RE: [dita-learningspec] Fw: [dita] DITA Help Technologies Guide

[Troy Klukewich <troy.klukewich@oracle.com>]

<quote>
Check out this guide developed by the DITA Help sub-committee. It provides a possible model for something similar we could produce about l&t.
</quote>

I really liked the Help guide as a model. I liked how it provides a kind of "state of the nation" address at the beginning, about DITA and Help in general, which sets expectations, then drills down into specific Help environments. Then the guide rounds out with the custom angle. I think this is the right approach for Help based on DITA.

There is a "can do" quality about the guide. You know if you have any doubts about getting a DITA-based Help system up and running, you are going to get the thing working using the guide. It covers the bases.

Some of the guide content, especially about DITA in general, could probably be single sourced for Help and L&T.

The guide got me thinking.

<thinkingOutLoud>
In our case, we arguably don't have a recognized default training enivornment like a help system (for instance, MS Help or Eclipse Help). And HTML could mean (or look like) anything. Maybe we would need to define what constitues a default or standard generated training environment.

Is there a danger following the Help guide too closely for default environments? For instance, how many people really deliver training through MS Help? Or Eclipse Help? (Actually, Eclipse Help as a training environment makes a lot of sense to me.) If we cover off default Help presentations as tailored for training, perhaps hard core training people would see too close a relathionship between Learning and Help, as if DITA training was little more than a repurposed Help system. (Actually, I kind of thought the same thing myself when I generated the demo CHM for learning.)

Or perhaps our default training presentation must be custom by design. This, unfortunately, has a drawback. You can't easily dump out a slick presentation that people would instantly recognize as a standard training environment. I ran into this problem with the Oracle University folks. To get the Learning demo looking half-way decent, required a lot of work, just as a proof of concept. Whereas with a help sytem, poof! You have an instantly recongizalbe enviroment.

Perceptually, there is a big difference between needing a lot of work to make something look decent (like a default Help system) and needing a little work to make something look exactly how you want it (like a custom presentation, which would always be the case for training).

So if we don't have a default training environment that looks slick and "normal" to a trainer, I almost think we have to come up with one in the guide, otherwise people will think the output is too rudimentary and be turned off (or away).

The fact is, the vast majority of trainers use PowerPoint slides and Word as a default ILT environment. HTML is common for CBT. If we are not going to provide PowerPoint as a default output (and we don't), we should have a viable open source alternative, like HTML Slidy.
</thinkingOutLoud>

Thoughts? Am I making sense?

Off the top of my head, here are some suggested training outputs to cover in an L&T guide:

How to create HTML Slidy pages for slides
How to generate PowerPoint slides (people will ask)
How to generate Word instructor and student guides
How to generate other kinds of outputs for instructor and student guides
How to create an HTML Web that could potentially be non-ILT (in other words, CBT). Note: I personally think presenting normal, non-Slidy web pages for ILT training, well, sucks.
Then maybe show how to generate Help systems like MS HTML Help and Eclipse, if these are even viable training environments

What else?

In my own training background, I've done web-based for CBT and ILT, and PowerPoints for ILT with Word for instructor and student guides. It seems like most training groups still do the same.

By the way, I think there would be a lot of interest in DITA for CBT using a mounted web delivery.

We'd probably need to break the guide out by Instructor-led and computer-based scenarios as they require different sets of deliverables, which the L&T specialization can provide.

I suggest we work though some strategic discussion first about training environments and standard deliverables, determine the ideal TOC in an L&T guide, blanch at the amount of work, and then figure out how to get it done with some help. :-)

Troy Klukewich
Information Architect
Oracle

---

From john_hunt@us.ibm.com

Sent Fri 2/27/2009 6:29 AM

To dita-learningspec@lists.oasis-open.org

Subject [dita-learningspec] Fw: [dita] DITA Help Technologies Guide

Dear DITA learning & training SC
-

Check out this guide developed by the
DITA Help sub-committee. It provides a possible model for something similar
we could produce about l&t.

Thoughts? Anyone interested in helping
put a "DITA Learning and Training Content Technologies Guide"
or perhaps a "DITA Learning and Training Content Usage Guide"
?

John

___________________________________
John Hunt
Chair, OASIS DITA Learning and Training Content Specialization Sub-Committee
Structured Content Architect / Lotus
Information Development Center
IBM Software Group/Lotus Software
john_hunt@us.ibm.com
----- Forwarded by John
Hunt/Cambridge/IBM on 02/27/2009 09:24 AM -----

From:	stan@modularwriting.com
To:	dita@lists.oasis-open.org
Cc:	dita-help@lists.oasis-open.org, sdoherty@verivue.com, "Tony Self" <tself@hyperwrite.com>
Date:	02/23/2009 01:59 PM
Subject:	[dita] FOR YOUR REVIEW AND APPROVAL: DITA Help Technologies Guide

---

Hi all --

The DITA Help Subcommittee submits for your review and approval 
Release 1.0 of our DITA Help Technologies Guide. We appreciate that 
members of the TC are swamped with DITA 1.2 specification work, but 
we hope that we could get your approval of this document 
in two weeks time (Tuesday, March 10). We plan to update this Guide 
every 3 - 4 months to keep it current. 

I have attached a PDF2 version of the document with Acrobat Reader commenting
enabled. MS HTML Help and TOCJSBIS versions are available at:

http://www.oasis-open.org/apps/org/workgroup/dita-help/documents.php

Check out the nifty OASIS-branded HTML that Tony Self (Help Subcommittee
chair)
has integrated with his WinANT tool. 

If someone with write privileges to the Adoption TC email list could forward
this email and attachment, we would appreciate it.

Thanx,
Stan Doherty
DITA Help Subcommittee, Secretary

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