a dita–based teaching material repository with support for adaptability 8th workshop “software...

A DITA–based Teaching Material Repository with Support for Adaptability

8th Workshop “Software Engineering Education and Reverse

Engineering”, Durrës, Albania, 8 – 13 September 2008

Sam Joachim

'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 2

Agenda

Motivation, History & Background

A short system overview

Teaching Material Repository:

Current state, problems & future work


Starting point

Distributed, independent work with PPT slides: there are different independent Versions (in different language variants) originating from more or less one source

English

Version 1.1

English

Version 1.6

English

Version 2.0

Language variants

Language variants

Language variants

High effort in maintenance and for developing new materials


Learning Material Repository

Transformation Process (Idea Ravda 2006)

knowledgegrid

.doc

.pdf

.ppt

eLesson

.

.

.

Essence

What is the essence?Text? Pictures? Style?

Tool Tool 2

Automated.Some AI?

Half-bakedessence

Tool 3 Final document

Interactivity.Some NI

XML?

E- course

.ppt

.pdf (Slides)

Book or Script

.

.

.

Tool 4

(Semi)-automatic

generation of “Raw media

objects“

„Raw data“ & Media elements in XML format

Information objects (groups of objects, graphics)

(Semi)-automatic grouping of objects

Objects in some Teaching Material Language

Interactiv „Authoring by Aggregation“ process;

Use of fragments/modules for the production of new

materials


Three main decisions

Structure of the content

Publishing philosophy

System architecture

Model similar to or based on the ‘Learnativity content model’ which supports authoring by aggregation

Single source publishing

At first client – server, perhaps web frontend Later also via web services


o

n

n

n

e

ts

w

y

se

ee

y

t

ss

w

g

Learnativity Content Model (Duval & Hodgins 2003)

JCSE CourseTopicSectionAssociated Slides

Shapes,

Slid

es,

Pic

ture

s, T

extfi

eld

s


Single Source Publishing

Why Single Source Publishing ? There is a trend toward plublishing

content in different media In a manual way:

time-consuming, error-prone and expensive

en detail: Content is devided in information e.g.

paragraphs, sentences, graphics These information: - are produced only one time - are administrated in a single place - can be reused - can be used to generate output in

different media

SSP data source

Online help Slide presentations

Web Manuals, reports,

catalogues

How does SSP work? Content is managed in a single

location / source From this source: generate

specialized content for different target media


Single Source Publishing – pro & conpro

reuse of information reduction of creation time and

costs constantly changing information

decreased cost for maintenance, review and translation

consistency in the whole documentation (content and design)

no redundant information faulty information can be avoided

more easily because changes occour only in a single place (no copy & paste)

changes affect always all documents (e.g. header)

this improves the quality of the documents

con much more design complexity

because reuse has to be planed respectively information has to be structured carefully

use of tools is very necessary for producing, administrating and combining the information blocks

staff has to work with new technique


Our plan: DITA as content format

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information.

DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables.

The extensibility of DITA permits to define specific information structures and still use standard tools to work with them.

The ability to define group-specific information architectures enables DITA to support content reuse and reduce information redundancy.


System: main featuresCore: DITA as data format

DITA

.ppt

Graphical presentation

(color, fonts, shapes corporate identity)

Transformation

(both directions)

Different slide formates

(.ppt, .pdf (1, 2, 6), Lecture Notes)

Versioning of slides / objects / fragments

Input from different versions e.g. in different languages

New slides? Changed slides? Changed objects?

Aspects concerning localizing• separated management of language specific elements

Advanced features:• Creation of teaching objects for new courses / different combinations• Different output styles (Book, .html, …)• Translation support with TMS• Building new material with respect to dependencies of existing learning objects


Generic authoring system suitable for aggregation of learning objects

local file system

local file system

external content

courses

authorauthor

author

authoring environmentim

por

t exp

ort

Repository DB

learning objects meta data


adding fragments / LOs

editing fragments / LOs

arrange fragments / LOs

deleting fragments / LOs

creating LO

editing / arrange LO

adding LO to DB

editing meta data

download LOs

deleting LOs

searching LOs

Problems: PPT as editor, minimizing media and workflow breaks

UseCasesPPT

External environment

Author

Authoring environment


Repository

Meta data Learning Objects

Save

Manage Display ExportImport

Search Aggregate

Inform

Load

Finding Accessing Use

Use cases for learning objects

Learner Author Software agentsPublisher

Even more problems PPT


Functions of a learning objects

repository


Desiredarchitecture



Browser

local authoring tools

Browser

local authoring tools

Teaching material repository

Teaching material repository

Repository DB

Metadata DB

Synchronization

Synchronization

Repository DB

Metadata DB

Online

Offline


PowerPoint -> open xml format

Separation from content and layout

Problem: PPT has a lot of layout information

A DITA-based file with all the content and basic metadata information

Layout information is kept in a separate style sheet


Mainly for reducing redundancy in the database

PowerPoint.xml

Line.xmlFill.xml

Topic.xml

PowerPoint stylesheet data splitt into …



Topic.xml Main blueprint of the .ppt file All properties and shapes of:

the presentation, Slide- & TitleMastersSlides

For each shapes: name, size, place, zorder, visibility InfoType & InfoName (Metadata for description

of learning objects)



PowerPoint.xml Attribute for Rotation, HorizontalFlip, Shadow, ect. TextField properties like AutoSize, HasText,

Orientation, ect. Text properties (font, language, ect.)

Fill.xml & Line.xml Both: BackColour & ForeColour Fill: gradient, texture & pattern properties,

transparency & type Line: DashStyle, style, weight & arrow properties

(length, style, width)


Current state:

PPT ‘Com Add-Ins’ for

1. PPSplit: transforming .ppt DITA (+ stylesheets)

2. PPCompose: transformation DITA .ppt

3. PPSavePicture

4. PPCompare

Java programs:1. PPAdmin: managing splitting and recomposition

2. DBEditor: basic tool for browsing the DB, editing metadata

3. PPEditor: tool for marking learning objects


PPEditorPPEditorPPSavePicturesPPSavePictures

PPAdmin

(Split Topics)PPAdmin

(Split Topics)

DBEditorDBEditor

DB2Express-C

DB2Express-C

PPAdmin

(Send Topics)PPAdmin

(Send Topics)

StartPPSplitStartPPSplit

StartPPComposeStartPPComposePPComposePPCompose

PPEditorPPEditor

PPSplitPPSplit

Current workflow

directly from

PPT


PPAdmin: splitting .ppt file


PPAdmin: sending to DB


PPEditor: adding meta data to LO


DBAdmin: content and LO’sMeta data

PPCompare Demo


Next steps…

Improvement Versioning of content and meta data Project and author management Usability of the existing tools

Editor tools for Learning object description, esp. for dependencies Aggregation and change of materials

Support for multilinguality Translation support Import of different language versions


Thank You.Thank You.

Space for QuestionsSpace for Questions

a dita–based teaching material repository with support for adaptability 8th workshop “software...

Documents

support of adaptability

specialized content

documentation content

plublishing content

single place

learnativity content

different target mediaa

information blocksstaff