Development:Textbook Tables of Contents
From ChemEd Collaborative
The textbook is the cornerstone of present-day curriculum in most subjects. Present-day curriculum is typically organized according to the textbook being used in the course.
Rationale
All items in ChemEd DL are categorized using a controlled vocabulary of terms developed to describe digital learning assets in chemistry. Application of these identical terms to the tables of contents of chemistry textbooks at the sub-chapter or topic level will allow cross-referencing those chemistry topics with the corresponding learning assets in the library. Using pattern matching algorithms, the cross-referencing will be dynamic. As new items are catalogued in the library, they will automatically be included in the cross reference without the cataloguer needing to explicitly provide the links.
Contributors to the library are likely very familiar with at least one textbook in the area of chemistry to which they are contributing resources. By explicitly linking their contributions to sub-chapter headings in a textbook, the contributions can acquire the terms from the controlled vocabulary. This removes the need for the contributor to have initimate knowledge of the controlled vocabulary in order to catalogue his or her contribution.
New learners of a discipline have little or no knowledge of the words used to describe the subject matter. They do not know what questions to ask or how to phrase those questions when using a search and discovery tool. If they are using a textbook to learn the subject, they can readily identify the sub-chapter of the text they are reading. Providing this information to a search and discovery tool can be made trivial for them (click the sub-chapter in your text).
Library builders can assess the completeness of their vocabulary in describing the subject. Areas where deeper vocabularies are needed to provide a finer granularity are readily discovered when applied to a textbook at the sub-chapter level.
Pilot Project
JCE DLib has piloted Textbook Tables of Contents (TToC) using generic tables of contents at the chapter level (no sub-chapter headings). These pilot projects can be seen in action using the 'Browse by Topic' links of the JCE QBank and JCE DigiDemos collections. JCE QBank Browse by Topic includes a generic general chemistry textbook table of contents, a generic organic chemistry textbook table of contents, and the table of contents from McMurray's organic chemistry textbook. JCE DigiDemos Browse by Topic includes only the generic general chemistry textbook table of contents. In each of these pilot projects results returned are from the QBank or DigiDemos collections, respectively.
