Volume 1, Issue 5 – September 2010

Greetings!

Welcome to this month’s Words & Numbers storybook. Our stories highlight and investigate different areas in the field of educational publishing.

The Showroom

Words & Numbers is pleased to announce the introduction of our new Virtual Showroom. Please click on the link below to browse through a representative sampling of the services and products that we can create for our clients.

http://www.wordsandnumbers.com/whatwedo/virtual-showroom/

The Words

In the last Words & Numbers Storybook mailing, we discussed some of the fundamental uses and challenges of asset mapping, a process that allows developers to organize and update existing content efficiently. We also included case studies outlining our solutions for two distinctly different mapping projects. Due to the number of questions we received as a result of that mailing, we’ve decided to release a companion piece collating several frequently asked questions about asset mapping. These questions are discussed in detail below.

The topic of asset mapping is broad, so with any mapping project, it’s critical to narrow the field before you begin. You may find yourself asking questions similar to those below when preparing to map your assets. Some questions are basic and project-specific, such as How long does asset mapping take? and What kind of resources will I need? Other questions are more complex and address general issues, such as What is the difference between mapping and tagging? and At what stage of the project should I bring my production team on board? No matter where you are in the process, remember that asking the right questions and establishing clear answers are the first steps toward alleviating risk and ensuring success.

Questions (and Answers!) on Asset Mapping

How broad is your definition of “assets” in terms of format or platform: print, online, video, audio, CD-ROM, and/or other formats?

By “assets,” we mean any type of formatted content, from textbooks to online courses to audio/video files. The asset map itself can be easily adapted to accommodate a variety of content types.

I’d like to ask about some of the terminology you’re using. What do you mean by “a clearly defined taxonomy”? How are you defining “tags”? Can you explain the difference between mapping and tagging?

By taxonomy, we simply mean the structure you use to organize the assets. Often, this can be an Excel template built to fit the parameters of a given project. This is not to be confused with Bloom’s Taxonomy, which may be a piece of data required within the map itself. By tags, we mean meta-content information such as learning objectives, difficulty level, etc., that are associated with specific chunks of content. It makes sense to think of tagging as more granular, specific to one piece of data in the map. Mapping is a broader term pertaining to distilling assets into an outline form.

What is the benefit to my company of asset mapping? What is the end result of all the work?

On a basic level, asset maps are inventories that detail the assets you have. For instance, an online course map shows course details at a glance, which saves the user from having to click through the screens. In addition to tracking, an asset map can reveal content gaps. If you want to upgrade your course to meet new specs, an asset mapper can outline the gaps, and then pass the document on to a development team to fill those gaps. The end result can range from a simple tracking sheet to new or upgraded content for a whole program.

I see asset mapping as part of a much larger initiative to collate and repurpose my content. How can I scale the asset-mapping process to fit my needs?

Scaling the asset-mapping process can best be achieved by training large project teams in a single sitting to populate the basic parts of an asset map. Concurrent development can then be accomplished by having one portion of a course mapped while another portion is in production. For instance, if you’re upgrading a course, your media team could tweak or rebuild existing interactives while your asset-mapping team reviews the course content and creates asset maps.

How would a content expert aid in the creation of an asset map?

Asset maps can often be built by a seasoned resource with a broad understanding of the subject area and a keen eye for detail. Depending on the nature of the project, an asset map may need to be handed off to a subject-matter expert to add or revise content. The expert may need to cut or re-chunk the asset, or write new learning objectives.

Does mapping involve specific expertise and knowledge of technology? What kind of resources would I need for such a project?

Mapping certainly requires a keen attention to detail, a visual eye, and an expertise with Excel or any other mapping software used. For the basic mapping task, consider a general editor who is comfortable working across subject areas with a variety of asset types. On any given mapping project, it may also be necessary to bring on subject-matter experts or instructional designers to make higher-level content decisions.

Is asset mapping a time-consuming process?

This depends on the type of mapping required. The key to gaining efficiency is finding the right resources and devising an effective quality control plan. Often, asset mapping can be done in stages, with lower-level resources preparing the map with basic metadata and higher-level resources focusing on tasks such as analyzing and re-chunking assets, or assigning complexity levels.

