation We encourage discussion and debate about articles and provide an Online Discussi
47. their separate knowledge manage ment environments As a result the information provided by these various sources is usually inconsistent and in the worst case it results in considerable misinformation No one would think of using typewrit ers and mimeographs for corporate com munication anymore although these were once ubiquitous In the near future single source systems will Seem just as antiquated When these information sources are unified into a single repository from which all outputs derive significant improvements in efficiency consistency and overall quality of information result DESIGN strategies Also when the costs of implementing the content repository are spread among different organizations within the enter prise a greater return on investment nat urally occurs Communication is the unstated core competency of every successful busi ness When the information about its products processes policies and proce dures is available to all associates this has a unifying effect on all organizations within the enterprise Although the process and deliverables of different organizations vary tremendously their need for accurate and timely information is identical In its best form the XML content repository can be a significant competi tive advantage to an enterprise particu larly one that operates in diverse mar kets In this sense the economies and productivity conferred to the training organiza
48. tion are a byproduct of a larger benefit to the entire enterprise Tools Our view of the possible is shaped by our tools Carl Sagan This section analyzes some of the common tools that can be used with the XML content reuse repository There are many tools available and one size does not fit all The choice of tools is an important one because the tools will have the biggest and most immediate effect on the designers For that reason it is very important to include designers in the tool selection process Anyone who grew up in the typewriter age might well be amazed at the layout page formatting and document manage ment capabilities of the current crop of software applications As with all technol ogy systems there are prerequisites and agonizing revelations and at least three ways to do something 1 The RIGHT way the way originally envisioned by the developer and facilitat ed by the program This way works best in the long run 2 The WRONG way the way that someone found to make it work be cause they didn t know what the right way was This way complicates editing and later revision of the material 3 The OTHER way the way that out wits the program and allows you to do something that should not be done but G 1002 Z AMWNYGTd TWNYNOF SYId079NI0 ONINYWI19 JHL WO FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL DESIGN strategies needs doing This way has everything wron
49. ty to create a variety of dynamic documents These documents when accessed perform real time lookups of information from databases This allows designers to access current information in a printable form which is a great advantage for cus tomer facing training that requires fre quent updates It also could impact dif ferential training allowing designers to fill in the blanks with volatile information instead of constantly trying to keep up with maintenance changes FrameMaker server works with the FrameMaker software on the desktop to provide more groupware solutions to enterprise publication challenges It is designed for working in a distributed net EML Documents AML Fons Templates MSL nwa Ser ae LFO WSLT Tri Security and Digital Signatures j DESIGN strategies working environment and it provides convenient document management func tions from within FrameMaker itself that make many group collaborations simpler to manage Adobe Document Server Adobe Docu ment Server supports the dynamic cre ation of Adobe Acrobat documents from XML data By flowing XML data retrieved from the XML database into document templates you can generate instance documents and automated forms on demand These document instances and forms can be highly complex including graphics and audio to produce bi fi multi media presentations Because they draw their content directly from the XML data base users always get the most curr
50. vity of the design ers Word does not operate in a manner consistent with structured documents Using Word to author XML is like eating soup with a fork you can do it but it complicates things It is also true that practically every new version of Microsoft Word incorpo rates a plethora of undocumented changes in the file format Changes in the format of the resulting Word files invalidate any programmatic automation that has been created For this reason most XML content systems use the more stable but less capable rtf format to transfer files to and from Word Even though it is the most popular word processing application on the plan et many people consider that Microsoft Word has no place in an enterprise XML content reuse system In this view using word processor technology to author con tent objects is counter intuitive ineffi cient and ineffective Regardless peo ple resist trading tools even when they have good reason to do so Some dedi cated XML editors such as Epic see below even include filters to import Word content to XML Indeed there has been a significant amount of effort to create robust reliable conversion tools for making XML extracts from Word docu ments The newest generation of blend ed XML LCMSs such as OutStart Evolution includes an impressive amount of bi directional filtering of con tent to and from MS Word Some other Microsoft programs such as PowerPoint can be used to create
51. xpertise with the readers of the Journal you not only add to the collective knowledge of the e Learning community you also gain the recognition of your peers in the industry and your organization How to Submit a Query If you have an idea for an article send a plain text email to our editor Bill Brandon at bbrandon eLearningGuild com with the following information in the body of the email e A draft of the first paragraph written to grab the reader s attention and identify the problem or issue that will be addressed e A short outline of your main points addressing the problem or resolving the issue This could be another paragraph or it could be a bulleted list e One paragraph on your background or current position that makes you the one to tell this story e A working title for the article e Your contact information name job title company phone email This informa tion is to be for the writer of the article We are unable to accept queries from agents public relations firms or other third parties All of this information should fit on one page If the topic fits our editorial plan Bill will contact you to schedule the manuscript deadline and the publication date and to work out any other details Refer to www eLearningGuild com for more details DESIGN strategies G 007 Z AMUNYGIA IYNYNOF SYIdOT9NIG ONINAWITT JHL G FEBRUARY 2 2004 THE ELEARNING DEVELOPERS JOURNAL DESIGN latrategies
52. y a large compli cated segment when only part of it is desired Arbortext Epic Editor Unlike other text editors that have been stretched to fit the function of authoring XML content Arbortext Epic Editor was designed from the ground up as an XML editor It han dles a broad range of applications and does a good job of providing an editing interface for XML content The user inter face is user friendly but not at all like the standard WYSIWYG document editing environment Like Adobe FrameMaker it is a groupware product that is specific ally optimized to handle e Content collaboratively written and maintained by teams of authors work ing in multiple authoring languages e Content created in reusable compo nents independent of their formatting stored in content management reposi tories and dynamically assembled on demand e Content personalized for specific audi ences and formatted for delivery on multiple media Web CD ROM print and wireless e Content automation based on systems and software that are easily cus tomized and that leverage the broad est available support for XML and related standards e Content creation through client based installations for occasionally discon nected users and through server based installations accessed by Web browsers for users who are connected full time Out of the box Arbortext Epic Editor works with file systems and WebDAV enabled repositories and has config u
53. y system Step Objectives Limitations File Server To permit access and sharing of files between many users Slow insecure and does not scale well Version Control System To maintain different ver sions of the same docu ment so that the newest best can be identified Complex to maintain and difficult to use when additional fea tures are added Document Manager To automate more com plex features and rules Proprietary software does not keep pace with new tools and processes Learning Management System LMS tracking To improve the efficiency of training content delivery and progress Can limit designers in terms of format or delivery methods may not accommodate editing and version control well Learning Content Management System LCMS To improve the efficiency of training development through content manage ment and reuse Often includes a poor user interface exten sive customization required XML Repository To provide content reuse multiple output formats and extensibility to react to changing needs Requires rethinking of the development model by designers 7007 Z AMWNNAIA TUNUNOF SYIdOT9NIG QNINNWI19 IHL DESIGN latrategies There are some pure XML repository LCMS solutions that have been devel oped by the Open Source community principally by and for academic institu tions They are more like do it yourself kit
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