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Book Build Workflow

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Description

This MicroSim is a map of the workflow used to generate an intelligent textbook such as this one. It has 16 boxes and 16 arrows, and an arrow means "is an input to". The top row is the primary path: a Course Description passes through the 2001 Bloom Taxonomy, Concept Enumeration and Concept Dependencies to the Learning Graph. A side branch, Concept Taxonomy, also feeds the Learning Graph.

The Learning Graph then feeds five book-level outputs (light blue): Chapters & Sections, Glossary of Terms, Word Cloud, FAQ and Summaries. Chapters & Sections in turn feeds five chapter-level items (light green): Figures, Diagrams, Charts; Interactive Infographics; MicroSims; Graphic Novel Stories; and Assessments.

There are no sliders or buttons. Hover over a box (on a touch screen, tap it) to read what that step does in the panel at the bottom. The box gets a thick blue border, every box downstream of it gets a thinner blue border, the arrows that lead to them turn blue, and the panel reports how many components are downstream. Click the same box (tap it a second time) to open its documentation page in a new tab. Fifteen of the 16 boxes have a page; Summaries has none.

This diagram is embedded on the About page, which explains how this textbook was generated.

Lesson Plan

Learning Objectives

After using this MicroSim, students will be able to:

  1. Trace the primary path in row one from the Course Description to the Learning Graph, naming the five boxes in order and the side branch through Concept Taxonomy
  2. Explain why the Learning Graph is the central step: it is the only box with arrows into all five book-level outputs, and ten components lie downstream of it
  3. Distinguish book-level outputs (row two, light blue) from chapter-level content (row three, light green) and name the box the chapter-level items depend on
  4. Predict how many components are downstream of a chosen box, then verify the count with the hover highlight
  5. Identify the boxes that have nothing downstream and say what they have in common

Target Audience

College undergraduates, and instructors, who will use generative AI to help build or review a textbook. No signal processing background is needed because the subject of this sim is the book-generation workflow, not a signal processing topic. Plan 10-15 minutes.

Prerequisites

  • Reading a directed diagram: an arrow from A to B means A is needed before B
  • A general idea of what a course description and learning objectives are

Activities

Activity 1: Trace the primary path (5 min). Hover over each box in row one from left to right and read the count in the panel. Hovering Course Description highlights all 15 other boxes. Bloom Taxonomy gives 14, Concept Enumeration gives 13, Concept Dependencies gives 11 and Learning Graph gives 10. Explain why the count falls by two between Concept Enumeration and Concept Dependencies (Concept Enumeration reaches both Concept Dependencies and Concept Taxonomy).

Activity 2: The side branch (5 min). Hover over Concept Taxonomy, then over Concept Dependencies. Both give 11, and both have an arrow directly into the Learning Graph. Which box do both of them depend on? (Concept Enumeration.)

Activity 3: Book level versus chapter level (5 min). Hover over Learning Graph (10 downstream), then Chapters & Sections (5 downstream), then Glossary of Terms (0 downstream). Observe that the five light green boxes are highlighted for Chapters & Sections but not for Glossary of Terms.

Activity 4: Predict the blast radius (10 min). Choose three boxes. For each one, write down how many components you expect to be downstream, and list them, before you hover. Then hover and compare. Finally, click a box such as Learning Graph to open its documentation page, and click Summaries to see that it has none.

Assessment

  1. How many components are downstream of the Learning Graph, and what are they? (Answer: ten, the five book-level outputs and the five chapter-level items. The panel reads "Feeds 10 downstream components.")
  2. Which box do the five chapter-level items depend on directly? (Answer: Chapters & Sections.)
  3. Which two boxes have an arrow directly into the Learning Graph? (Answer: Concept Dependencies and Concept Taxonomy.)
  4. If the Course Description changes, which boxes lie downstream of it? (Answer: all 15 other boxes, so every later step depends on it.)
  5. Nine boxes have nothing downstream. Name the kind of box they are. (Answer: they are all outputs: four book-level outputs (Glossary of Terms, Word Cloud, FAQ, Summaries) and the five chapter-level items. No other box in the diagram uses them as an input.)

Common Misconceptions

"The workflow is one straight line." Only row one is a chain, and even it branches at Concept Enumeration. Hover over Concept Enumeration: 13 boxes light up, because it leads into the Learning Graph by two routes and the Learning Graph fans out to ten outputs.

"Everything is generated directly from the Learning Graph." Only the five book-level boxes have arrows from the Learning Graph. The arrows into the chapter-level items start at Chapters & Sections, so hovering Glossary of Terms highlights none of them.

References

  1. Bloom's taxonomy - Wikipedia - background on the cognitive levels that the 2001 Bloom Taxonomy box uses to categorize learning objectives
  2. Dependency graph - Wikipedia - the idea behind the concept-dependency arrows and the "downstream" count in this diagram
  3. ISO/IEC 11179 - Wikipedia - the metadata-registry standard behind the definition style named in the Glossary of Terms box
  4. Book Generation Workflow - Dan McCreary, Intelligent Textbooks - overview of the workflow steps that this diagram shows
  5. Learning Graph - Dan McCreary, Intelligent Textbooks - the page that the Learning Graph box opens

Development Notes

  • The p5.js editor link points to the earlier p5.js 1.x version of this sketch. The sketch in this folder runs on p5.js 2.3.2.
  • Link targets were checked on 2026-10-14. Five boxes used addresses that no longer exist (Concept Dependencies, Word Cloud, MicroSims, Summaries, Assessments) and the Bloom Taxonomy box pointed at the Course Description page. They now point at the closest matching pages of the intelligent-textbooks site. Summaries has no page, and Interactive Infographics gained one.
  • The p5.js 2.3.2 upgrade added the downstream highlight, the legend, the panel heading and count, and the touch behavior (first tap selects, second tap opens the page). The colors, the boxes and the description texts are unchanged.