feedable, portable, mashable, ditable
DESCRIPTION
DITA XML and Web 2.0: making Web 2.0 content portable and mashable using open standards for content and collectionsTRANSCRIPT
Corporate User Technologies
Feedable, portable, mashable, DITAble March 2008 © 2007, 2008 IBM Corporation
Feedable, portable, mashable, DITAble
Michael Priestley, Lead IBM® DITA ArchitectMarch 2008
Corporate User Technologies
© 2007, 2008 IBM Corporation2 Feedable, portable, mashable, DITAble March 2008
Overview
What is DITA?
What about Web 2.0?
The problem
The solution (or part of it)
Scenarios: DITA and Wikis
Scenarios: DITA and mashups
Insights
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What is DITA?(the Darwin Information Typing Architecture)
It’s an OASIS standard for designing, authoring, and publishing modular information, such as technical publications, help sets, or Web sites
It’s a markup language:topics for content, maps for collecting and publishing content
And it’s an architecture: specializing to create new types of topics and maps, with inheritance of existing processing
Supported by an open-source toolkit, a wide range of products, and an active community of users
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Vendor response http://dita.xml.org/products-services
"PTC expects that by the end of 2008, up to 80% of all new XML publishing installations will be based on DITA." From PTC news release on Arbortext(R) 5.3.
"Nearly 50% of the respondents estimated they reuse their content and are investigating the implementation of DITA within their organization.”From results of web survey by Astoria Software.
And others: Elkera, Doczone, DITA Storm, in.Vision…
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Why DITA?
Information quality (MasterCard, Avaya, Business Objects, Sybase, RIM)
Reduced translation costs (IBI, RIM, ATI/AMD)
Ability to reuse across products/product variants (Adobe, Nokia, IBM, Sterling Commerce, Teradata)
Speed in responding to changes
Flexibility in responding to organizational change (Teradata, IBM)
Better management of workload (IBM, IBI)
Ability to specialize to meet domain needs (Siemens Medical, Nokia, Kone)
Ability to reuse across kinds of content (marketing, education, support…) (Business Objects, Nokia, IBM)
Ability to reuse across companies (Siemens Medical, IBM)
Vendor independence (because open standard)
Ease of incremental adoption (Comet, Schlumberger, RIM)
From an informal survey of DITA users at recent conferences
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An open standard for architected content
Navigation
– DITA maps manage relationships among topics
– Tables of contents, site maps, related links…
Metadata
– Can be managed at topic level (content) or map level (collection)
Content
– DITA topics, which can be specialized to support specific information types, for example DITA task
– Separates core content from metadata and links
Eclipse help
JavaHelp
HTMLHelp
Web pagesBooks & PDFs
Learning
Write BuildArchitect
Information Architecture
Map
BuildMaps
Topics Outputs
Eclipse help
JavaHelp
HTMLHelp
Web pagesBooks & PDFs
Learning
Write BuildArchitect
Information Architecture
Map
BuildMaps
Topics Outputs
Write BuildArchitect
Information Architecture
Map
BuildMaps
Topics Outputs
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What about Web 2.0?
“Web 2.0 is of course a piece of jargon, nobody even knows what it means.”
-- Tim Berners-Lee (that guy who invented the Web)
“Web 2.0 … refers to a perceived or proposed second generation of Internet-based services—such as social networking sites, wikis, communication tools, and folksonomies —that
emphasize online collaboration and sharing among users.”
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
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Pick 2
Wikis – Create content collaboratively
Blogs
Social networking
Mashups – Combine content from multiple sources
Folksonomies
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Why Wikis and mashups?
Powerful enterprise tools
Enable fast, easy, open collaboration on content using Wikis
– Create new content quickly
Enable fast, flexible development of tactical applications using mashups
– Leverage investment in trusted content/data
Easier collaboration, faster innovation
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The problem with Wikis...
Content is unstructured
– There may be templates and implied semantics, but no validation
Content is non-standard
– Moving content out of a Wiki – even between Wikis – is hard
Content is tangled
– Selecting a subset of content results in broken links
? ??
