Markup of Educational Content

The purpose of this presentation is to illustrate the
implementation of methods and tools for separating
markup, from the actual XML document. This is being done
in the project Educational Content Markup1 where the object
is to explore and develop tools and methods for the creation
and management of encoded, modularised and portable digital
content to be used in educational settings.2
The underlying idea in the project is to enable the production,
use and reuse of document content in different fields of
application and to support various groups of users and
end-users. Concerning the fields of application our focus is on
teaching and learning in higher education and the production
of academic research publications. Hence, one group of users
are teachers creating e.g. collections of documents to be used
in classes. We picture both students and teachers as a group of
end-users. Another group of users are scholars and other content
providers concerned with document creation and the production
process.
In this project we have chosen to differentiate two kinds of
markup in order to distinguish fields of application and groups
of users. Thus, the differentiation described below guides our
exploration of methods and the development of tools.
• Original/internal markup: Markup placed within the
document - as opposed to stand-off markup- in this context
often capturing the structure of a document or some specific
features such as personal names. Either the markup was
already added to the document by another part or the markup
is created during the document creation process. Markup is
automatically added by controlled input using templates in
the DiVA system3 or semi-automatically by the content
producer.
• Additional markup: Markup added after the creation process
which can be done with optional annotation techniques such
as Annotea or the TEI guidelines4. The additional markup
might be added and stored internally in the document, or,
annotations might be added and stored externally in separate
XML-files, not altering the any markup internally added to
the document. For example Annotea allows annotations to
be attached to resources without modifying the
original/internal markup.
It is important to point out that our two views of markup can
be, and often are different, but this does not mean that the
methods are non-exclusive. However, a markup scheme
designed to catch in-depth descriptions of a chosen aspect,
rather than describing the internal structure of a document,
serves a special purpose and therefore anticipates a different
data model than a structured oriented scheme. That is one reason
why we, in this project, think it is useful to separate the
additional markup from the original/internal markup.
Other reasons to separate different kinds of markup have to do
with different kinds of uses and user-groups. By various means
of organising, filtering and presentation, one and the same
content might be utilized in a range of subject areas and for
different educational levels, from primary to higher education
or in-service and in-company training. In trying to accomplish
this, several different XML techniques and tools are being used
for the implementation of a prototype of an educational content
management system, currently consisting of three related parts.
1. In one part of the project, a prototype provides means to
take the descriptive markup added to the internal XML
markup and treat it as external annotations. The browser is
used as the markup client, using Annotea protocol both on
the client side and both on the server side. At the backend
a RDF5 database is used as the content store. This
architecture allows usage of arbitrary application profiles
and an ability to integrate the information with other tools.6
2. In the second part we explore tools and schemes for adding
external markup - stand-off markup - to documents already
annotated with TEI/XML markup of personal names, dates
and places. Here we will test schemas providing uses of
authority files such as the first draft of MADS which is
designed for description of agents (e.g. people,
organisations) and terms (e.g. topics, geographical places).
3. In the third part we are exploring applicable methods and
tools for adding markup when authoring. The idea is to
integrate the process into the author's natural workflow such
as the software they use for text editing (e.g. OpenOffice or
MS Office). These kinds of tools should support and
facilitate work performed by the author during the
production and revision of texts.
This poster will provide demonstration of a prototype tool
implementation and uses, examples of markup, and a description
of current status in the project progress. We are looking forward
to get a chance to exchange ideas and well-informed feedback
on the underlying ideas, choice of methods and implementation
of tools in this project.
1. The project Educational Content Markup is a joint project and the
partners are: The research program Digital Literature and the Electronic Publishing Centre, both Uppsala University. The
Swedish Royal Library, the National Agency for Education in
Sweden, Ekelunds Publishing Company and Center for IT in
Northern Sweden. The project is funded by the Swedish Agency
for Innovation Systems. The author of this poster presentation is
co-ordinating the project. For participants and further information,
see <http://www.skeptron.ilu.uu.se/broady/dl
/mu.htm> .
2. For further information on the research program Digital Literature
publications and research areas, see: <http://www.skeptr
on.ilu.uu.se/broady/dl/> .
3. DiVA is the Swedish acronym for Academic Archive Online. For
further information on the DiVA system and related publications,
see <http://publications.uu.se/epcentre/proj
ects.xsql> , for the technical report, see: <http://publ
ications.uu.se/epcentre/diverse/hardware_so
ftware.pdf> .
4. See <http://www.tei-c.org/Activities/SO/sow0
6.html> .
5. Resource Description Framework, see <http://www.w3.or
g/RDF/> .
6. For a technical report on the prototype, see Engman.
Bibliography
Annotea. Accessed 2005/03/04. <http://www.w3.org/
2001/Annotea/>
Engman, J. Handling fine-meshed filtering from archive to
resource level. Master thesis, Umeå University, 2004.
Metadata Authority Description Schema. Accessed 2005-03-14.
<http://www.loc.gov/standards/mads/>