By: Greg Gardner

Related Downloads

I am a developer. One of my recurring nightmares is getting content from a content developer at 4:55pm on a Friday afternoon when the project is due at 5:00pm. The content developer goes home because they met their deadline and I get fired because, well, five minutes is not a lot of time, you know.

Why do I get these nightmares? I get them because the first part of the dream has actually happened. Fortunately for me, the latter hasn’t happened.

Recent articles by Megan Beyer and Betsy Spigarelli discussed using storyboards to make Instruction Design of reusable content easier and collecting data tracking requirements in a project. I have used these concepts within my teams for years. We have also done more. This is one way I have found to combat those nightmares I talked about and reduce the number of times content, specifically, metadata content comes to me late in the game.

The process we’ve built requires collecting and writing down more data towards the beginning of the ISD process. I have created metadata collection forms that are placed at the beginning of every course outline and SCO storyboard. These forms contain most of the information I need to complete the imsmanifest.xml, course.xml and sco(s).xml files.

You may be asking if I am implying the ISD should write the XML files. I am not that suicidal. The ISD does not write the xml files. However, since the vast majority of the data that is in the XML files comes straight from the process an ISD goes through with their client, it makes sense to collect it up front. Our team developed these forms in such a way that the ISD can complete them easily and the developer can develop XML files very efficiently.

The metadata forms are organized into sections representing categories of metadata. Since not all of your clients will use all of the same metadata, optional metadata is also included in the forms. These are identified with asterisks.

Once the ISD and the client have agreed on a course outline and what type of data the course needs to collect, the ISD begins to fill out the course metadata table. The course outlines I use generally contain the enabling objectives, estimated duration and descriptions of each SCO in the course. Figure 1* is an example of a completed form used at the beginning of course outline.

The columns on the left hand side match somewhat closely to the element names for each category. The right hand columns contain the value you will insert into that element. Some of these values have RESTRICED or BEST PRACTICE VOCABULARIES taken from the Content Aggregation Model (CAM). I chose to list some of the most used vocabulary words. The ISD simply highlights or marks the appropriate word. It does make for a longer forms but it does save you the trouble of paging through the CAM when filling this out.

When I get this information, I can now create imsmaifiest.xml, course.xml and as many sco.xml files as I need.

The IMS/COURSE TABLE (Figure 1*) is broken into two categories: MANIFEST METADATA and COURSE METADATA. These are shown with a dark shaded cell. Within the MANIFEST METADATA section, two light gray shaded cells identify the two high-level elements of the imsmanifest.xml file – Organizations and Resource. The COURSE METADATA section is similarly organized. The seven light gray shaded areas identify with the high level elements within course.xml file: General, Lifecycle, Metametadata, Technical, Educational, Rights and Classification. Figures 2* and 3* show examples of completed files using the information gathered.

Once the basic course outline XML files have been completed, individual SCO metadata needs to be collected. Once again, the ISD fills out the metadata form at the beginning of each SCO storyboard. This form is just slightly different from the course metadata form and is shown in SCO TABLE (Figure 4*). As with the COURSE METADATA reviewed earlier, there are seven light gray shaded areas that identify with the high level elements within sco.xml file: General, Lifecycle, Metametadata, Technical, Educational, Rights and Classification. This data is then converted into a sco.xml file by the developer. Figure 5* shows and example of a final sco.xml file.

If some of the data could not be collected right away, do not worry. Have the ISD fill out what they can so you can get a head-start. You can always collect the final data later, just make sure it is not at 4:55pm on a Friday afternoon.

Note: Only one optional item was used in creating any XML files so nothing is highlighted in the optional fields of the forms, but duration is specified. Therefore you will not see many of the corresponding XML elements added to the XML files.

*Refer to the Related Downloads for all mentioned figures.



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