??
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The problem with mashups...
Sources of content aren’t standard
– Every new source means a new widget or control
Mashups aren’t standard
– Can’t share mashup definitions with other applications or even other mashup engines
Mashups don’t stack
– Every new mashup is a new source of non-standard content
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Sum: Wikis don’t mash well
Faster creation of silo’d content
Faster creation of redundant content
Faster creation of more content you can’t reuse
? ??
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Standard solutions
XML:
– Separate content from application
– Then share content across applications
DITA:
– Standard content sources emphasizing reuse
– Stackable collection standard – let collections reuse collections
– New content types and collection types work with existing applications
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Scenarios
Wikis
– Create DITA, publish to Wiki
– Create DITA, feed to Wiki
– Create DITA, port to Wiki
– Create Wiki, feed to DITA
– Create Wiki, port to DITA
– Or: a native DITA wiki
Mashups
– With standardized sources
– With added semantics
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Create DITA, publish to Wiki
DITA remains source
Wiki is published out to provide forum for comments on source
Example: maintain common source for multiple Wikis:
– Different audiences
– Different products
– Different platforms
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Wiki published from DITA - example
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Create DITA, feed to Wiki
DITA remains source
Surface some DITA content in specific Wiki contexts
Disable editing in Wiki for just the derived topics
Example: tech support database
– When answer moves into product docs, replace tech support doc with feed from product doc
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Create DITA, port to Wiki
DITA stops being source
Use as seed content for new cycle of development
Example: collaborate on scenarios for proposed features in new product
– Port previous release’s scenarios from DITA to wiki
– Collaborate until design approved
– Then port back to DITA to track approvals, changes, etc. and add reuse/conditionality
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Create Wiki, feed to DITA
Wiki remains source, but makes Wiki source reusable by DITA applications
Gets rid of dangling links, formalizes semantics
Does not provide validation, conditional processing, advanced DITA features
Example: OLPC reuse of Wikipedia content into class curriculum (proposed design)– Export/feed specialized topics for
different article types– Export/feed wiki slices to DITA maps– Allows integration of content across
multiple Wikis/repositories– Allows specialized processing for
specific article types (eg biology)
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Create Wiki, port to DITA
DITA becomes source
Example: After brainstorming to create newscenarios, move into DITA for formal use
– Begin topic analysis and associate requirements, tasks, features etc.
– Begin reusing – identifying parts of scenario that apply to multiple products, etc.
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Or: a native DITA wiki
Feed back and forth between systems with no loss of semantics
Port content to the system that meets its needs easily, reliably, repeatably
Integrate with new systems quickly based on shared content standards
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Mashup scenarios
With standardized sources– Combine Wikipedia country
information with specific city articles, tourist sites, Google maps, and WikiTravel notes – based on title keywords
– Generate printable PDF with index, TOC – custom travel guide; or create a hyperguide you can use on your phone/PDA
With added semantics– Educational: Generate lists of
countries by population density (combining population and area)
– Recreational: Create a “see” list for European capitals
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DITA mashup example
IBM® Custom Content Assembler
DITA feeds for Lotus® product documentation
Dynamic publishing for user-selected and –organized topics
User-created collections are themselves searchable and reusable
Collection includes DITA standard content types plus DITA specialized content for learning/training, plus DITA metadata wrappers for multimedia/Flash
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Dynamic content delivery – DITA feeds
Content
Publish
Community
Topics
Maps
by 234 users
Web ServiceWeb ServiceApplications consumingApplications consumingHTTP responsesHTTP responses
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DITA feeds: subscribable, organizable, taggable
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Find the topics you want
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Create the book you want
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Insights
Lots of different types of content in Wikis
Range of formality/structure, range of mechanisms for enforcing
Not a single type of content: a phase in the content lifecycle
As requirements change over time, let content move to the application that best supports those requirements