Do I need to create a mapping template and guidelines, or can a vendor help?

Once you outline your product vision, a vendor can provide guidance and help you create a mapping template that suits your needs. A vendor can also take an existing template and modify it to make it more user-friendly or useful to the other teams who need to utilize the map.

Does a production team need to be involved up front, and if so, how?

It is generally a best practice to involve the production team early, especially if they need to interpret what’s in the map in order to build or update the asset. Often, the production team will have input into how the template is developed. This helps improve the workflow process and communications between editorial and production.

What is the quality control process on a typical mapping project? What is the best way to check for accuracy?

As with most projects, a review checklist is critical to quality. To maximize efficiency, spot checks can be performed on basic maps, while more detailed checks can be performed on maps of higher complexity, or ones that are more prone to risk or error. To gauge the type of review needed, it’s best to have the developer map a small piece of content, review it for accuracy, and provide detailed feedback.

Words & Numbers welcomes your questions and ideas, and the opportunity to collaborate with you on asset mapping strategies. Whether you’re simply tracking metadata for future use or upgrading your existing pool of assets, our team will gladly sit down with you to determine best practices and solutions to your challenges.

For more information, please contact Ken Sherman, W&N Senior Vice President, at ksherman@wordsandnumbers.com.

What’s Next? Check out our Free Asset Mapping Webinar!

For those of you who are interested in learning more about asset mapping, Words & Numbers will be hosting two webinars in October in which we will discuss “best practices” in the art of asset mapping.

Please click on the link below to register for this exciting event.

http://www.wordsandnumbers.com/whatwedo/events/asset-mapping-webinar/

Volume 1, Issue 4 – August, 2010

Welcome to this month’s Words & Numbers storybook on asset mapping. Our stories highlight and investigate different areas in the field of educational publishing.

Does This Sound Familiar?

You’ve spent time and money building legacy content and you want to put it to use. You may find yourself asking question such as:

• How do I keep track of all my content?
• What is the best way to update the content, whether moving from print to digital or upgrading existing digital content?
• How do I find and fill asset gaps in an efficient manner?

The Words

Asset Mapping, Authoring Templates, Storyboarding, and Asset Tracking and Migration are just a few names for the latest “must haves” in educational publishing. These different names address the same fundamental question: how do you transfer existing resources, whether digital or print-based, into a new program? The first step is to identify your vision for the content update. Once that is established, you will need to create a map template in which you can organize and analyze the content from a bird’s-eye view, focusing on its structure and organization. You can create this template using spreadsheets, online tools, or a combination of both. Next, you must determine how granular you want your map to be. The simplest and most general tags may give you some basic information, but do not delve deeply enough into the asset to make analysis of the content meaningful. For example, if a tag for an asset is labeled simply as “instruction,” how would someone reading the map know the length of the lesson, which pedagogical approach is being used, or what format the lesson is supposed to be in? Another problem lies in the subjectivity of the person tagging the files. Do all “taggers” agree on terminology? Will the amount of detail on the map change depending on the tagger? For both of these reasons, you want to develop a clearly defined taxonomy and guidelines that you will use to categorize the content.

The Numbers

As they face tight budgets and increasingly tough competition, many publishers, both large and small, must re-leverage existing assets to survive. The concept of repurposing is not new to publishers, but what may be new are:

• the speed with which content needs to be repurposed for reuse,
• the granularity with which individual assets can be called upon for use,
• the growing number of diverse assets that drive core content, and
• the plethora of technology platforms that can be used to host the final product.

An effective asset map must therefore be inspected through several lenses. First, it must be formatted for ease of use and searching capabilities. Second, it usually needs input from a content expert to capture the nuances of the subject matter itself, and to determine if the map needs to be expanded to include additional information. By investing the time to think through all of the possibilities not only for what exists today, but for what may be needed in the future, a company could save money in both time and resources.

