Leadership By Numbers

Lotus has a third party channel for education called the ECIS (Education Centers for IBM Software), but some refer to it with the old name, LAEC (Lotus Authorized Education Centers). These are Lotus Business Partners who provide authorized training, and recently are starting to branch into WebSphere, DB2, and Tivoli (I don't know of any doing anything, yet, with Rational).

Traditionally, technical training for developers and administrators has been set in classrooms, which is now becoming an expensive choice for all but the most necessary training. An alternative is to deliver the material through on-line access. This has met with mixed success. Training on-line is usually as interesting as training through a book or interactive CD. Sometimes a shared whiteboard or even a video feed will enhance the material, but ILT (instructor led training) still receives the highest satisfaction rating. On-line training has a drop-out rate of about 70%.

The current solution is to provide mixed training: a little classroom, a little self-study, and some on-line time. Even my high-school son has on-line assignments which augment his classroom material. So, it seems obvious that IBM/Lotus has become adept at creating on-line courseware. After all, they do produce LearningSpace, the Lotus Virtual Classroom and the Learning Management System. Most of the on-line courses that has been created has been end-user training and working with products that have a strong web interface (Domino.Doc and the Learning offerings). IBM/Lotus is beginning to produce courseware that is of interest to the advanced programmer, and I expect there will be administration offerings, too.

The first course that I think stands out is about XML: Using IBM Lotus Domino LotusScript XML Classes to Exchange and Transform Data (ND660). If you go to the Lotus education site you'll find only a few providers. Leonline and TrainingDoneRight.com (disclaimer: this is where I work) offer the course for $20.00, which seems awfully cheap, but then, there's no instructor. Here's what's included:

XML (eXtensible Markup Language) Basics

• DTDs (document type definitions)
• Schemas
• Stylesheets
• XSL (Extensible Stylesheet Language)
• XSLT (Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations)
• XSL-FO (Extensible Stylesheet Language - Formatting Objects)
• The purpose of an FO (formatting objects) composer program.
• The purpose of Domino XML Language (DXL) and the Domino DTD.


LotusScript XML Classes for Exchanging and Transforming Data
• XML/DXL Processor classes: NotesXSLTransformer
• NotesSAXParser
• NotesDOMParser
• NotesDXLImporter
• NotesDXLExporter
• Helper classes: NotesNoteCollection and NotesStream
• Use LotusScript and the pipelining function to export Domino data as XML.
• Use LotusScript and SAX (Simple API for XML) to import XML data into a Domino database.
• Use LotusScript and NotesXSLTransformer to transform XML to HTML.
• Use LotusScript to modify design elements programmatically