Extensible, reusable, Impressionable

Ben from Surface Impression yesterday came in to install the new presentation authoring tool they have built us. Things went pretty smoothly (great bloke too), we sorted out a couple of wee PHP issues relating to the old version we still run and then it all seemed to work. It's a cool app, basically we have a couple of framework SWFs that draw together a load of smaller ones for different interactions - quizzes, fill-the-gaps, matching words and pictures, video etc. - into a single "presentation" for use on the Learning Online site (or on whiteboards). Authoring is done in the same context via a collection of other SWFs and underneath it all XML is authored. We will upload the XML and collections of assets to the web server once it's all ready and pass into the framework SWF the path to the XML and hey presto. It's similar to but much more complex than other Flash stuff we've commissioned in the last couple of years and the authoring environment is cute. I'm really keen to get my teeth into the XML, actually, since I'd like to see how else we can use what is put out - a simple HTML version of a presentation should be a cinch, anyway, and it will also be easy to cut-n-paste or copy-and-edit existing presentations to create new ones.
So, we're not live with it yet but it's looking good.

Fair referencing

A little bit of a dilemma. I did a lot of work over the last few weeks on a new section for my paper on definitions. I've greatly expanded and restructured a section on value, especially parts on reality and authenticity. Now I have come across a chapter by Evans, Mull and Poling in "Perspectives on object-centered learning in museums", and another by Frost in the same volume, which make a number of the same points that I had thought I'd been somewhat original in. In fact they cite some of the same sources as I'd already done. I suppose it just brings home how much we build on the work of others, that we have used the same sources and drawn similar conclusions. The dilemma is whether I should reference these Evans, Mull and Poling, and Frost, when in fact they were not the source of what I wrote (though they got there first). It's just pride, though, that makes me hesitate - after all, what they are really is useful citations in support of what I've written and it's not that important to lay claim for the original thought - especially when it turns out not to be so original!
So get on with it, cite them!