Design of modular crystallographic lectures with XML based technologies
Authors: G. Schuck and W. SteurerJournal-ref: Acta Cryst. A, 58 (2002) Suppl. C187
Web-based courses in crystallography have become quite common. Since these
applications are mostly HTML- or PDF based, we find often that content,
structure and presentation are lumped together. HTML- or PDF presentations
can be produced with standard scientific programs like Latex or Microsoft
Word but sharing, reuse and modification of these data is impeded. That means
HTML- and PDF based courses are somewhat inflexible and also devicedependent.
Most of the web-based crystallographic courses have an auditorium
with a very different educational background. Crystallographic lectures may be
of interest for earth scientists, materials scientists, chemists, physicists or
biologists. Consequently, we need different lectures for each target group and a
high degree of flexibility and modularity in the teaching environment. In order
to achieve such a flexibility, course modules may be prepared in the Extensible
Markup Language (XML) [1], maintained in a repository and organized way
using metadata based on standards like ARIADNE [2]. Markup descriptions
are usually device-independent. The device-dependent information is stored in
a separate description, called style sheet. The word ’style’ refers to the mapping
between the markup tags and the semantics. There are several proposed
standards for describing style information like XSL (Extensible Style sheet
Language) [3]. The materials required for a course are generated as per the
request in the desired formats (HTML for internet-based learning material,
PDF for printed manuscripts, PPT for slide presentations) by the content
repository using XSL processing techniques. For further details and discussion,
please visit the project website [4].
References
[1] http://www.w3.org/XML/
[2] http://www.ariadne-eu.org/
[3] http://www.w3.org/Style/XSL/
[4] http://www.kristall.ethz.ch/LFK/teach2/XML
Poster: PDF
Lecture: Internet basierende Lehre - Kristallographie mit OLAT (German)