1. 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

2. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20082 Agenda Motivation, History & Background A short system overview Teaching Material Repository: Current state, problems & future work

3. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20083 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 High effort in maintenance and for developing new materials

4. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20084 Learning Material Repository Transformation Process (Idea Ravda 2006) knowledge grid.doc.pdf.ppt eLesson...... Essence What is the essence? Text? Pictures? Style? Tool Tool 2 Automated. Some AI? Half-baked essence 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

5. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20085 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

6. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20086 o n n n e t s w y s e e e y t s s w g Learnativity Content Model (Duval & Hodgins 2003) JCSE Course Topic Section Associated Slides Shapes, Slides, Pictures, Textfields

7. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20087 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

8. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20088 Single Source Publishing – pro & con pro  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

9. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 20089 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.

10. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200810 System: main features Core: 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

11. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200811 Generic authoring system suitable for aggregation of learning objects local file system local file system external content courses author authoring environment import export Repository DB learning objects meta data

12. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200812 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 UseCases PPT External environment Author Authoring environment

13. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200813 Repository Meta data Learning Objects Save Manage Display ExportImport Search Aggregate Inform Load Finding Accessing Use Use cases for learning objects LearnerAuthorSoftware agentsPublisher Even more problems PPT Authoring environment Functions of a learning objects repository

14. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200814 Desired architecture Authoring environment Browser local authoring tools Browser local authoring tools Teaching material repository Repository DB Metadata DB Synchronization Repository DB Metadat a DB Online Offline

15. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200815 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

16. Fill.xmlDITA.xmlPowerPoint.xmlLine.xml PowerPoint-Presentation.ppt Topic.xml Eigenschaften basierend auf der PPP Text StandardAtts (Rotation, HorizontalFlip, VerticalFlip, BWMode, HasTextFrame, Shadow) TextFeld Eigenschaften (AutoSize, HasText, Horizo.Anchor, Margin, Orientation, Ruler, Vertica.Anchor, WordWrap) Text Eigenschaften (Font, Sprache, Paragraph Eigenschaften) Placeholder- Type, -Count Präsentations Eigenschaften SlideMaster (Eigenscaften, Shapes) TitleMaster (Shapes) Slides (Eigenschaften, Shapes) Shapes (Name, Größe, Ort, ZOrder, Visible, InfoType, InfoName) BackColour ForeColour Gradient Eigenschaften Texture Eigenschaften Pattern Transparency Type BackColour ForeColour Pattern DashStyle Style Weight Arrow Eigenschaften (Length, Style, Width)

17. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200817 Mainly for reducing redundancy in the database PowerPoint.xml Line.xml Fill.xml Topic.xml PowerPoint stylesheet data splitt into …

18. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200818 PowerPoint stylesheet data splitt into … Topic.xml Main blueprint of the.ppt file All properties and shapes of: the presentation, Slide- & TitleMasters Slides For each shapes: name, size, place, zorder, visibility InfoType & InfoName (Metadata for description of learning objects)

19. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200819 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)

20. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200820 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

21. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200821 PPEditor PPSavePictures PPAdmin (Split Topics) PPAdmin (Split Topics) DBEditor DB2 Express-C DB2 Express-C PPAdmin (Send Topics) PPAdmin (Send Topics) StartPPSplit StartPPCompose PPCompose PPEditor PPSplit Current workflow directly from PPT

22. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200822 PPAdmin: splitting.ppt file

23. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200823 PPAdmin: splitting.ppt file

24. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200824 PPAdmin: sending to DB

25. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200825 PPEditor: adding meta data to LO

26. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200826 DBAdmin: content and LO’s Meta data PPCompare Demo

27. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200827 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

28. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200828 Thank You. Space for Questions

29. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200829 Original Rebuild from DITA Actual state problems: Changing fonts in a paragraph Direction of lines Transparent colors Tables & pictures

30. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200830 Sources OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Language Specification: http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-LangSpec20050509.pdf http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-LangSpec20050509.pdf OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Architectural Specification: http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-ArchSpec20050509.pdf http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-ArchSpec20050509.pdf OASIS DITA Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/ditahttp://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita DITA open source kit (http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net/)http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net/ Michael Priestley, DITA XML: a reuse by reference architecture for technical documentation, Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Computer documentationDITA XML: a reuse by reference architecture for technical documentation Don Day, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley, David Schell, Nancy Harrison: An XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing ArchitectureAn XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing Architecture DeveloperWorks site: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1/http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1/ XML Cover page DITA: http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.htmlhttp://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html "DITA for DocBook: Implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture for DocBook." "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 1: A DITA Specialization Design. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content.“"An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 1: A DITA Specialization Design. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content.“ "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 2: A DITA Content Pilot. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content.""An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 2: A DITA Content Pilot. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content." John P. Hunt, Robert Bernard "How Global Companies can Close the Globalization Gap DITA.""How Global Companies can Close the Globalization Gap DITA." Idiom Technologies, Inc.

31. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200831 Basic concepts in DITA Topic: A topic is a unit of information with a title and content, short enough to be specific to a single subject or answer a single question, but long enough to make sense on its own and be authored as a unit. Map: DITA maps are documents that collect and organize references to DITA topics to indicate the relationships among the topics. They can also serve as outlines or tables of contents for DITA deliverables and as build manifests for DITA projects.

32. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200832 DITA – Abbreviation & Overview The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an XML architecture for producing and reusing technical information. DITA developed by IBM: 3rd May 2005 DITA 1.0 OASIS Standard 31th May 2007 DITA 1.1 OASIS Standard DITA features: Scalable reuse you can reuse content in any number of delivery contexts simultaneously without complicating the source Single Source Publishing Interchangeability you can treat specialized markup as if it were general getting reuse of tools and processes Descriptive markup Process inheritance

33. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200833 Other features of DITA Tailoring DITA / inheritance: Topics and maps can be specialized according to the actual needs New element definitions are derived from existing ones Comparatively easy syntax and known structures (XML,.html) Built-in support for for multi language documents by using language typed strings

34. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200834 Structure of topics: taskreferenceconcept title shortdesc conbody p image section example related links topic title shortdesc refbody properties section example related links topic title shortdesc taskbody prereq context steps result related links topic example postreq topic

35. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200835 Example: Topic03.ppt Process models: used terminology Software process models Phase models Life cycle models Software development models Project models (Note: terms are similar, …)

36. 'A DITA – based Teaching Material Repository with Support of Adaptability', Durrës, Albania, September 200836 Single Source Publishing Example: DB2 installation manual Different roles in the documentation lifecycle Project manager Has to manage huge amounts of documentations Administration of dependencies in these documentations Version management Technical Writers Authoring tools for producing documentation User Different target media e.g. HTML, PDF, RTF The Installation manual for DB2 appears in different scenarios / documentations: Standalone Database Content Management System Lotus Notes DB2 Intelligent Miner consistency