The OASIS DITA Adoption Technical Committee publishes the first of its new series of Feature Articles on DITA 1.3.

Gilbane Report Blog : Posted by Bill Trippe at October 4, 2005

As the Darwin Information Typing Architecutre (DITA) gains wider acceptance as an XML standard for technical documentation, there has been increased activity towards interoperability with other standards, such as S1000D and SCORM, specialization for uses in specific industries, and adaptation for different use cases. Noteworthy is the current effort to adapt DITA for monolithic business documents other than technical documents. This adaptation opens the possibility for techdoc groups to implement DITA without requiring the paradigm shift to topic-based authoring.

As the Darwin Information Typing Architecutre (DITA) gains wider acceptance as an XML standard for technical documentation, there has been increased activity towards interoperability with other standards, such as S1000D and SCORM, specialization for uses in specific industries, and adaptation for different use cases. Noteworthy is the current effort to adapt DITA for monolithic business documents other than technical documents. This adaptation opens the possibility for techdoc groups to implement DITA without requiring the paradigm shift to topic-based authoring.

This article by Tony Self, titled "Can you explain that again? DITA for beginners", was published in tcworld, March 2011, and is re-published with permission.

Abstract: DITA is a difficult thing to explain to the uninitiated. It is difficult because we expect it to be a product or a technology, when it is actually a standard and a methodology. DITA provides an approach to technical writing that embraces best practice ideals such as modularity, single-sourcing, and content re-use. The reasons for moving to DITA are business-focused.

Implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture for DocBook.

This paper is the second in the DITA Metrics series which examines the cost and reuse values for a DITA project to determine DITA ROI. The concepts and ideas discussed are based on the cost model introduced in the first paper, DITA Metrics: Cost Metrics – Part 1

This paper looks at the savings trend when reusable master topics are used to document similar products. How much does it cost to document each additional similar product?

Many thanks to Julio Vazquez for his excellent review and feedback on this paper. Thanks Julio!

This white paper is the first in the DITA Metrics series. The series will discuss cost metrics, reuse metrics, and a reuse strategy. This paper is the first in the DITA Metrics series. It describes one model for calculating the cost of a DITA project. After doing some content analysis on your own documentation set, you can customize this cost model to suit your documentation project needs. In the end, you should be able to speak the financial language of managers and prove to them in dollar signs the value of moving to DITA.

This paper is the third in the DITA Metrics series which examines the cost and reuse values for a DITA project to determine DITA ROI. The concepts and ideas discussed are based on the cost model introduced in the first paper, DITA Metrics: Cost Metrics – Part 1.

This paper shows an interesting similarity between the reuse mechanism of the DITA content reference feature and a translation memory system (TMS). We then discuss this similarity in terms of cost and show that the savings that can be achieved using DITA’s content reuse feature are similar to the savings possible using a TMS.

Many thanks again to Julio Vazquez for his excellent review and feedback on this paper. Thanks Julio!

>Mark Lewis

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