How do you create a system for auto XML text conversion for Word files when you cannot control the creation of the Word file, nor force authors to follow any predefined template or complex instructions? Further, how do you ensure consistently good XML produced from the system? Mark Gross from DCL and Charles O'Connor from Aries Systems presented at Balisage 2023 last week on a new XML-first workflow they have been working on to improve production turnaround times and the user experience for editors and production staff.

We think of globalization as something new, but this eye chart from well over a century ago was intended to be usable for people of all nationalities. This multilingual eye-test chart, published in 1907, was the creation of the optometrist George Mayerle (ca. 1870–1929), a “Graduate German Expert Optician” who set up shop in San Francisco in the mid-1890s. Mayerle was a charter member of the American Optometric Association at its founding in 1898. The eye chart contains seven vertical panels that test vision with characters in the Roman alphabet (for English, German, and other European readers) and also in Japanese, Chinese, Russian, and Hebrew. A panel in the center replaces the alphabetic characters with symbols for children and adults who were illiterate or who could not read any of the other writing systems offered.

Knowledge management, or KM, is the multidisciplinary process of creating, sharing, using and managing the knowledge and information of an organization. While some businesses may not have a formal KM process and designated tools, we all practice KM simply by communicating and working in a business environment. This year DCL is proud to be nominated in three categories:

If you know DCL, you know how serious we take tools and services related to KM while providing exceptional customer service.

Maverick Publishing Specialists details how they helped The American Association of Immunologists (AAI) move more than 100 years of journal content to the Silverchair Platform following a well-organized and orchestrated plan that involved a network of third-party providers working with a small in-house team and a professional project manager. For the 7-month duration of the migration, Maverick worked with the members of the team to ensure a timely launch of the platform. AAI emphasized the need for a strong focus on data, with bonus points for having someone on staff who knows XML.

Cisco is the world leader in IT, networking, and cybersecurity solutions. Cisco has transformed how people connect, communicate, and collaborate. Cisco owned thousands of hours of valuable instructional materials but they weren’t organized in a way that they could be used with customers. Cisco needed to centralize and convert these instructional materials into a standardized format, using SCORM XML, to facilitate effective use of its learning materials. Read how DCL transformed more than 800 source hours of content to conform to Cisco's Learning Management System (LMS) requirements.