David Seaman, Matthew Gibson, Christine Ruotolo

75: Electronic Texts in XML [L-75]

26-30 July 2004

1)   How useful were the pre-course readings?

1: Excellent: short, but meaty. 2: Quite useful -- advanced, but useful to understand terminology when introduced in class. 3: Some pre-course readings were hard to follow, but they made it easier for me to take in and understand the lectures. 4: Very good preparation, though difficult to wade through. The class itself brings them to life. 5: Very, very useful. 6: Useful to have looked at, though there was a fair amount of overlap with what we talked about in class. 7: Very helpful.

2)   Were the course syllabus and other materials distributed in class useful (or will they be so in the future, after you return home)?

1: Yes. 2: Yes, very. 3: The syllabus, resources (electronic and paper), and equipment were quite useful. 4: Yes, they were very useful in following along during class, and I look forward to referring back to them later. Thank you for the electronic files, too! 5-6: Yes. 7: Yes, I will immediately start fooling with books, PDF, and FO.

3)   What aspects of the course content were of the greatest interest or relevance for your purposes? Was the intellectual level of the course appropriate?

1: XSLT transformations. 2: Style-sheets and general overviews from DS were most useful parts. 3: I found it hard to follow XSLT and XSLT/FO except in general terms, but I am glad I was exposed to these subjects so I can learn more in the future. 4: The sessions that focused on style sheets were the most helpful for where I am right now, in terms of comprehension, as well as skills needed on the job. There were some moments where things were over my head, but all in all, the content was an excellent balance. 5: Some parts were a bit above me, but with further reading on my own I would not want to leave out anything from the course content. 6: Technical aspects of digital text recreation and larger discussions of project management, grant writing, &c. 7: The first two days were too basic, but being able to ask about real life applications of TEI made up for it.

5)   What did you like best about the course?

1: The hands-on exercises; the reference handouts will be very helpful back at work. Please note: this training was the only training I have been able to find teaching me what I need to know at work -- it’s interesting that they don’t teach this at work and that I had to come to RBS to learn it. RBS fulfills a very important need. 2: Knowledge and good planning from instructors -- they were wonderful. 3: I thought both the lecture/demonstrations and the hands-on work were excellent. I liked being introduced to a range of topics and procedures, and now understand better where I could do more work in the future. I also thought it was very informative to learn about different kinds of projects underway at the Electronic Text Center and other institutions. 4: Well, I suppose one could study XML, DTDs, XSLT, CSS, XSLT/FO at other places, so I’d have to say that it is the who that teaches the course and how. DS, MG, and CR have a synergy going that is special, and they express a contagious love for XML. 5: It is too difficult to choose. I liked everything. I would have liked the course to have lasted at least two weeks. 6: The way the instructors broke down a large subject into manageable pieces; the opportunity to experiment during the hands-on portions of the course; also, the way it expanded understanding of what XML can do (by several orders of magnitude). 7: Explanation of XSL, formatting objects, workflow/funding/project management.

6)   How could the course have been improved?

1: On a few occasions with the hands-on exercises, I would get just a few seconds behind and it would take a while to catch up with the instructor and what he was doing on his PC. 2: Less time on formatting, more time on more advanced style sheets. For those not familiar with UVa’s excellent digital library system, possibly a tour offered or a session about it? The big picture here at UVa. 3: Having a second week or follow-up course could be very useful. Some topics had to be covered quickly, and were hard for one to assimilate. I am very slow, however, and I think many students picked up the material more easily than I did. 4: Considering the amount of content we covered in five days, I don’t think there was any way to improve. The instructors were flexible and tried to gauge the students’ needs with the material. 5: Only by length (see [response to question] five). 6: I would have liked to have gotten to the section on PERL, which we had to skip -- but it’s probably a good thing we didn’t try to fit it in. 7: Less basic XML.

8)   If you attended the Sunday and/or Monday night lectures, were they worth attending?

1: Yes, I liked both the lecture’s topic, presentation, and the chance to be with the other students in a social setting. 2: Yes, both. Not altogether relevant to class, but useful on a professional level. 4: Yes. 6: Yes, certainly. 7: Okay, but not great.

9) If you attended Museum Night, was the time profitably spent?

1: Yes! Not many showed up, but what was there was excellent and time well spent (Video Night). 4: N/A. 5-6: Yes.

10) Did you get your money’s worth? Any final thoughts?

1: Yes. 2: Definitely: one of the best technical workshops I’ve ever taken. Would like to spend a month at the Electronic Text Center. 3: The course was well worth the money. 4: Yes! It would be super to attend a full five days on just XSLT. 5: I know you want to keep the course to one week, but you could very well fill another one. Please do that in the future. 6: Definitely! I’m going to be putting what I’ve learned here into practice soon, but I also suspect I’ll be spending a lot of time trying out some of it for fun. Is there any chance of a follow-up in future years? 7: If you already know a lot of XML, XSL, and FO, you probably won’t learn much more. Otherwise, it’s a great soup-to-nuts survey of electronic texts.

Number of respondents: 7

Percentages

Leave                       Tuition                    Housing                   Travel

Institution                 Institution                 Institution                 Institution

gave me leave            paid tuition               paid housing              paid travel

86%                            57%                            43%                            57%

I took vaca-                I paid tui-                  I paid for my              I paid my own

tion time                    tion myself                 own housing              travel

0%                              43%                            14%                            14%

N/A: self-                   N/A: Self-                   N/A: stayed                N/A: lived

employed, re-             employed,                  with friends               nearby

tired, or had              retired, or                  or lived at

summers off              exchange                   home

14%                            0%                              43%                            29%

There were one rare book librarian (14%), one teacher/professor (14%), one image field services officer (14%), one post-doctoral fellow (14%), one digital content provider (14%), one electronic collections librarian (15%), and one online information manager/part-time student (15%).