Hyperviews Online

A service called Grokker is available as a demo to search Yahoo, Wikipedia, and Amazon. Although the demo does not search everything on the Web, it’s a useful tool in research, helping to aggregate results that are meaningful to the searcher.

Please note: based on the comments, Marcia Poulsen has revised the presentation we published here. The revision has been posted: http://stc-on.org/online/topics/content-management/2006/08/19/topic-types/ 

Online SIG member Marcia Poulsen presented “The Three Topic Types — Concept, Tasks, and Reference — and How to Use them Effectively: Borrowing Best Practices from DITA” for the August 3 Central New York chapter meeting. The Online SIG has posted the slides.

It’s our goal to publish a chapter meeting each month, and to podcast as many of those as possible. (more…)

by Dirk Manuel, Member Belgium chapter and ID-IA SIG with an introduction by Walt Jones, Senior Member, Online SIG

This article is based on a post by Dirk Manuel on May 11, 2006 on the ID-IA SIG email list, and appears by Dirk’s permission. The introduction was posted on the Online SIG list, and appears by Walt’s permission. These posts responded to a question about a tool called OnDemand Personal Navigator.

Introduction

Walt Jones begins:
OnDemand Personal Navigator (ODPN) from Global Knowledge is primarily a software simulation tool that also allows export of various forms of printable documents. Macromedia Captivate and Authorware provide smoother simulations, but ODPN provides more control over recording. Editing is relatively easy, though not as advanced as Captivate. (more…)

This article is reprinted from Ragged Left, newsletter of the Berkeley chapter STC, September/October 2005. It is the review of the chapter’s August 2005 meeting by Ron Sands.

At the August 2005 Berkeley chapter meeting, Dana Chisnell of UsabilityWorks gave an interactive presentation on evaluation of usability using heuristics and personas. The presentation summarized the findings of two research papers she co-wrote with Janice (Ginny) Redish of Redish & Associates, Inc. Their research was commissioned by the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP). All quotations in this article are from the paper “Designing Web Sites for Older Adults: Expert Review of Usability for Older Adults at 50 Web Sites,” which is available for download at the AARP web site. (more…)

This is a new listing for 2006 of online resources for employment and business development, incorporating the information published in 2005 on the old website of the Online SIG. Included are Employment information from STC; Online job listing URLs; Maximing use of online resumes; Social networking; Career resources online; Cost and value: online tools. (more…)

The entire on-line FrameMaker Help is now (June, 2006) available as a downloadable PDF.

Online SIG annual conference team members Saurabh Kudesia, Kathy Ramsey, and Wanda L. Worley share links they learned of at the Annual Conference. (more…)

The STC Lone Star Community is proud to present the Region 5 Conference for 2006 “The 50 Facets of Technical Communication.” Lone Star is celebrating its 50th year as a chapter and we’re taking this year to look at the many different types of technical communications professionals.

You can find information at
http://region5conf.com/CallforProposals.htm

For questions, contact:
Elisa Miller, Program Chair
email: program@region5conf.com

by Heather Hedden, Online SIG member and Coordinator, Web Indexing SIG, American Society of Indexers

There are some good books on creating website indexes:

Website Indexes: Visitors to Content in Two Clicks
by James Lamb, 2006
ISBN: 978-1-4116-7937-5
Available from http://www.lulu.com/content/300848

Website Indexing: Enhancing Access to Information within Websites, 2nd edition.
by Glenda Browne and Jonathan Jermey, 2004
Available from http://www.webindexing.biz/WebsiteIndexing2Ed.htm or from http://www.lulu.com/content/225548

Beyond Book Indexing: How to Get Started in Web Indexing, Embedded Indexing, and Other Computer-Based Media
edited by Diane Brenner and Marilyn Rowland, 2000.
ISBN: 1-57387-081-1
Avialable from http://books.infotoday.com/books/BeyondBookIndex.shtml

Additional information on website indexing can be found on the Web Indexing SIG site, including: articles, presentations, and courses/training.

Announcement by Heather Hedden

The joint international conference of the American Society of Indexers and the Indexing and Abstracting Society of Canada, to be held in Toronto June 15-17, has a number of sessions and workshops that would be of interest to those in the field of online content, especially those who would like to know more about creating online indexes.

Below is just a sampling of the program: (more…)

OASIS, the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards, announced that the ISO/IEC Joint Technical Committee 1 on Information Technology Standardization has approved the OpenDocument Standard for release as ISO/IEC 26300. The press release was posted today, May 8 2006.

The OpenDocument standard defines an open XML file format for office applications, so users of office suites can freely exchange text, spreadsheets, charts, graphs, presentations, and databases. OpenDocument was ratified as an OASIS standard in May 2005.

Our Online SIG web services team, Lou Quillio and Destry Wion, keep us up-to-date on news of the Web and publish educational articles frequently too.

Destry has an online journal with an RSS feed. Subscribe to receive frequent reminders of timely articles on topics related to open source web development and technical communication.

Lou posts news and articles on the STC Forum. Frequently these have instructions for key activities like incorporating an RSS feed in a website or installing a personal wiki.

The Online SIG is very fortunate to have volunteers who are so generous in sharing their knowledge and providing services to other members. Thank you, Destry and Lou, for your work this past year and for continuing in the new STC year.

Recent news includes “Web 2.0 and the enterprise,” reporting on uses of wikis and blogs for collaboration in business and on trends in marketing software to businesses. In particular IBM recently announced QED wiki, quick and easily done wiki, to allow people to aggregate information from the web for use in analysis of business situations. The concept is building custom web applications very quickly.

The older issues of “Hyperviews Online” occasionally addressed electronic performance support, and scanning through them shows that the STC Annual Conference has had presentations on this topic over the years. STC members can search past conference proceedings. Session materials from past conferences are also available. Search for “session materials” on the STC website. Other useful resources include:

“Key concepts in electronic performance support” on ESSS Central. Also, archive site. Links current August 2005.

“Make Way for Interactive Assistance” by Craig Marion. Published May 1, 2000. Link current May 2005.

We have a resource list on the subject of embedded help, and are moving it from our old website to this one to make it more visible. The list follows and includes one article by the Online SIG. (more…)