Welcome to our example project. It demonstrates some of the capabilities of the system that SCU’s Digital Resources team have been developing for production of study material (and potentially any other content).

Benefits

There are several benefits derived from using such a system, including:

• responsive design for multiple devices
• targeted content to different output media (e.g. HTML vs PDF) and audiences (e.g. on-campus vs online students)
• detailed user analytics
• incorporation of innovative technology
• detailed version control
• efficient maintenance
• consistency of branding/style
• allowing DR to focus on adding value (e.g. producing quality graphics and rich interactive content)
• minimise and automate repetitive tasks
• update branding quickly and universally when required
• well-composed, semantic markup
• accessibility features
• future potential to embed the content creation into an online portal (such as a wiki) giving authors greater control and responsibility for content.

You’re looking at it!

This example has been created using the system. The navigation is automatically generated based on the heading structure of the source material.

Please browse around to see examples of what can be incorporated, including interactive graphics, video content with transcriptions, mathematics markup, embedded quizzes and more.

This project is fluid and constantly evolving and we welcome input that will assist us in making improvements to enhance the learning experience for students (and other audiences).

Targeted output from a single source

The system is designed to create published output for multiple platforms using single source HTML documents. The system allows the source to be marked up in a way that allows sections of the document to be targeted both to separate media (for example HTML and PDF) and separate audiences (for example on-campus students and online students).

To demonstrate:

This block quote is only delivered to the HTML output; check the PDF to see the difference.

The system incorporates several conventions that have been historically used in SCU study material, such as:

In a similar way to enabling divergent content for different media output, we can also split content to target different audiences (for example, online and on-campus audiences who may be tasked with different activities due to availability of resources). In any case where the source material indicates divergent content for different audiences, multiple copies of the site will be automatically generated with the appropriate content included for each audience.

Adding value

By automating some of the traditional work that the DR team has done (typesetting etc.), we can look forward to providing services that add real value to your material, such as creating professional, consistently branded imagery and innovative, interactive material.

Graphics

The DR team can add value to your material by creating striking graphics in SVG and other formats. SVG is a scaleable format which allows for infinite zoom without loss of quality – it is ideal for non-photographic style graphics.

Keeping artwork “in the family”

Below, and throughout this example project, are examples of graphics created by the team. A template has been deployed to create graphics that display consistently, within a familiar brand. In general, the graphics have been provided as SVG where appropriate.

Future-proof design approach

Delivery via the Internet offers many advantages over traditional publishing, allowing content to become interactive and to engage audiences in evolving ways.

Immediate feedback can be automatically given, perceived risk of failure is mitigated, and content can be tailored to the individual.

Separating content, style and behaviour

Gone are the days when content was cluttered with meaningless information about how it should appear and what types of interaction could occur. Conventions are always evolving which are designed to increase clarity while creating richer experiences for users.

We can create material which is optimised for different devices, giving the user the optimal experience in a range of environments.

We’re thinking about what you need

Cascading Stylesheets (CSS) have been set up to add style (formatting) to a range of common elements. Benefits of using CSS include meaningful markup of content and the ability to simply and universally update the style of elements throughout the content.

Consideration has gone into what elements are commonly used and common adaptions that are used in study material. Most publishing conventions are addressed by Web Specifications generated by global organisations, however, we are able to implement (and have done) extensions to base specifications where it is useful.

A simple example

Here are a couple of examples of block quote elements. Note that the styling is different in the HTML and PDF output. This is by design; the HTML is aimed at consumption on screen, whereas the PDF is generated in a more traditional format as it is a portable format and maintains the ability to print professional documents as per tradition.

This is an example of a standard block quote.

Certain documents (such as for the Law School), require a more traditional approach:

… an example of a quote without decoration

Easy maintenance

We use git version control to save the state of a project at regular intervals during its development.

This means that one source of material serves as an ongoing current record of a project (for example, a unit Study Guide), and that any saved point in the history of the project can be recovered or compared against.

No more document confusion

This process eliminates the need to record multiple copies of documents, which has been a traditional source of confusion and time-wasting in project development of this type.

Multiple operators on a single project

It also means that more that one person can work on a project at the same time and a relatively simple process is available to merge the work and manage any potential conflicts that may arise.

Analytics

We have implemented analytics which allow us to see how people are using the content.

We can see what content is being accessed and what interactions are taking place, such as:

• what format people are accessing, and how often
• page interactions, such as scrolling, engagement time etc.
• video interaction
• user roles and other specific data.

This information can be used to discover what’s working, and help us refine our content to be better in the future.

Read on in the other topics to see other examples.