The extra step
From the analysis of plain HTML file production, we reached the conclusion that rather than having the author directly producing the final product, a better approach would be to use a simplified input paradigm and obtain the final material as the result of some generic transformation. This generic authoring paradigm is usually how most of the material in the net is produced. However, when it comes to producing learning content, there is this tendency to let the teaching staff take care of everything. That is, from conceiving the first ideas to producing the final product to reach the students.
My theory is that from observing the rest of contexts in which authoring is a key part, this approach of one person does everything is dangerously limited. The type of material that can be produced is extremely rigid, and therefore, the slightest change or increment in functionality is doomed. A more effective authoring paradigm for learning scenarios would be one based on processing paths. A simplified and highly specialized set of formats are provided as entry points. Examples: a template for regular course notes, another for submissions, something for tests, another template for group interaction, something equally simple for simulations, etc. From that pool of processes the author would pick whatever is most convenient and forget about the details of how such material is actually produced.
Of course, looking at how similar all teaching staff behaves, they'll ultimately want to control every single detail of the presentation, but that could be provided gradually through a more sophisticated interface conveniently hidden for regular users yet accessible for power users. This scheme is nothing really new. It's being used in multiple scenarios. The aspect that I think it can be greatly improved is the information exchange between authors and the "entity" that process such content.
In a recent experience, we set off to produce massive amounts of on-line material. The final product could not be considered as media rich material. Once the material was received by the production team, the final product was made available to students in the learning management system. The exchange between authors and the production team was massive, since each of the modules contained a fairly large number of images, figures, graphics, etc. Now, out of all the possible formats out there, old, new, good, bad, ugly, etc. the one chosen for the material to leave the author hands on to the production team was... yes. Microsoft Word.
So the question that I cannot take out of my mind is, why when facing such a complex creation and production cycle, requiring a significant effort on both parts, such a format was chosen? Authors were fine with the decision, after all, it's probably one of the platform they're most familiar with, but the production team seemed like they had no other better alternative to offer. Word is fine.
Why is word so fine for such a complicated process? What happens if the material really moves on to the "multimedia intensive" category? The answer still remains an unknown for me. Are we producing the best material given the circumstances? Or is our production process severely limited by the design cycle and the tools that were chosen? If I ever get the answer, I'll make sure it pops up in this blog. In the meantime, I have to go back to my "word authoring" (I'm one of the authors).
2 comments:
Recently SG informed me of these links. Very interesting line of thought.
I liked your discussion about processing paths. In a project were was I involved we chose exactly this approach. With consultation with the authors we developed templates that they could use to create content and exercises.
When they chose these templates they got an empty page where they could fill them with content. In another window they could see how their content would like.
This worked fine more or less but this wiki-style of editing was still problematic. I don't know if we could do some work with pre-determined wysiwyg but yet template-like mechanisms. Perhaps that would be the solution.
However, I still find that there are people that either because they are afraid, because they don't know or other psychological or cognitive reasons (some claim that when they write in Word they can think better than when they write in Latex for example) still prefer Word and they will deny any attempt to change it for them.
I wonder if you know -since I see the post has been there for a while- have an answer about the reasons you used Word in the project you are referring to.
The reason to user word is part of your comment. User resistance to use anything different from word to create a document. It came up as requirement number one. We use Word, everybody happy. We use other tool, 90% of the audience freaks out. The advance of wikis is interesting, though, to escape from this state, but I still see it as a short term solution, nothing to achieve complex sets of resources.
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