Living the GI Way: Scenario

Sharon has determined that this is the day she’s going to take charge of managing her blood sugars. It’s Thursday and she wants to get as much information as she can about the glycemic index (GI) so she can plan some menus and do some grocery shopping on the weekend. She heads off to www.LivingTheGIWay.com.

The home page has a definition of the GI but Sharon searches for more. She selects the GI overview. She has a choice of reading the overview or watching a video. She selects the video. After viewing the three-minute video she feels she can handle this, but she’s not sure of all the details so she decides to print out the overview to read again later.

She takes a quick look at the books, but she decides she doesn’t have time to read a book before the weekend and she really wants to get started. So she moves on to the recipes. She’s excited to find a week of recipes for getting started with the GI. Recipes in hand, she signs up for the GI newsletter and exits the site.

Living the GI Way: Content lifecycle exploratory phase

In the exploratory phase, Sharon would be looking for information to gain an understanding of the GI in general and what information, products, and services LGIW provides. However, a diabetes educator who already has a basic knowledge of the GI would very quickly move into exploring the products and services.

Living the GI Way: Partial content matrix

Figure 11.2 shows a partial sample of a content matrix for LGIW based on the scenario associated with Sharon.

Figure 11.2. Partial content matrix for LGIW.

Living the GI Way: Unified content lifecycle

This represents a vision for a unified content lifecycle for Living the GI Way.

Create

The content creation phase consists of planning, authoring, and revision.

Planning

Each of the departments in LGIW works in a silo (for example, press, web, and education). There is little communication about the planned products, yet it’s been identified that opportunities exist to build off cross-platform products or take advantage of existing content.

Press, web, and education should meet on a quarterly basis at minimum to share information on projected information products. From the quarterly meeting a complete editorial calendar should be created that identifies the expected products and timelines.

Reports will be used to track the status of these products on an ongoing basis. This will allow LGIW to have a complete understanding of their upcoming content at any time.

Authoring

Authoring by external authors (for example, for books) will remain largely the same, though templates will be adapted to reflect the required structures for information based on the use and reuse requirements. Templates for external authors will remain in standard Microsoft Word. Content from external authors will be automatically converted to the desired XML structure (for example, web page, workshop, article, and so on) once brought into LGIW.

Internal authors will work in Word, with XML “under the covers.” Styles will represent XML structures.

Trade press books will continue to be authored by external authorities on the glycemic index. An internal author will be paired with the expert to assist in developing friendly, easy-to-read content. A core set of content will be designed for reuse into a variety of books for specific health conditions such as diabetes, polycystic ovary syndrome, weight loss, and celiac disease. Authors will be encouraged to write content in a modular way so that the content can be easily structured for reuse.

Workshops will draw on content originally created for a book. Core GI concepts will be supplemented by objectives, exercises, and examples. eLearning will reuse workshop modules and be supplemented by audio and video and, potentially, interactive exercises or simulations. Custom workshops can be created by reusing core workshop materials augmented by customer-specific information. Custom organizations of content can be easily facilitated by reordering modules. Custom workshops can also easily be rebranded because the content has been designed to accommodate rebranding.

Web content will be reused from core content originally created for books and workshops and will be supplemented by marketing materials.

The GI database will be converted to a mobile app to facilitate detailed access to GI values. eBooks will link to the GI values app rather than display unreadable tables.

Edit and review

The review phase consists of editing, reviewing, and approving content.

Edit

Editors can either edit content in the Microsoft Word version before it’s imported into the system or edit content in the content management system (CMS).

Review

Through workflow, editors and reviewers will be notified that content is “ready for review.” The notification will include a link to the document to be reviewed. Reviewers can annotate the content with comments. Comments are associated with the component so that they can be viewed in the context of the component at any time.

Reviewers can see all review comments from other reviewers for a component to compare the comments.

Reviewers can also review a complete history of the changes that have been made to a component either in the current version or in previous versions.

LGIW should consider having content reviewed by all departments to ensure that it will meet all future reuse requirements.

