Allyn,
thank you for your comments (at the meeting and to amend the minutes)!
I've amended the meeting minutes.
I think you bring up some very salient points and we should discuss
further as part of this email list or subsequent meetings.
Best regards,
--Scott
Allyn Radford wrote:
Hi all
Just one correction in the minutes. In the notes below there is a
change required to the following statement:
Allyn brought up that we could consider an organization
that groups elements/attributes that describe the behavior of content
(like conditional display)
in a separate, referenced metadata file but embeds elements/attributes
that more directly
describe the content itself, inside the topic or map files.
I actually made the comment the other way around. The purely
descriptive content could be in an associated file whereas the
"functional" metadata could be inside the content file. These are
suggestions only and I must confess that I have not yet settled in my
own thinking on this. It is 'a' possibility.
As an extension to this that was not covered in the meeting, so is not
applicable to the minutes, is the problem that sits behind this issue.
I think I first had to consider it about 6 or so years ago when
building an infrastructure that required content to be interoperable
and discoverable. When we considered the QTI type content and were
tackling the issues of granularity of that content and how it should be
stored, we were somewhat sobered by the consideration that we could end
up creating a whole bunch of metadata files that were substantially
larger than the individual QTI objects they described. Is that really
worthwhile?
There is another piece of thinking we need to join to this as well.
There will never, ever be a single metadata schema that suits all
purposes. The metadata will be deemed to be correct for the needs of a
community of practice by that community of practice and is not going to
be a subset of a single metadata schema that suits all the metadata
purposes of the world.
Given those two issues of a) metadata strategy and file size of
metadata compared to content, and b) no single metadata schema will
suit all needs - then what goes into DITA and what does not? Our
current considerations are limited because we are only considering a
learning specialization for SCORM which relies on LOM. What about
other requirements. Let me pose the following illustrative problem:
There is a new specialization starting up for the semiconductor
industry. Let's say I am in that industry and produce a component that
will be used in a piece of flight navigation equipment that will be
built in to an aircraft that is supplied to the US DoD. That
procurement process requires the technical documentation and the
training be supplied to each of the upstream vendors. If I am creating
the content in DITA format, there will be a requirement by both the
aircraft industry and DoD to have the content in S1000D format. Ok,
that could be a transform. Then it would need to be *dynamically*
transformed into training content. Another transform, because it would
have to be SCORM-based. Both S1000D and SCORM are mandated by defense
instructions. So, what metadata schema is used? When is all the
appropriate metadata added and by whom? and where? We are now talking
about metadata for the semiconductor industry, plus S1000D metadata,
plus LOM/SCORM metadata plus whatever is required by the individual
companies involved along the way for data management purposes
internally. Is accumulating all the metadata in the dita file
sustainable? Does that simplify or complicate maintenance of both
content and metadata? Will the metadata elements whether empty or
filled be bigger than the content in the file itself?
Now, I don't have answers to these questions, but I think we really
need to think about the requirements of the solution to be robust and
to serve the needs of any industry group that might become involved in
the authoring, assembly and management (through life) of structured
content. We need to keep at least one eye on the issues that arise
from content strategies during implementation.
Hope this makes sense and that it is useful.
Allyn
scott.hudson@flatironssolutions.com wrote:
Thanks to John Accardi for taking minutes!
-- Scott Hudson
DITA Learning Content SC Meeting has been modified by Scott Hudson
Date: Thursday, 19 July 2007
Time: 04:00pm - 05:00pm ET
Event Description:
USA Toll Free Number: 866-880-0098
USA Toll Number: +1-210-795-1100
Australia Toll Free Number: 1-800-993-862
Australia Toll Number: 61-2-8205-8112
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For information on specific country access dialing, see
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Agenda:
Minutes:
DITA Learning Content SC minutes 19 Jul 2007
Attendees:
John Accardi
Allyn Radford Robin Sloan
Scott Hudson
Primary agenda was to advance the IEEE LOM work initiated by Scott.
Task was to fill in column H
with elements/attribute in our SC structures that would apply.
Much discussion began but not many value were filled in ... it seems
like a slippery task
Key discussion points:
- IEEE LOM elements are mostly optional so that implementing
organizations can select subsets
important them for required treatment. Allyn mention that it is rare
that any implementing
organization uses all the elements/attributes. They pick the subset
that works for them and
makes them required as necessary to support processing and deployment.
