Proposed charter for DocBook Subcommittee for eLearning

[Scott Hudson <scott.hudson@flatironssolutions.com>]

Folks,

I'd like to submit the proposed charter for a new subcommittee for your 
review. I look forward to discussing this with you in the TC meeting.

**OASIS DocBook Subcommittee for eLearning**

*Background*

For more than a decade, DocBook has provided a structured markup 
vocabulary for hardware and software documentation. DocBook is now 
widely used in both commercial and Open Source environments. DocBook has 
a very broad element set, and applies to much more than just technical 
documentation. The DocBook TC is engaged in evolving the suite of 
DocBook specifications. The community benefits from having a standard, 
open, interchangeable vocabulary in which to write structured content. 
DocBook has been, and will continue to be, designed to satisfy this 
requirement.

The OASIS DocBook SubCommittee for eLearning is chartered to develop and 
maintain official variants of DocBook in support of the eLearning 
industry. Specifically, the subcommittee will focus on schema and 
stylesheet customizations to support:

1. Develop and design a DocBook-based method for creating reusable 
learning objects, and the learning content types needed to support them. 
Some specifics of the design for learning content include:

   1. learning types, including assessments and exercises

   2. a content assembly for structuring, sequencing and managing the 
learning types as reusable learning objects

   3. linking and relationships between learning objects

   4. interactions

2. Establish guidelines that promote best practices for applying DocBook 
markup to learning content

*Scope of Work*

This subcommittee will submit additional enhancements back to the full 
DocBook standard as appropriate. The scope of this DocBook subcommittee 
is eLearning content. Broadly, this includes online learning, 
instructor-led training and other related educational materials.

This effort will deliver on the following goals:

* Build official DocBook variants, based against the DocBook v5.0 schemas.

* Address issues and enhancement requests that have arisen from 
experience with real-world DocBook and eLearning implementations.

* Add support for features specific to the eLearning industry.


Interested/prospective members include:
Scott Hudson (proposed Chair), Flatirons Solutions
Tim Arnold (proposed Secretary), SAS Institute
Emma Hogbin, HICK Tech
Jirka Kosek, OASIS DocBook TC member, W3C Invited Expert, ISO JTC1/SC34 
member
Corey Leong, Global Real Estate And Technology Consortium (GR8C)

As per the OASIS guidelines:
With three or more interested parties:

     "If you're planning on starting up a subcommittee, there's no need to
    create a discussion list -- typically that's done to tighten up scope,
    etc. before submitting a charter for a new Technical Committee.
     
    All that's necessary to get started is to organize the respective
    interested parties, put together a statement of work, and submit it to
    the TC for approval. And someone needs to volunteer to take on the role
    of chair. Of course all participants need to be OASIS members."

I would urge your support for the formation of this subcommittee.

Thanks and best regards,

-- Scott

Scott Hudson
Senior XML Architect
+1 (303) 542-2146  |  Office
+1 (720) 663-SCOT [7268]  |  Gvoice
Scott.Hudson@flatironssolutions.com
http://www.flatironssolutions.com