It first shows how the tutorial and reference documents that give help on how to build a dictionary are mapped onto different markup schemes for publication as a Folio Views infobase, a Windows help system, and an HTML Web document. It then shows how the dictionaries that are built by using LinguaLinks are mapped onto HTML markup to provide a display format on the Web and onto TEI markup to provide a richer format for information interchange and archiving. An EPSS seeks to support a knowledge worker in performing his or her job by providing an electronic working environment that integrates the software tools needed to do the job with the tutorial and reference materials that are needed to know how to do the job. This goes well beyond the typical help system of a software program to include not just information on how to use the program but also a library of background information on the problem domain. LinguaLinks is designed to support tasks in the domains of anthropology, language learning, linguistics, literacy, and sociolinguistics.
Work continues to add more and more resources in subsequent versions of the product.
In version 1.0, one of the areas that is most deeply developed is lexical database management. This component includes a data management tool that helps the user to build a lexical database and then to use the information in that database to produce dictionaries for publication. LinguaLinks takes advantage of the object-oriented paradigm to provide performance support that is tailored to what the user is trying to do. One of the hardest problems in offering electronic performance support is knowing just what the user is trying to do. For instance, if a word processing program were being used to write a dictionary, it would be very difficult to implement performance support that could sense the context within a dictionary entry and offer appropriate help.