The Case Study

Recently, two of the largest educational publishers came to Words & Numbers with significant challenges:

• Their customers want a lot of immediate choices for delivering, sorting, and remixing content.
• Their business units are requiring them to do more with less, to reuse as much as possible, and to work within a tight budget.
• Their internal resources have been moved around, downsized, and more importantly, drawn from various backgrounds that may result in gaps in their understanding of the strategic nature and importance of a well-done asset map, as well as the technology behind it. Many of these resources are print-first SMEs who will require significant training to understand the nuances of the digital format.
• The hundreds of thousands of assets that need to be repurposed are in various conditions, formats, and locations. This information must be centralized in order to be of use.
• The asset map is therefore crucial for evaluating current assets and core gaps, comparing the marketing story and strategy against what currently exists, and understanding the economic viability of a particular business unit. Each connection needs to make sense, from a business level as well as a pedagogical one. Finally, no matter what the volume and complexity of the assets are, the mapping exercise must be done quickly and correctly the first time around.

The Solution

Working with Words & Numbers, both publishers defined taxonomies based not only on technology tags, but also on the vision and context of the larger content strategy. The results in both cases were highly satisfactory:

• For one of the publishers, we used the asset maps to identify core gaps and develop gap analyses that the media team could use to determine what assets needed to be developed to fit the new program specs, and to allocate resources to complete the task quickly and effectively.
• In the second case, we took existing mapping templates from the client and determined the best way to use them, developed guidelines for populating the maps, and decided on the best resources to complete each step. In this way, we were able to simplify a complex process and make it much more manageable.
• The reality is, each product line, business unit, or department has a unique vision of how it would like to find, build on, and release its assets to the end customer. Questions such as, How is the customer able to customize and reuse? What should be tagged as “core,” and what as “supplements”? and How can this process be used across and within different departments and business units? all require thought about the assets themselves and their relation to the global vision of the company. Only then does the asset map become a powerful and useful tool.

What’s Next?

Based on a variety of asset mapping experiences, Words & Numbers is conducting free webinars and compiling “best practices” in the art of asset mapping and will gladly share its findings to assist in the development of a mapping strategy.

Volume 1, Issue 3 – June, 2010

Welcome to this month’s Words & Numbers storybook. Our third story focuses on how to think differently about building value for your ultimate customers: the students.

The Words

Today’s students have access and voice like never before. With sites that rate professors, books, schools, and general services, their issues should be on the forefront of everyone’s minds. In many cases, the companies creating student products are not selling directly to the student, but to faculty, the institution, or distribution channels and partners. Smart companies are learning from the end customer-the student-more directly. When students like products or find deeper value, many problems are solved easily. However, companies must commit to stretch and think outside the box to extend solutions, services, and metrics to better understand today’s well-informed users and their needs beyond the obvious need of receiving an education.

The Numbers

Students of all types are going back to school to re-tool for the new economy, and many are accumulating debt to finance their educations. According to the Federal Reserve, between 1983 and 2001 credit card debt for 25- to 34-year-olds nearly tripled, from $3,989 to $12,000. College graduates, facing decreasing federal aid and increasing tuition prices, are coming out of school in debt. Numerous books (such as Why America’s 20- and 30-Somethings Can’t Get Ahead, by Tamara Draut and Generation Debt, by Anya Kamenetz)have been written about this issue, addressing the fact that no one is truly working for the satisfaction of the end customer-our students. This vacuum creates opportunities for companies to re-brand and re-connect with this critically important group.

The Case Study

The Imagine America Foundation (IAF) has been serving the career college community since 1982. IAF provides scholarships for education, awards, financial aid information, sector research, and faculty training; honors achievement in career education; and supports and promotes the benefits of career colleges to the general public.

The Foundation has grown to support more than 500 career colleges across the United States and Puerto Rico and provides valuable information on financial aid and scholarships. Career colleges in turn serve more than 2 million students nationwide. Although IAF supports the career college community, it retains its focus on serving the student.

One of IAF’s challenges is how to scale and grow its organization to better support its student base and add value to the career colleges it supports. After listening to both “customers,” the career schools and the students, IAF recognized that there is a need to bridge a few common themes centered on financial responsibility. Career colleges want students to understand the investment being made, as well as the time it will take to recoup the investment. After all, schools have a vested interest in ensuring that students do not default on loans provided to them and that personal and financial investments are required when taking the step toward getting a degree or certification. Career colleges know that students may not have a strong financial literacy background. For example, many students do not think about or plan how to budget for school spending, social spending, and living expenses when earning a first job’s salary. There is a need to align the perception and understanding of student loan costs relative to the rest of their spending.

