My colleagues Nick Rosenthal and Cathy Wain have just returned from the STC Conference in London, where they were delighted to meet up with Sarah O'Keefe and Matthew Arnold of Scriptorium Publishing Services, Inc. During 2003, Nick spent a considerable amount of time in North Carolina, training in Structured FrameMaker and XML workflows with Scriptorium. Nick has always spoken very highly of Scriptorium, so when Cathy and I were presented with the opportunity to undertake some training in XML and structured authoring with Lydia Wong of Scriptorium, we were very keen.

A significant part of my project management work at Salford Translations is based upon the workflow of extracting FrameMaker data as XML content, translating the XML files and then importing the translated XML content back into the FM file sets for DTP. This is a workflow that both defines and applies the consistent organisation of documentation. In conjunction with the consistency of documentation content afforded by the use of Translation Memory tools, this workflow ensures that the projects we undertake at Salford Translations are consistent and compliant with the document structures required by the client.

So, why did we feel the need to follow Scriptorium's web-based course in XML and Structured Authoring? The use of XML as an interchange format, used for the creation and maintenance of a content repository, is in essence a very useful concept for documentation. However, as is often the case, once we begin to put such ideas into practice, questions are raised regarding various issues. We had hit upon a few technical issues during the conversion processes to and from FrameMaker, and felt that the Scriptorium course would give us a more in-depth insight into the correlation between the structured FrameMaker document definition file and the XML document type definition file. This would hopefully enable us to avoid such technical issues in future projects.

The course consists of 4 half-day sessions (approximately 2 hours in length each), and is presented as a web-based meeting with all participants in direct communication with one another through a telephone conference call. This enables the tutor to field any questions raised during their presentations, as and when they are raised. Once logged on, each participant can view the tutor's screen in real-time as they demonstrate and talk them through the various functionalities being discussed. This was the first time I had ever attended a webinar, and I was not sure just how effective this would be. Prior to starting the course, Sarah e-mailed Cathy and myself details of how to ring in, and separate e-mails with webinar log on details (instructions, times and URLs). Every day, we dialled into the conference call and waited a couple of minutes for the netmeeting to begin. At this point I should mention that the music played while you are on hold is updated by a decade each netmeeting. Had the course been over 5 days rather than 4 days, then I'm sure we'd have been given the opportunity to listen to a bit of Boney M or the Bee Gees... Once everybody was present and logged on Lydia began her presentation. Being in direct vocal contact over the telephone was useful, and a better compromise than I had imagined (being used to the more traditionally reciprocal teaching environment of the classroom or lecture theatre). However, once we had been online for a few minutes, it did not seem so strange.

In addition to the taught elements of the course, we were given coursework to be completed outside of the contact hours. We managed to fit this in to the working day as there was not too much of it. We found that the coursework prompted discussions during the next netmeeting (particularly regarding XML elements and attributes), which again was useful as it raised the point that no two people would necessarily create XML content in the same way.

The content of the course is broken down into various topics, but can be categorised into 3 basic areas: XML structures, structured writing and workflow solutions. Obviously, these are just used as a guideline, and Lydia was more than happy to digress slightly here and there in order to resolve any queries we may have had.

The focus of the first session was centred around XML: defining XML, introducing XML concepts such as syntax, validity and entity conversion. We examined the XML DTD (document type definition) settings file in quite some detail, which both Cathy and I found to be an invaluable insight into the links between this and the FrameMaker EDD (element definition document).

The second and third sessions concentrated on structured writing and the various roles within structured documentation. Although not all of the stages of the documentation process discussed were strictly relevant to our particular workflow, we found that this gave us another valuable insight into the overall process as a whole.

The latter part of the third session and the first half of the final session were spent discussing best practice workflow solutions. Again, we found this to be a useful insight into how a streamlined XML-based workflow could save time (and money) for all involved. The end of the final session was dedicated to answering any project-specific queries the participants may have had.

I feel that I have benefited from the course, as many of the queries I had have been answered and I have been given a greater insight into technical authoring (and the challenges faced by technical authors). Although I knew the mechanics of the conversion processes, and was aware of some of the issues surrounding these, the course gave me a better global understanding of the 'big picture'; where our XML-based workflow fits into the documentation process, and the influences of upstream and downstream workflows. It is this knowledge that will give us both a sound foundation for further training courses.

Mark Buffery is the Translations Co-ordinator at Salford Translations Ltd in Stockport.