When review is complete, authors update the content based on compiled review comments.

Review is done on components, not documents.

Approval

Once all comments have been received and merged into the source content, authors will use metadata or the workflow to indicate content that’s ready for final approval.

Reviewers will review the content and indicate if it has final approval by selecting the final approval metadata.

Manage

A number of activities are involved in the management of content.

Metadata

Metadata must be added to every content assembly and component before it’s stored. Wherever possible, metadata will be automatically applied to the content based on the taxonomy and content structure, relieving the authors of having to manually add it. Metadata applied to a higher level of a document (for example, workshop) will be automatically inherited by (applied to) all the subcomponents (for example, subtopics). As much metadata as possible will be added automatically based on the context of the component, the template, and the subject of the content.

Some metadata will be applied by the author, for example, information about what changed in the content or why it was changed.

To apply metadata to a component, authors will select from a list of predefined values (controlled vocabulary). Some metadata fields will allow authors to enter their own metadata; however, the majority of metadata will be controlled using a specified list of terms.

Version control

Each time content is saved, a new version will be created. There will be two levels of versioning: draft version and full version. Content will remain in draft version until approved, and then it will be fully versioned.

Through version control, authors will be able to view previous versions of the content or revert to an earlier version if necessary.

Authors and reviewers can see the complete detailed history for each item. The history will indicate who made the change (automatic), when the change was made (automatic), and the reason for the change (authors will complete this information).

Access control

Content will be controlled, meaning no one will be able to create, view, or modify content without the appropriate permissions. Different users of the CMS will have different permissions.

Access control will be defined by the system administrator. Once access control is applied to a document, the same access control will be inherited (applied to) all the components that compose the document. If content is reused in multiple locations, the most restricted level of access will be applied to the element unless it is standard content, such as a logo or disclaimer.

Check in content

At any point in the content creation process, authors will be able to check the content into the CMS. At minimum, authors should check in content daily—it shouldn’t reside on their local drive. If the content is ready for review or approval, authors will add the appropriate metadata or use workflow, and reviewers will be automatically notified that it’s available for review.

Once the content is checked in, it will be automatically stored in the correct location in the CMS.

Workflow

Workflow begins at authoring. Workflow is used throughout the content lifecycle to control and route content automatically. For example, setting the status of the content to “ready for review” will cause the workflow to automatically route the content to the designated reviewers.

Appropriate times (durations) will be added to each step in the workflow (for example, writing, editing, review) so adequate time is allocated. Recipients of the content in the next task will be informed if content is delayed and will be reminded of upcoming requirements (for example, the review must occur by a specific date).

Reports

Reports will be created to aid in project management and content tracking. A variety of reports can be created, such as:

• Where used (where content is reused)

• Status (status of a project or products)

• Responsible party (who is responsible for each task)

• Project review (for example, what were the durations of a task, how many reviews were required)

• Inactive modules (on hold, archived)

• All content on a particular subject regardless of content type

Multichannel delivery

Content can be published to multiple channels:

• Web (website, mobile site)

• Print (for example, InDesign or QuarkXPress)

• Other (for example, Kindle, EPUB, PPT)

Content delivery consists of publishing to multiple platforms. XML stylesheets reflect the requirements of each medium. Detailed rules can be included that ensure appropriate “page” breaks. XML stylesheets address the issues of consistent formatting in publications.

Web

The Web will become one of many delivery channels. The first priority is to reorganize existing content on the standard website and apply the revised taxonomy for improved access and retrieval.

The second phase involves creating a mobile site.

Print

Stylesheets control the look and feel of the content. Information products are automatically assigned an appropriate publishing format (for example, a book is designated as PDF). When an information product is published, the appropriate stylesheet will be automatically selected for use.

The publishing system can be designed to allow users to request immediate or scheduled publishing. Users can be given permission to publish based on their roles.

Other

Content can be published to a variety of additional platforms such as Kindle, EPUB, PowerPoint, or any new platform as required. Content remains the same; only the stylesheet and publishing rules change.