Although there are numerous financial calculators, resources, and loan documents that students can use to perform such budget calculations, many of the tools are hard to understand, abstract, and require interpretation and guidance for proper implementation. IAF wanted to bridge the financial awareness gap for students and provide a support for career colleges that can be shared and used quickly and easily.

The Solution

IAF came to Words & Numbers with ideas, resources, and vision. Working with Words & Numbers, IAF was able to take existing, well-known documents, calculators, and tools to craft a creative interactive, Web-based experience that draws students in with an avatar that speaks and explains basic information about budgeting. Students then customize their experiences by answering questions and filling in numbers so that they can see very quickly through an interactive financial planning tool how to coordinate their budgets and expenses. The students will interact with a knowledgeable, reputable third-party educational resource and learn basic budgeting to help them plan, schools will have a tool that they can share with their students, and IAF will have successfully added value and bridged the gap between its two customers, the students and schools.

“IAF wants to continue to support its nearly 15,000 scholarship and award recipients by providing an engaging interactive financial planning tool,” said Robert L. Martin, Imagine America Foundation President. “We believe by helping educate students on financial responsibility, they will make good financial choices that will lead to graduating with less debt, which in the end will make them better prepared for the future.”

What’s Next?

With the debut of the “Financial Planning Made Simple” tool at the Career College Association conference, IAF and Words & Numbers will be looking for partners, vendors, and schools interested in enriching the student experience and addressing their challenges head on. We will be meeting on topics such as developing Web-based forums, ancillary resource kits, mobile learning applications, and focused curriculum on increasing financial literacy and other student-centered topics. Our goal is to share our lessons learned and remind all of us that our end customer-the student-is ready for our help.

Volume 1, Issue 2 – April, 2010

Welcome to this month’s Words & Numbers storybook on contextual learning. Our stories highlight and investigate different areas in the field of educational publishing.

The Words

In the digital age, user experience drives everything. After all, no matter how strong the content, how cool the technology, how great the sales pitch is, mastering the basics is the core of any endeavor. Are you engaged and motivated? Do you feel you’ve learned something worthwhile after the experience? Can you customize the experiences to maximize learning outcomes? Is the experience intuitive?

Creating engaging user experiences is a must now in the highly competitive educational product marketplace. As a result, the expectations placed on those who work to develop these products are higher. Subject matter experts have to have a better understanding of how technology can be used. Instructional designers have to have a basic grasp of content goals and objectives. Programmers must know how to translate the experience into elegant solutions that easily port and can be explained and used at a simple level. Sales and marketing must increase their technology acumen to win growing technology-driven adoptions. The challenge is how to orchestrate the various talent and skill sets create the next-generation user experience with an eye to today’s tight budgets, timelines, and well-informed consumers.

The Numbers

Financially, technology tools have the potential to streamline product development and workflow. Time, resources, and dollars will be saved as a result. However, an ongoing inefficiency within organizations is the lack of coherent understanding across the varied content, production, technology development, project management, sales, marketing, and executive teams. Organizations that have made the transition to proactively learn across their core knowledge have the advantage. In this recessionary time period, many companies have “leaned down” the organizations to increase efficiency. Under this model, a large internal staff has given way to outside experts both on- and offshore, anchored by strong internal project management. This gives organizations an opportunity to focus on the product user experience, as well as to leverage talents within and outside the organizations. To really save money, all parties must focus on how to integrate and better communicate across the organization and within partner companies. It is no longer a matter of want, but a matter of need for an organization to master new talents to survive and thrive.

