Integrating digital educational content created and stored within disparate software environments: An extensible markup language (XML) solution in real-world use

Objective: To provide a standardized and scaleable mechanism for exchanging digital radiologic educational content between software systems that use d isparate authoring, storage, and presentation technologies. Materials/Metho ds: Our institution uses two distinct software systems for creating educati onal content for radiology. Each system is used to create in-house educatio nal content as well as commercial educational products. One system is an au thoring and viewing application that facilitates the input and storage of h ierarchical knowledge and associated imagery, and is capable of supporting a variety of entity relationships. This system is primarily used for the pr oduction and subsequent viewing of educational CD-ROMS. Another software sy stem is primarily used for radiologic education on the world wide web. This system facilitates input and storage of interactive knowledge and associat ed imagery, delivering this content over the internet in a Socratic manner simulating in-person interaction with an expert. A subset of knowledge enti ties common to both systems was derived. An additional subset of knowledge entities that could be bidirectionally mapped via algorithmic transforms wa s also derived. An extensible markup language (XML) object model and associ ated lexicon were then created to represent these knowledge entities and th eir interactive behaviors. Forward-looking attention was exercised in the c reation of the object model in order to facilitate straight-forward future integration of other sources of educational content. XML generators and int erpreters were written for both systems. Results: Deriving the XML object m odel and lexicon was the most critical and time-consuming aspect of the pro ject. The coding of the XML generators and interpreters required only a few hours for each environment. Subsequently, the transfer of hundreds of educ ational cases and thematic presentations between the systems can now be acc omplished in a matter of minutes. The use of algorithmic transforms results in nearly 100% transfer of context as well as content, thus providing "pre sentation-ready" outcomes. Conclusion:The automation of knowledge exchange between dissimilar digital teaching environments magnifies the efforts of e ducators and enriches the learning experience for participants. XML is a po werful end useful mechanism for transfering educational content, as well as the context and interactive behaviors of such content, between disparate s ystems. Copyright (C) 2001 by W.B. Saunders Company.