Really Strategies Blog

Requirements, the publishing manager, and accountability

Senior publishing managers: do you have a clear idea of your role in publishing systems projects?  How about in requirements gathering for publishing systems projects?  (By senior publishing managers, I mean the publisher and direct reports or the equivalent - print or web).

BAs & PMs: How clear are the lines drawn between your business requirements, your functional requirements, and your system requirements?  Are you encouraging your senior publishing managers to take the appropriate project roles?

I'm thinking of two major projects I've come into contact with over the years where it was clear that the dividing lines drawn were wholly inappropriate to the intended constituencies, particularly for publishing managers.  I've also seen one major project where the requirements gathering was rigidly compartmentalized by the consulting company, probably as a means to ensure that each constituency was dealing with the appropriate subject matter. 

Some problem indicators:
1. Publishing managers reviewing quasi-technical diagrams in a functional requirements session (yes, we need to use XML; yes, we need a digital asset management system!).
2. Business/financial managers making top down decisions on specific systems. (Though there are cases where this could be appropriate)
3. Technical teams being left to determine how much time a task should take.  (What’s the matter? it only takes 10 minutes to process...)

Each to their own:
- Publishing managers should be concerned with functional requirements, which determine the effects of a system on staff work, including how work gets done by editors, etc.  They should also include setting standards for performance.
- Business/financial managers should be concerned with business requirements, or the overall financial effects of a system including related process changes.
- Technical teams should be concerned with systems requirements, systems, and architecture, to meet publishing manager needs (within financial constraints)

Publishing managers can have an important impact on a project.  My advice is not to get your hands dirty with specific technology.  Falling in love with a particular system or even a type of system, is a baaaad idea, trust me.  Falling in love with improvements in performance and ease of getting work done for your staff is a much healthier idea.

Senior publishing managers often consider the following:
    - We need to create this new online product
    - We approve doing this publishing technology project. 

They can more positively impact a project by making a few simple accountability statements and holding on to them like a pit bull.  They might sound something like this:
    - We need to create this new online product, and make content production for it take only this amount of staff time.
    - We approve doing this publishing technology project.  This project must reduce time spent on these non-editorial tasks, this amount, by this much, and decrease overall time in our production process, this amount, by this much.

This should set up a good interplay between subordinate publishing managers/staff and the technical team as they participate respectively in the creation of functional requirements and system requirements.

e-Learning technology patent fight erupts

Late last month, the US Patent and Trademark Office granted what appears to be an incredibly broad patent to Blackboard for “core technology relating to certain systems and methods involved in offering online education, including course management systems and enterprise e-Learning systems”. The company has since filed an infringment suit against market challenger Desire2Learn. Others such as eCollege and the Open Source Sakai Project have issued statements too.

The good news is we can all now sit back and enjoy some unfolding drama in the e-learning business. On the other hand I'd much rather see all of the resources that will surely go into this fight fostering innovation and serving the needs of customers. In the meantime, anyone who works in the field should take a look at the History of virtual learning environments entry being constructed by supporters of Desire2Learn on Wikipedia. Now that's what I call a history lesson.

Learning objects and federated search in practice

As a professional working in educational publishing, I have been fortunate to participate in several rounds of technological transformation in our industry. First we converted static print-based materials to interactive computer-based formats. Next we built digital products better suited to online delivery via the web. Along the way we figured out how to create instructional materials using learning object-based content models. A key objective of this last round of innovation was to engineer content for compatibility with Learning Management Systems (LMS) and maximize reuse.

While making learning objects available for browsing and linking in an LMS can increase reuse, there are limits. For example, in a conventional system your audience is limited to the users of that particular system. For years, the concept of linking LMS systems together and enabling federated search has promised to change this situation. Until recently, the idea has largely remained just that─ a concept, a good idea.

However, real world implementations are out there and I have to say results are satisfying! Want to see for yourself? Try MERLOT’s Federated Search Service at http://fedsearch.merlot.org/search.jsp. Searching on the term “Nursing” generated 30 hits from 3 of 4 possible repositories that are included in the federation. Is that cool or what? As an industry, it seems our efforts at implementing e-Learning technology standards are paying off. Keep up the good work out there!

Engineering content for learning management systems

We published our newsletter today on engineering content for learning management systems.

The description from our web site reads:

Many publishers are considering or have already begun implementing Learning Management Systems as a way to deliver added value along with existing content products, deepen customer relationships, and exploit business opportunities in the growing market for online education. Although most of the commercial LMS products on the market can ingest any type of document format (Word, PDF, etc), senior analyst Paul Eisenberg makes the case that publishers should take time to engineer and prepare their content for LMS delivery and walks through a checklist of steps to take.

Darwin rules for intelligent design in education content models

Intrigued by the buzz surrounding the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA)? Well, the conversation is not all hype. Indeed real substance appears to be emerging. Given my background and current focus on the development of educational content for blended learning, I like to focus on DITA’s potential application for production of topic-based learning objects. From my perspective, the fit is a natural.

Like other communities within the information industry, publishers of educational content have been debating the “granularity” question for a long time. Having seen many abstract discussions on the subject get transformed into real world applications, a topic-based approach produces the best results in most circumstances. The reason is simple. Options for reuse are limited when the chunks are larger and it is difficult to author content that is cohesive when the chunks are smaller. Further, while the SCORM content packaging standard says nothing about the size, data format, or content structure of learning objects, many Instructional Designers will tell you than the Objective, Content, Practice, and Assessment model works quite well. Interestingly, this model is nearly identical to a specialization design that IBM has developed. Now that’s what I call synchronicity!

Any other takers on DITA for Educational Content out there?