This book is a developer's guide to Oracle UPK version 3.5 (and its predecessor, OnDemand version 9.1, with which it shares 95% of its functionality). It covers all aspects of UPK's functionality, and explains how to get the most out of these features in order to build high-quality training exercises that will ensure the most effective knowledge transfer possible for your trainees.
Documentation on UPK has been (until the publication of this book) almost nonexistent (consisting solely of the Content Development Guide shipped with the software), and training is prohibitively expensive.
This book fills the documentation gap by providing developer-friendly, visually-appealing, and easy-to-read documentation on the core functionality of UPK. It fills the training gap by taking a guided approach to this functionality, introducing new concepts and functionality with each chapter, and building on the knowledge gained in the previous chapters. In this way, readers can start with the basics, and then progress to more advanced topics as they need them, rather than being presented with "everything you need to know" at once, in a dry and difficult-to-digest manner (as is the case with the Oracle-provided documentation).
Although it is primarily aimed at new or intermediate users, this book contains enough advanced information to keep all but the most hardcore of UPK developers happy. It includes tips on how to get the most out of UPK, suggestions on best practices for training material development with UPK, and advice on how to avoid some common mistakes.
This book provides a guided tour of UPK 3.5. Each chapter focuses on a specific task, based around specific functionality within UPK. Throughout the book, we will develop, and build on, a sample simulation, and use this to introduce, and explain, new functionality by applying this functionality to the sample simulation.
By chapter, this book covers the following topics:
Chapter 1, An Introduction to UPK provides a high-level overview of what UPK is, and what its main capabilities are.
Chapter 2, Organizing your Library provides a first look at the developer's working environment. It starts by explaining the various components of the Developer screen, and provides some basic navigation techniques. It then provides guidelines on how to choose a suitable folder structure for your Library, and explains how to implement the chosen structure.
Chapter 3, Recording a simulation explains how simulations are recorded in UPK, and provides instructions for creating the initial simulation that is built upon throughout the remainder of this book.
Chapter 4, Editing a Topic provides a comprehensive description of the functionality provided by the Topic Editor. It does this by editing the simulation recorded in the previous chapter, changing the Bubble Text, providing Custom Text, inserting missing Frames, and editing screenshots.
Chapter 5, Building an Outline introduces the concept of an Outline, and provides a full description of the capabilities of the Outline Editor. It explains the difference between Modules and Sections, and explains how best to use these to organize Topics into a structure suitable for presenting to the trainees.
Chapter 6, Publishing Content explains, how to preview and publish recorded Topics. It explains, with examples, the various online and document-based output formats, and provides instructions on how to generate each of them. This chapter also covers the quality assurance activities that should be carried out prior to publication, including spell-checking and testing. Finally, this chapter explains how to integrate UPK's output with other applications.
Chapter 7, Version Management is primarily aimed at developers working in a client/server environment. It explains the check-in and check-out functionality of UPK, including the version history, reverting to prior versions of content objects, and restoring deleted objects. The final sections of this chapter are applicable to both client/server installations and stand-alone installations, describing the importance of backups and explaining how to import and export content.
Chapter 8, Allowing Alternatives is concerned with expanding the usefulness of recorded simulations by providing Alternative Paths, along with Branches and Decision Frames. It also explains how to improve the realism of simulations by providing Alternative Actions, and explains how to capture these automatically.
Chapter 9, Adding Value to Your Topics is probably the single most important chapter in this book. It explains how to improve the quality of simulations by providing context through the use of Custom Text, and by using Explanation Frames, Web Pages and Packages. It also explains how to build and implement a Glossary.
Chapter 10, Adding Value in the Player explains the things that can be done to improve the quality of the trainees' interaction with the UPK Player. This includes using roles, jump-in points, and keywords. This chapter also explains how to prevent trainees from skipping through exercises without performing the required actions.
Chapter 11, Incorporating Sound into your Topics explains the auditory capabilities that UPK provides, and discusses how best to utilize these. It explains how to record new sound files, as well as how to import and export sound files.
Chapter 12, Configuring UPK covers the advanced topic of configuring UPK to meet your individual requirements. The chapter explains how to customize Template Text, and how to define new object types. It also explains how to customize the UPK player, and how to create a new document format.
Chapter 13, Localizing Your Content explains how to convert your recorded Topics into another language. This includes using local language texts, deploying content in local languages, translating custom text, and replacing screenshots with localized versions.
Appendix A, Installing UPK explains how to install the UPK developer environment, either as a stand-alone application, or as part of a client/server environment. It also explains how to install the UPK Standalone Topic Player.
Appendix B, Object Types provides a reference list of all of the predefined object types in UPK, and shows the template text that is generated for each of these using the Standard Template and the Microsoft Template.
This book has been written with the following audiences in mind:
New users of UPK, including those migrating from OnDemand to UPK, who want to understand the capabilities of UPK and how they can best utilize UPK to meet their training goals
Intermediate users of UPK who want to improve the quality of their UPK training simulations
Experienced users of UPK who want to learn how to customize UPK to better match their own requirements
In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.
Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other contexts through the use of the include directive."
A block of code will be set as follows:
<Class Name="ROW_SELECT_BUTTON" ListName="Row selection button" DisplayName="row selection button" Gender="neutral"> <Template Context="LClick1"> <Text Sound="lclick1">Click on the</Text> <ObjectType /> <Text Sound="lclick1b">for the</Text> <ObjectName /> <Text>entry.</Text> </Template> </Class>
When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items will be shown in bold:
<Class Name="ROW_SELECT_BUTTON" ListName="Row selection button" DisplayName="row selection button"
Gender="neutral">
<Template Context="LClick1">
<Text Sound="lclick1">Click on the</Text>
<ObjectType />
<Text Sound="lclick1b">for the</Text>
<ObjectName />
<Text>entry.</Text>
</Template>
</Class>
New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in our text like this: "clicking the Next button moves you to the next screen".
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