The Case Study

The University of California College Prep, a statewide program of the University of California, publishes free and license-based high-quality online courses and content to benefit California students, with a special emphasis on helping underserved students gain college eligibility. UC College Prep has gained a reputation as a leading innovator in developing technology-rich curriculum and online pedagogy, and it was the first to provide content and collaboration to well-known nonprofit groups such as Monterey Institute for Technology and Education (MITE) and International Association for K-12 Online Learning (iNACOL). Well-known for their highly interactive, technology-rich, and canonical courses, UC College Prep was looking to push the boundaries of current offerings to leverage the full power of technology. Rather than a glorified online textbook, UC College Prep sought to create courses that actively guided and engaged all students. In addition, they needed to bulk up their existing course offerings not by increasing internal staff, but by using project management principles and outside partners to keep the internal development team lean and efficient. For Rafael Granados, Executive Director of UC College Prep, “Innovation was the key to help an important population of students distributed across the entire State of California.”

In early 2008, UC College Prep, through a state RFP process, looked to find a partner to create three cutting-edge, innovative middle and high school mathematics courses. These courses use a variety of delivery mediums-print, audio, video, and mobile-woven and delivered in a coherent, self-contained online course.

The Challenge

The RFP process brought in numerous potential partners from in and outside the United States. These organizations ranged from technology-based companies, academic institutions, and publishers to unknown service providers. There were several challenges. The first challenge was the subject area itself: mathematics. It is well known that many students start to lose interest in mathematics in the upper elementary school years. It is also well researched that without a foundation in mathematics, in particular the mastery of algebra, students are limited in career and college choices. As STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) education becomes more important to our nation’s competitiveness and innovation, it is more critical than ever to engage disenfranchised students in mathematics. The second challenge was to find a partner that did not come with a technology bias or a content agenda, but someone who understood how to motivate the learner through interesting, relevant content blended with appropriate application of technology. The third challenge: Failure was not an option. Multi-platform course delivery was presented as an alternative to the traditional course delivery model. Many eyes were on the state of California.

The Solution

Words & Numbers, along with two offshore partners, sent and presented the winning RFP. What kept the entire project focused was the issue of user experience. At the end of the day, what is the student supposed to learn? What is the best way, based on intensive research, for them to learn the material? How can technology be used to facilitate this vision? With common-sense questions and goals, the team was able to design a pathway and workflow that made sense. The teams met to discuss the objectives of the lesson and brainstormed the best way to present course information in an engaging manner. All teams brought their core area of expertise in the discussions on design and delivery of the course. The programmers and instructional designers had to learn some mathematics. The subject matter experts and editors had to learn how to speak tech development language to communicate their ideas. We created templates that took into account content demands and that also streamlined production needs. Great respect was developed across teams, despite some challenges along the way, and all three companies involved developed better insight into and appreciation for both content and technology in their combined ability to engage students.

Through a strong internal leadership and development team and key external partnerships, the vision of Rafael Granados and the UC College Prep staff is being realized. “Our courses provide students with sustained opportunities to better prepare for college,” says Rafael. “The unique blend of learning and pedagogical design with the latest array of learning technologies has resulted in some of the most sophisticated online courses in the world.”

What’s Next?

Working with our key technology partners, we are building “smart” tools and templates through the lens of content. With these tools we hope to give content developers a common framework to have discussions on building learning experiences. We are looking for companies that share the need for better integration across content and technology teams to help us refine our “smart” tools and templates. Together, we can take the additional step to get our teams talking the same talk, and develop effective learning methods.

Volume 1, Issue 1 – March, 2010

Welcome to the Words & Numbers storybook on contextual learning. This is the first in a series of stories meant to highlight and investigate different areas of the field of educational content development.

This first story focuses on how to navigate the new expectations set on course development.

The Words

Enrollment is up, and students are heading back to school. Even so, student acquisition is very intense, and differentiation is key. To attract students, schools must have robust, engaging courses that can be offered in a variety of formats. It is simply an expectation in our technology-savvy world. So, course development occurs and challenges begin. As the curriculum directors, deans, and provosts wait anxiously for courses to be developed, they ponder questions such as what percentage of my course development project is complete? Will I receive these on time for enrollment? If I have to add resources, will I have enough money? Do I even know that my method is most efficient?

The Numbers

Managing course development efficiently is an absolute necessity in these economic times. No school can afford waste in inefficiencies, schedule slippages, or lack of quality-assurance checkpoints. If courses are not ready, schools risk losing students. This loss is compounded over many semesters and years, as well as in reputation. The need for strong, efficient course development process is critical to scaling and budget efficiencies.