In other words, standards
bodies make things optional for flexibility and implementing
organizations make things mandatory
to support their specific business requirements.
- Scott mentioned that the LOM has nailed down the meaning, vocabulary
and intentions of some
things and is very vague about other things. For example, aggregation
level has subjective
values of 1, 2, 3 and 4.
- Allyn brought up that we should check that Scott's spreadsheet is
based on the lastest standard
LOM (might be based on an earlier version). Vendor solutions typically
going to IEEE LOM 1.0.
- Scott needed the group to consider whether the LOM elements need
representation across all our
info types or only at map levels or both. Allyn brought up that we
could consider an organization
that groups elements/attributes that describe the behavior of content
(like conditional display)
in a separate, referenced metadata file but embeds elements/attributes
that more directly
describe the content itself, inside the topic or map files. Allyn
brought up SCORM SCOs as an
example that implements associated metadata files. Allyn also
mentioned that in older HTML work,
easier maintenance was supported with separated metadata files. Scott
mentioned that the DITA way
seemed to be object-oriented; keep the metadata inside the topic and
map files, perhaps in the
prolog structure. This way all is organized and travels together.
- Scott reminded all that the idea was to be sure that our structures
contained all the
elements/attributes to map to the LOM, all in support of a LOM
manifest. Allyn suggested that
such data typically would primarily come from a map. John suggested
that it might be helpful to look at a working manifest and work
backwards to the source points in LOM and then to our
structures. Allyn suggested we use an example like this from ADL.
Suggestion to put structural stuff inside the topics themselves, while
descriptive stuff could be
handled via an attribute like metaref to point to an external metadata
file. This would be more
akin to how IMS can point to an external metadata file.
- John asked for a big picture clarification of why mapping our
elements/attributes to LOM was
desirable. Scott and Allyn responded that if SCORM and IMS are based
on some level of
implementation of the IEEE LOM, then if our DITA SC also had all the
LOM mapped, deliverables had
a better chance of playing in those SCORM and IMS worlds.
- John mentioned that it was difficult to easily see all our
elements/attributes in support of
quick, efficiently and best mappings to the LOM.
- Allyn brought up potential confusion about what would be metadata
versus real content. For
example metadata for one content type might easily be seen as content
proper in another. (e.g.,
Learning Content vs. Instructional Design)
- Allyn also mentioned that the LOM might be inherently insufficient
for learning content
purposes. For example, the lack of some thing an learning objective.
Scott agreed so the LOM
should be considered just a minimum.
- Scott and Allyn spoke about the fact that a high level perspective or
diagram is needed, that
relates SCORM, DITA, IMS. The lack of this hinders our LOM mapping
exercise.
This event is one in a list of recurring events.
Other event dates in this series:
Thursday, 14 June 2007, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET
Thursday, 21 June 2007, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET
Thursday, 28 June 2007, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET
Thursday, 05 July 2007, 11:00am to 12:00pm ET
Thursday, 12 July 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 26 July 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 02 August 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 09 August 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 16 August 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 23 August 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 30 August 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 06 September 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 13 September 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 20 September 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
Thursday, 27 September 2007, 04:00pm to 05:00pm ET
View event details:
http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-learningspec/event.php?event_id=15062
PLEASE NOTE: If the above link does not work for you, your email
application may be breaking the link into two pieces. You may be able
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------------------------------------------------------------------------
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CATEGORIES:MEETING
STATUS:TENTATIVE
DTSTAMP:20070720T000000Z
DTSTART:20070719T200000Z
DTEND:20070719T210000Z
SEQUENCE:9
SUMMARY:DITA Learning Content SC Meeting
DESCRIPTION:USA Toll Free Number: 866-880-0098\nUSA Toll Number:
+1-210-795-1100\nAustralia Toll Free Number: 1-800-993-862\nAustralia
Toll Number: 61-2-8205-8112\nPASSCODE: 6396088\n\nFor information on
specific country access dialing\, see
http://www.mymeetings.com/audioconferencing/globalAccessFAQ.php.\n\nGroup:
DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization SC\nCreator: John
Hunt
URL:http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-learningspec/event.php?event_id=15062
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