Myrnham's Approach to Single Sourcing Training Content
Copyright © 2004 Myrnham Associates
Table of Contents
Introduction
What is CourseComposer?
CourseComposer™ is Myrnham's authoring tool for creating modular training content through the use of DocBook XML. It consists of an XML editor with added functionality to help writers create DocBook documents that conform to Myrnham Associates' courseware methodology.
Myrnham Associates' courseware methodology has been developed by experienced Trainers over a number of years to ensure students get the best from their learning experience.
When used with CourseManager™, CourseComposer™ provides a system in which electronic information can be developed, stored, managed, controlled and published from a single source to a wide range of formats.
CourseComposer™ is a true collaborative environment where large numbers of users in many different locations can simultaneously control the authoring, review, modification, distribution, security and publishing of any content within an organisation.
What is CourseManager?
CourseManager™ allows trainers to selectively compile customised training material from existing content either purchased from Myrnham Associates, developed by themselves or downloaded from other CourseComposer™ users.
With the easy to use interface, trainers can drag and drop chapters, topics or topic elements into their project to build up a customised manual that can be compiled into a number of target formats using templates and stylesheets that allow the user to easily build a cross-platform corporate standard look and feel for all their training material.
What is Single Sourcing?
All content created by CourseComposer™ is stored as XML. The content is not stored as documents, but as chunks of information. These chunks can then be pulled into CourseManager™ to create publishable documents. See Figure 1, “Content Management Environment”.
Figure 1. Content Management Environment
This means that any content within your organisation can be re-used in any other training material at the click of a mouse. If this content ever needs updating, it doesn't need updating in every document it's used in - one change simply cascades throughout all documents using the original content.
![[Note]](/shared-images/images/note.png) |
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This feature has huge cost saving implications - make a note in your R.O.I. (Return on Investment) calculations |
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That's the power of single source content management.
Why use this method?
The key aspect to managing any kind of data is to manage how it can be created and changed. This is the cornerstone of all enterprise applications of all types and is the only way you can truly manage information. A popular approach to document and file management is to move the files from the file system into some sort of database in exactly the same format in which they are created - document management systems. Typically, such systems provide access control, versioning, meta-data tagging, and search capabilities. They provide little real control over the change or creation of the files in the first place, relying entirely on other applications to do that.
CourseComposer™ and CourseManager™ provide that link - the evolution of content into value-added content. They provide a way of divorcing content from style, enabling writers to concentrate on writing and not making their work look pretty. By modularising the content, you provide a more effective and efficient way to create, change and publish with the ability to apply your own localised styling.
Figure 2. Applying Styles
DocBook: What it is and why we use it
According to the official DocBook web site,
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DocBook is a general purpose XML and SGML document type particularly well suited to books and papers about computer hardware and software (though it is by no means limited to these applications). |
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| --DocBook.org | ||
Although there are other DTDs used to write documentation, there are a few reasons not to use them.
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DocBook is the most popular DTD, being used by more than a dozen major open source projects as is used by major corporations including IBM, HP and Sun.
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The tools for DocBook are more developed than others and there is an active developer and support base for them.
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And finally, DocBook has an extensive set of tags (over 300 in all) which is very useful when you are trying to describe the content of a document. Fortunately for new authors the majority of them do not need to be used for simple documentation.
The Myrnham Training Methodology
Understanding how students use Myrnham Associates courseware is vital to writing it. Students use our courseware in two ways
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as a methods based learning tool, which they use to gain a complete understanding of a particular piece of software.
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as a quick-reference how-to guide, which they use to learn a particular skill in a particular piece of software, in the shortest possible time.
Because the courseware is used in different ways, it is essential that every feature to be documented is held in a self-contained section, known as a topic. This way, students can choose only those topics on which they need training, increasing their learning efficiency by bypassing topics they do not need or have already learned. Therefore, while each topic must stand by itself for quick-reference guides and custom manual creation, it must also fit into a flow for classroom training. It is important to keep this dichotomy in mind while developing topics.
Related topics are grouped into chapters (usually six or more topics, but no more than 20). For example, topics such as changing the font size, colour, and shading are arranged into a chapter dealing with the concept of changing font attributes.
Each chapter concludes with an exercise that covers all the topics in that chapter. The exercise ensures that the student has mastered the concepts and mechanics taught and understands how the topics build upon one another. For that reason, topics must be organised so that the student understands the relationship of each topic to the others. This organisation must guide the student in a logical, task-oriented flow.
Groups of chapter are combined into books. Since a course may consist of several books written by different developers, it is important that all developers follow a system of standards to maintain quality and consistency throughout.
Topics outlined
A topic can contain six main sections: a Discussion, a Method, Step-by-Step, Example, Exercise and Tutor Notes although each topic must have at least a Discussion. Topics can also include Notes, Warnings, Importants and Tutor Tips.
Each topic must satisfy two basic requirements: that it stands alone, and that it fit into a flow for a chapter. This seeming contradiction is often the hardest issue to resolve when developing, but should be keep it in mind at all times.
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A separate Tutorial is available that discusses the Myrnham Training Methodology in more detail. |
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What does it all mean?
All this talk about single sourcing and modularity may sound confusing and certainly does require you to look at your information in a different light, but our software does provide the ability to do some amazingly powerful things with your content. If your content is constrained by ad hoc formatting, locked into a non-specific structure or suffers from a lack of or mixed contexts then Myrnham Associates' approach to Single Sourcing will free those constraints.
So not only is it possible to publish the content in CourseManager™ to many output formats, it is also possible to use the same components in many other documents too. Now you have the ability to use that content in ways you had only ever imagined.