The Case Study

Words & Numbers was founded in Baltimore, Maryland in 2000. From a small company of five employees, it quickly grew into an organization of more than 100 employees. In the early years, Words & Numbers focused primarily on print-centric content development for commercial publishers. As time went by, the company found itself collaborating more and more with virtual educators and Web-based schools and institutions.

When the 2008 economic recession hit, two main challenges resulted at Words & Numbers. First, course development for clients must become more efficient to compete in the marketplace. Every client has limited funds and must do a lot for a lot less. Second, the acceleration of course solutions beyond the printed book occurred very rapidly. So, rather than simply managing development of products specifically for one instructional medium (print), now, we must address a myriad of print, audio, video, mobile, games, and simulations in ever-changing delivery modalities and learning platforms.

The Solution

In order to survive and thrive in this environment, there was simply no room for inefficiencies in course development, and we had to learn how to juggle and manage development of a host of learning objects. We needed a central nervous system composed of the integration of curriculum development tools with workflow processes and standard project management practices. Soon, WNFlow™ (“Win-Flow”) was born.

WNFLow™ is our central nervous system to track course development in real time. We need to see where everything is and who is working on what in any location and at any time. We also need to measure progress objectively, using best project management practices. The answer to the question “How is the project going?” simply can’t be “OK.” The answer has to include numbers and metrics (such as Earned Value Analysis) as proof of the project’s health.

As the WNFlow™ system calibrates with real time updates, management receives reports classifying the status of every curriculum development project as green (Go), yellow (Slow down), or red, (Stop) based on current or projected risks. Such risks can involve scope of work, schedule, or budget concerns. Classifying project risks ensures that risks are proactively identified in a timely manner. The ability to hold conversations and manage documents within the project management portal allows knowledge about course development to be retained, even if team members come and go.

Through WNFlow™, Words & Numbers has seen a dramatic lowering of costs and an increase in efficiencies. Transparency across the organization, as teams work on hundreds of projects, has helped manage cost, quality, and timeliness of content development.

As Patrick Campbell, Executive Director of Project Management at Words & Numbers, knows, standardized project management has been a driving force behind the success of the company. “Project managers are vital to risk management. They serve to foster an environment in which co-workers openly indicate concerns and anticipate challenges.”

What’s Next?

WNFlow™’s success has attracted the attention of many institutions to bring efficiency and transparency to course development processes.

“At Words & Numbers we lower communication barriers by increasing visibility in real time,” Patrick explains. “This allows key stakeholders to have a good idea of where the project is at every moment.”

At this time, we are looking for institutions that need assistance with growing and scaling their course development. Our hope is that we can share our lessons learned with others so that they too can thrive in this trying environment.

W&N Completed STEM Projects:

• Infinity Project with SMU – Middle School Engineering Modules
• Department of Homeland Security (DHS) University Programs – Middle School DHS-related content
• Department of Defense (DOD) STARBASE – 5^th grade science activities
• Morgan State University – High School Teacher Training Modules for DHS-STEM-related content
• Discovery Education – STEM Activities for Elementary and Middle School

Thought Leadership:

• VP Educational Outreach, NDIA Workforce Development
• STEM Panel for Eduserc – STEM Stakeholder’s Conference Building a Stronger STEM Community
• STEM Research and Modeling Network – Sponsored by BHEF (Business and Higher Education Forum) and Raytheon
• DHS University Programs Conference – STEM Collaboration Project with Morgan State University
• Entertainment Industry Council – STEM Committee (June 2010)

Associations, Organizations, Partnerships:

• STEM Workforce Development Committee for National Defense Industry Association

http://www.ndia.org/Divisions/Divisions/STEM/Pages/default.aspx

• Teachers on Tour – STEM teachers training schools across the country
• STEM Education Coalition

http://www.stemedcoalition.org/

In today’s high-stakes commercial market, the competition for the Administration’s new funding grants will be fierce. As the definitive thought leaders in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math education, we understand the implications for the education industry. By monitoring developments that impact STEM education in policy and industry needs, we have aligned relevant STEM education requirements to the needs of pre-K-12 and postsecondary education in the past, and we stand ready to partner with you to make you stand out from the competition.