Groups - DITA Learning Content SC Meeting modified

[scott.hudson@flatironssolutions.com]

DITA Learning Content SC Meeting has been modified by Scott Hudson

Date:  Thursday, 12 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
PASSCODE: 6396088

For information on specific country access dialing, see http://www.mymeetings.com/audioconferencing/globalAccessFAQ.php.

Agenda:


Minutes:
12 July 2007 minutes

Attendees:
Bob Doyle
Patrick Quinlan
John Hunt
Scott Hudson
Rueben Tozman
Kevin Ruess
Saul Carliner
Allyn Radford

1) Our new meeting time to 4-5 PM US EDT, starting Thursday, July 12. 

2) Overview of Learning topic types for our new members. For more information, please see:
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/LearningSubcommittee
http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/LearningContent/12July2007Agenda

Learning Enhancement topic type has now been merged with the Learning Content topic type.

Working module and sample content is available from the OASIS Learning SC 

Learning samples and nested topics issue (http://wiki.oasis-open.org/dita/LearningContent/LearningContentTopicSamples)


Sample 1: Uses a map object that specifies a certain sequence of learning objects (including learning overview and learning summary). 
Pros: allows direct reuse of existing DITA topics.
      can package objects in a learning object map
Con:  cannot associate specific objectives w/specific learning content or other learning info

Bob - seems very efficient!

Rueben - seems more like wrapping documentation with learning, rather than from a learning perspective.

Allyn - the more specialized you get, the more overhead you create in maintenance. It works against the idea of single source authoring.

Bob - agreed. What is it that distinguishes eLearning content from documentation?

John - there are essential ingredients, such as overview of objective, summary to recap and suggest next steps. This basic approach is available, as long as we can use the basic topicrefs in the map. It doesn't preclude someone from doing this as an option.

Sample 2: Uses an overview and summary, but also more specifically a learning content ref which requires the type to be "learningContent". The learningContent type specifically adds additional information such as: duration, objectives, intro, challenge, instruction, content body.
Pros: includes specific objective and additional learning info.
      can incorporate existing DITA content or specialized content as a nested topic
      can also include optional nested content for learning Assessment or Summary
Con: titles may get repeated

Rueben - if we are just reusing content, what is the point of this specialization group? By forming this group, we are saying it is important to have this value-add for learning content. We haven't seen anyone using the nested topics, because of the duplicate title problem.

John - repeated titles can be handled by specializing the output transform. 

Rueben - on the processing perspective, it has been difficult to get the schemas to work, so need to wait to provide additional feedback.

Allyn - Rueben's points are very valid. Is there something being done here that I can't do with existing DITA topic types (task)? There doesn't seem to be a lot here that we couldn't already do. Assessments do have to be handled a different way.

John - we have content, and if we have the overview, summary and assessment, we are providing that additional level of detail.

Kevin - Simply reusing content from technical docs is only part of the battle. If you are reusing the original authored content, you have to make sure that it is fit for the instructional model otherwise you have to rewrite it.

Rueben - that's why originally we felt the task topic type provided enough structure to provide for the learning content.

John - question is does the existing task topic provide enough structure to create a learning experience?

Bob - do we need the 5 things added in this example specifically broken out in elements, rather than just including them in the basic text?

John - we need the additional semantics, just as DITA has created specializations for concept, task and reference (instead of just topic)

Rueben - Reasons for these: labels for the authoring process, so they understand how to structure their learning info, and also for processing (styling).

Allyn - getting a perspective for small stuff here, but what does this look like in a large structured sequence? How does this scale in an LMS?

John - samples! This is a good time to bring in samples! If you are creating training from the ground up in DITA, is this a good model or not? We are in a stronger position to use existing structures and wrap them with the information that we need to turn this into training.

Sample 3: avoids nesting DITA topics in learning content but use learning content topics to provide the objectives and other specifics. It uses the map to tie all of the content together.
pros: keeps learning content separate from the core content
con: separate from core content making it difficult for authoring and delivery.

John - requires custom processing, but we'll have to do that anyway if we want to output to SCORM.

Scott - what about adding more of the metadata type information in the map (duration, difficulty level, etc.)

John - Michael Priestley and others had a similar suggestion.

John - we're out of time, but please take a closer look at these and invite comments to the email list!

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, 19 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=15061

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