So
What About DITA, Information Mapping, and Content Mapper?
IMI
Announces Developing Effective DITA Content: A Two-Day Workshop for DITA
Content Creators
Information
Mapping, Inc. Announces Its 2007 Public Workshop Schedule
Register
Now for Information Mapping Webinars
Information
Mapping, Inc. Survey Reveals the True Impact of Ineffective Business Communications
FS
Pro Hints & Tips: Renumbering the Steps in a Step/Action Table
Case
Study: Hexion Specialty Chemicals
December 2006
IMI Live Webinar Series: "Getting
Compliance Under Control"
January 2007
IMI
Live Webinar Series:
"Identifying
Communication Failures in Your Organization"
February 2007
"Making Web Content Work" at the Society
for Tech. Communications
(STC)
Online Special Interest Group, in Burlington, MA
IMI Live Webinar Series:
"DITA,
Topic-Based Authoring, and Information Mapping: What Authors Need to
Know"
"Compliance,
Risk, & the Art of Policy & Procedure Writing" at
ASTD
(local chapter)
"How to Write Usable Content for Multiple Audiences" at Training
2007 in Orlando, FL
March 2007
IMI Live Webinar Series: "Improving
Customer Service Through Effective Communications"
May 2007
"Modular Writing and Reusability" at the Society
for Tech. Communications (STC) 54th Annual Conference, Minneapolis,
MN
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| December 2006 | Vol. 14, No. 4 |
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So, What About DITA, Information Mapping, and Content Mapper?
By Doug Gorman, President and CEO
So, what exactly is DITA and how can it be easily implemented? Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based open source standard architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering content. A large group of well-known companies led by IBM are backing the DITA standard. Organizations are implementing DITA in order to improve the effectiveness of single-source publishing or to publish to multiple media.
DITA supports the concept that information should be created in chunks, called topics (a.k.a. information maps), and that the topics can have properties (a.k.a. key blocks). The primary topic types are task, concept and reference. At this level, the implementation of DITA can be quite straight-forward, but DITA also includes the idea of domain or industry specializations. These specializations are a worthy concept, but implementation can get very complex. This complexity has often required a technical layer to be added to organizations that are implementing DITA.
The good news here is that DITA and Information Mapping share a lot of the same concepts. Someone trained in Information Mapping, already has the skills necessary to create DITA topics – and more! If you get involved in your organization’s DITA implementation, we would suggest that you
- encourage your organization to keep the implementation of DITA at a very high level for the bulk of contributing authors (Keep it simple and try to implement the standard as it is.)
- focus the technical staff on specialization, if specialization is a must
- continue to author in Microsoft® Word with a product like IMI's Content Mapper™, rather than adopting complex and hard-to-use XML editors
- relax, because you are already well-grounded in the foundations of topic-based authoring, and
- consider using your Information Mapping skills to create concept topics that are actually process, concept, principle, and structure Information Maps.
As DITA attempts to become a ubiquitous standard, Information Mapping’s training, consulting, and software tools are keeping pace with your organization’s evolving needs. Content Mapper can support a basic implementation of DITA and our next release will support many additional elements. Content Mapper’s architecture allows support for specialization, as well.
New Seminar: "Developing Effective DITA
Content"
In January, we will offer a new seminar called Developing
Effective DITA Content. It targets authors who need to write high-quality
content for DITA and incorporates all the standard Information Mapping
information types and principles.
Additional Information
We would be pleased to hear from
you regarding your DITA implementation issues. Our services and software,
such as Content Mapper, will help you get the most from DITA.
To learn more about Content Mapper and what it
can do for your organization, please contact:
Information Mapping, Inc.
307 Waverley Oaks Road
Waltham, MA 02452, U.S.A.
Phone: (781) 547-3100
or (800) INFOMAP (463-6627)
Fax: (781) 547-3200
Grant Farrow
Content Mapper Sales Director
E-mail: grantf@infomap.com
Phone: (781) 547-3120
Fax: (781) 547-3220
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