Summary of learning topic, map, and domain designs

Learning topic types

The following specialized DITA topic types provide support for creating learning and training content.

Learning Plan topic type: Describes learning needs and goals, instructional design models, task analyses, learning taxonomies, and other information necessary to the lesson planning process.
Learning Overview topic type: Identifies the learning objectives and includes other information helpful to the learner, such prerequisites, duration, and intended audience.
Learning Content topic type: Provides the learning content itself and enables direct use of content from DITA task, concept, and reference topics, as well as additional content of any topic type that supports specific objectives declared in the Learning Overview topic type.
Learning Summary topic type: Recaps and provides context for the learning objectives and provides guidance to reinforce learning and long-term memory.
Learning Assessment topic type: Presents instruments that measure progress, encourage retrieval, and stimulate reinforcement of the learning content and can be presented before the content as a pre-assessment or after the content as a post-assessment checkpoint or test.

Learning map types

<learningGroupMap>: A map container to enable <learningGroup> elements to be stored as separate objects and referenced by maps.
<learningObjectMap>: A map container to enable <learningObject> elements to be stored as separate objects and referenced by maps.

Learning map domain

Use the learning map domain to organize groups of topics as learning objects.

Note: The learning map domain is part of the <learningMap> and the <learningBookmap> document types. As these learning map structures are delivered as a domain specialization rather than as a structural specialization, it is possible to extend any type of DITA map to include these structures.

<learningGroup>: A map container and optional topic reference to introduce and group learning objects into higher-level organizations, such as course-level, module-level, or lesson-level. A <learningGroup> can contain other <learningGroup> elements, allowing you to organize learning content at course, module, or other higher levels of hierarchy.
<learningObject>: A map container and optional topic reference to introduce and group the topic references for a learning object.
<learningPlanRef>: A topic reference to a learning plan or other topic that provides the learning plan.
<learningOverviewRef>: A topic reference to a learning overview or other topic that introduces the learning object.
<learningContentRef>: A topic reference to a learning content topic, or a topic, task, concept, reference or other specialized topic.
<learningContentComponentRef>: A topic reference to a learning content topic, or a topic, task, concept, reference or other specialized topic.
<learningSummaryRef>: A topic reference to a learning summary or other topic that provides the summary.
<learningPreAssessmentRef>: A topic reference to a learning assessment or other topic that is used as a pre-assessment.
<learningPostAssessmentRef>: A topic reference to a learning assessment or other topic that is used as a post-assessment.
<learningObjectMapRef>: A topic reference to a learning object.
<learningGroupMapRef>: A topic reference to a learning group map

Learning interactions domain

The learning interactions domain defines a set of basic learning interaction elements as a DITA domain. Although there are two sets of elements for interaction support, the recommended set is defined in the learningDomain2 support provided in DITA 1.3, which supports block elements. This support deprecates original DITA 1.2 elements, which failed to allow block elements where needed. See Support for learningDomain1 and learningDomain2.

<lcOpenQuestion2>: Poses an open-ended question in an assessment interaction.
<lcTrueFalse2>: Presents the learner with two choices, one correct, the other incorrect, often presented as true/false or yes/no responses.
<lcSingleSelect2>: Presents three or more choices, only one of which is correct.
<lcMultipleSelect2>: Presents two or more choices, two or more of which are correct.
<lcMatching2>: In a list of paired choices, the learner identifies the correct choice that matches another choice.
<lcHotspot2>: Presents an image, and the learner clicks on one or more regions to indicate a choice.
<lcSequencing2>: Presents choices in a list that the learner must arrange in a correct ordered sequence.

Learning metadata domain

The learning metadata domain defines a set of basic learning metadata elements as a DITA domain and available for use in the learning topic types, as specialized <prolog> metadata and in the learning map domain, as specialized <topicmeta>.

<lcLom> makes the learning metadata elements available in the learning topics and learning map domain.

Elements in <lcLom> include:

<lomAggregationLevel>
<lomContext>
<lomCoverage>
<lomDifficulty>
<lomInstallationRemarks>
<lomIntendedUserRole>
<lomInteractivityLevel>
<lomInteractivityType>
<lomLearningResourceType>
<lomOtherPlatformRequirements>
<lomSemanticDensity>
<lomStructure>
<lomTechRequirement>
<lomTypicalAgeRange>
<lomTypicalLearningTime>

Instructor notes

The learning interactions domain also makes available an <lcInstructornote> element for providing instructor-specific information.