Post on 15-Jan-2016
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 3
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 4
Learning Material Repository
Transformation Process (Idea Ravda 2006)
knowledgegrid
.doc
.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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 5
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 6
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Learnativity Content Model (Duval & Hodgins 2003)
JCSE CourseTopicSectionAssociated Slides
Shapes,
Slid
es,
Pic
ture
s, T
extfi
eld
s
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 7
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 8
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 9
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.
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 10
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 11
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 12
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 13
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
Authoring environment
Functions of a learning objects
repository
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 14
Desiredarchitecture
Authoring environment
Authoring environment
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 15
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 17
Mainly for reducing redundancy in the database
PowerPoint.xml
Line.xmlFill.xml
Topic.xml
PowerPoint stylesheet data splitt into …
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 18
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)
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 19
PowerPoint stylesheet data splitt into …
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)
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 20
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 21
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 22
PPAdmin: splitting .ppt file
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 23
PPAdmin: splitting .ppt file
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 24
PPAdmin: sending to DB
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 25
PPEditor: adding meta data to LO
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 26
DBAdmin: content and LO’sMeta data
PPCompare Demo
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 27
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
'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 2008 28
Thank You.Thank You.
Space for QuestionsSpace for Questions