The conflict between structure and collaboration is resolvable
All you need is standardized modular content
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other
DITA as a common currency
DITA preserves semantics and structure through a feed
Provides scalable semantic bandwidth – same feed can be used by both low-semantics and high-semantics applications
Preserve investment in structure and semantics, even add semantics through DITA maps
Validate, integrate, automate
DITA other
RSS – throws away structure/semantics
DITA DITA
Hybrid
Semistructured
ATOM+DITA – preservesstructure/semantics
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A semantic ecosystem:feedable, portable, mashable content
2. Draftcontent
3. Review/edit
4. Approved content
1. Design content
5. Public infocenter/
wiki 6. Articles/new content
7. Techsupport
B. Designartifacts
C. Solutionartifacts
D. Developer/partner artifacts
A. Externalsources
Taxonomies
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DITAble: use, reuse, specialize, collaborate
blogs
CMSs books
Websites
wikis
DITA
Across tools and silos
– Standards-based reuse even across customized solutions/tools – allows specialized solutions, still supports content interchange
Across views and output types
– Separates content from metadata and navigation, allows use of content for different purposes
Across communities and industries
– Integrate information from multiple sources (structured topics, design documents, blogs…)
– Share infrastructure across multiple industries (retail, government, software…)
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The DITA community
OASIS DITA Technical Committee now working on DITA 1.2
– http://oasis-open.org/committees/dita
– Tool vendors (Adobe, Idiom, In.vision, Ixiasoft, Justsystems, Lionbridge, Mekon, PTC, RSI, Syntext, Siberlogic, XyEnterprise…)
– Consultants (Comtech, Innodata-Isogen, Mulberrytech, Rockley, Flatirons, Comet…)
– Users (BMC, Business Objects, Boeing, Freescale, Gambro, IBM, Intel, Lucent, Nokia, Novartis, Oracle, US DoD, Sun, RIM, STC…)
– Subcommittees: Semiconductor industry, Machine industry, Learning and Training, Translation, Enterprise Business Documents, Online Help...
DITA-OT as Open Source on SourceForge
– http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net
– Reference implementation – continuing to improve with many contributors
– Plugin architecture for new capabilities and specializations
DITA focus area and Wiki: http://dita.xml.org
– Michael Priestley’s blog: http://dita.xml.org/blog/25
DITA users mailing list: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dita-users
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Backup
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DITA and the Web
The Semantic Web
The Structured Web
The Social Web
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DITA and the Semantic Web
The Semantic Web
– Formal expression of concepts and relationships within a given knowledge domain
– Ontologies, taxonomies, metadata and relationships
The problem
– Requires special skills and knowledge to create
– Typically not part of authoring process – so content may be at odds with ontology, or out of synch
The opportunity
– Simplify the problem: integrate metadata management with the authoring process
– Consolidate formats: use DITA maps to manage relationships and metadata for shareable content, DITA topics for definitions
– Specialize: create special-purpose map formats for particular problem areas
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DITA and the Structured Web
The Structured Web
– The convergence of structured authoring and information architecture
– Adding structure and semantics to the way information is designed, organized, and delivered
The problem
– Requires specialized skills and tools to create structured content
– Information architecture gets out of synch with content
The opportunity
– Simplify the tooling: use DITA as common base for structured content
– Integrate processes: keep information architecture relevant by making it part of delivery architecture using DITA maps
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DITA and the Social Web
The Social Web
– Easy to create content, collaborate, and manage relationships
– Easy to build new applications
The problem
– Hard to move content between systems – content can easily become silo’d
– Hard to integrate structure – most content is lowest common denomenator
– The content assets are out of the reach of existing business processes and applications, such as workflow, translation, etc.
The opportunity
– Standardize content: Use DITA to integrate/share/move content between systems, reduce translation and republishing costs
– Support specialization: Structure and semantics at source allows robust integration with enterprise processes, like regulatory workflows, legal requirements
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DITA: Reconciling three web models
Social web
Structured webSemantic web
Wikis, blogs…
structured content and collections….
folksonomies, tag clouds…
formal taxonomies…
Generic topics and metadata
Specialized topics and maps
Specialized maps and metadata
DITA