A full day seminar presented by B.Tommie Usdin, Mulberry Technologies, Inc. This workshop is being coordinated by Dr. Marcus Rothenberger, Assistant Professor of Management Information systems at the School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Overview

Store Once, Use Often! Many organizations are struggling with the issue of how to use content management so that corporate information can be stored only once yet delivered to the consumer in many different formats. These formats might range from print for office use or production copy, content for use on websites, and to being transmitted and shared with partner organizations. This workshop looks at using XML to accomplish this objective in two parts: Converting from HTML to XML Many applications that are now produced, managed, and published in HTML will be "converted" to XML in the near future. Some people are talking about this conversion as if it were a simple syntax change, and in a few cases this is an appropriate approach. More often, however, even converting existing HTML to Well-Formed XML using HTML tags will present significant challenges and the real benefits of conversion to XML will involve "up-translation" to a richer tag set than HTML. Users who want to realize the benefits of the Extensibility of XML must decide what tag set to use, how to convert their current data to XML using those tags, and what to do about legacy data that doesnt match their new specifications. In designing XML for existing HTML users have (or will soon have) the opportunity to add a variety of structure and content checks; complex linking mechanisms; and a variety of display techniques that may have implications for data content and structure. This talk will discuss the types of decisions that must be made in converting HTML to XML; the variety of data that is called HTML and approaches to converting various types and qualities of HTML; the types of changes that are automatable or easy and those that are likely to require manual intervention or even subject-matter expertise to implement. The costs of various conversion strategies are discussed, as are the possible values of the resulting XML. The approaches discussed will include: HTML to Well-formed HTML HTML to flat XHTML HTML to structured XHTML HTML to User-defined Structure with a DTD/Schema HTML to User-defined Content with a DTD/Schema Document Analysis and Markup Design XML users have the opportunity to design their own tag sets. Analysis is key to the designing effective and affordable tag sets. This tutorial begins with basic concepts of structured markup and a grounding in what to look for when analyzing documents. Emphasis will be on distinguishing useful from insignificant markup and design to limit the number of "false drops" (undesired items in a retrieval set) and to increase the percentage of desired information that is located, through design of the grammar and vocabulary control. Examples of markup to increase search precision or content reuse will be supplied.

Topics

The seminar will include discussion of: Principles of Structured Information/Document Analysis Who to involve in Information/Document Analysis Information Analysis Process Information Models and Notations Design to Support Search and Retrieval Design to Support Print and Presentation Design for Affordable Implementation

About the speaker

Since 1996, B. Tommie Usdin has served as President of Mulberry Technologies, Inc., a consultancy firm specializing in SGML and XML design and training. Ms. Usdin has been working with XML and XSLT since their inception, and with SGML since 1985. Ms. Usdin has taught SGML and XML to executives, managers, technical writers, publications staffs, and typesetters. Her courses have varied from high-level overviews of the concepts underlying SGML and XML, to the impact of conversion to these markup languages on the workplace, the technical details of DTD development and maintenance, document analysis, how to tag and correct autotagged documents, and details of particular SGML and XML applications. Ms. Usdin has taught principles of database design, design of full- text and relational databases, search techniques for full-text and text-based databases, meeting facilitation skills, and JAD (Joint Application Development) methodologies. Ms. Usdin also spent seven years as Vice-President of The ATLIS Consulting Group, a full-service SGML consulting organization. She received a B.A. in English from Coe College and a M.S. degree in Information Sciences from Drexel University.

Who should Attend?

This workshop is designed for all individuals who have a background in XML and are interested in using content management techniques to optimize their operating efficiency. While the seminar will assume some background in XML, it is designed for IT managers, high-level systems people, and hands-on professionals who are faced with the issue of enterprise content management.

Coordinator

This technology event is being coordinated by Dr. Marcus Rothenberger, Assistant Professor of Management Information Systems at the School of Business Administration, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.