DITA – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality 7th Workshop “Software Engineering Education and Reverse Engineering”, Risan, Montenegro, 8 – 15 September 2007 Sam Joachim

Agenda Motivation of this talk DITA – History & Background DITA – short system overview Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Starting point - JCSE Distributed, mainly independent development of PPT slides: there are different independent Versions (in different language variants) originating from more or less one source High effort in maintenance and for developing new materials / tailor materials for another auditorium English Version 1.1 Version 1.6 Version 2.0 Language variants Language variants 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

History of last workshops: ‚Authoring by Aggregation‘ process Main Idea: Learning Objects should be divided into reusable modules or fragments. 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Shapes, Slides, Pictures, Textfields History of last workshops: Learnativity Content Model (Duval & Hodgins 2003) o n e t s w y g Shapes, Slides, Pictures, Textfields Associated Slides Section Topic JCSE Course 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Authoring environment History of last workshops: Authoring systems for teaching materials for groups of authors Repository Local file system Learning Objects Meta data External content Courses Authoring environment import export Author 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Some questions emerged Repository Local file system Learning Objects Meta data External content Courses Authoring environment import export Author ? Some questions emerged Authoring environment: Structure Properties / Features Workflow Data representation of the material o n e t s w y g 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Desired target state: Architecture Online Browser local authoring tools Offline Authoring environment Authoring environment Browser / Eclipse Teaching material repository Teaching material repository (local) local authoring tools Repository DB Metadata DB Synchronization Synchronization One central server / repository with all versions, language variants and also all newly developed ‚draft‘ materials. User get / check out the materials they desire from this server User can work / develop materials offline With checking in the new materials, the new versions / variants / translations will be incorporated in the repository Metadata DB Repository DB 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Schematic Workflow Process (Ravda 2006) Interactiv „Authoring by Aggregation“ process uses fragments/modules to generate new material (Semi-) Automatic generation of “Raw media objects“ (Semi-) Automatic grouping of connected objects .doc .pdf .ppt eLesson . Essence What is the essence? Text? Pictures? Style? Tool Tool 2 Automated. Some AI? Half-baked essence Tool 3 Final document Interactivity. Some NI XML? Moodle Ahyco .ppt Slides Something Tool 4 Teaching / Learning Object or Material Repository Raw data and media elements in XML format Objects in some Teaching Material Language (LMML /<ML3>) knowledge grid Information objects (groups of objects, graphics) 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Data Representation: Core: DITA as basic data format Versioning of slides / objects / fragments Input from different versions e.g. in different languages  New slides? Changed slides? Changed objects? .ppt Transformation (both directions) DITA Graphical presentation (color, fonts, shapes corporate identity) Aspects concerning localizing separated management of language specific elements Different slide formats (.ppt, .pdf (1, 2, 6), Lecture Notes) 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Advanced features: Translation support with Translation Memory Systems Creation of teaching objects for new courses different combinations of existing material Different output styles Textbook, .ppt, .pdf (Slides: 2on1, 6on1), .html, … Building new material with respect to dependencies of existing learning objects 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Agenda Motivation of this talk DITA – History & Background DITA – short system overview Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

DITA – Abbreviation & Overview The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an XML architecture for producing and reusing technical information. DITA developed by IBM: 3rd May 2005 DITA 1.0 OASIS Standard 31th May 2007 DITA 1.1 OASIS Standard DITA features: Scalable reuse you can reuse content in any number of delivery contexts simultaneously without complicating the source Single Source Publishing Interchangeability you can treat specialized markup as if it were general getting reuse of tools and processes The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an XML architecture for producing and reusing technical information. DITA features: Scalable reuse, so you can reuse content in any number of delivery contexts simultaneously without complicating the source Interchangeability, so you can treat specialized markup as if it were general, getting reuse of tools and processes defined at more general levels of descriptiveness Descriptive markup, so you can use markup that describes your information in terms your customers need Process inheritance, so you can reuse existing process logic in your specialized processes. 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

What is Single Source Publishing ? Why Single Source Publishing ? There is a trend toward publishing content in different media In a manual way: time-consuming, error-prone and expensive How does SSP work? Content is managed in a single location / source From this source: generate specialized content for different target media SSP data source Online help Slide presentations Web Manuals, reports, catalogues en detail: Content is divided in information e.g. paragraphs, sentences, graphics These information: - are produced only one time - are administrated in a single place - can be reused - can be used to generate output in different media 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Single Source Publishing Example: DB2 installation manual The Installation manual for DB2 appears in different scenarios / documentations: Standalone Database Content Management System Lotus Notes DB2 Intelligent Miner Different roles and needs in the documentation lifecycle Project manager Has to manage huge amounts of documentations Administration of dependencies in these documentations Version management Technical Writers Authoring tools for producing documentation User Different target media e.g. HTML, PDF, RTF consistency 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Single Source Publishing – pro & con reuse of information reduction of creation time and costs constantly changing information  decreased cost for maintenance, review and translation consistency in the whole documentation (content and design) no redundant information faulty information can be avoided more easily because changes occur only in a single place (no copy & paste) changes affect always all documents (e.g. header) all in all,this points can improve the quality of the documents con much more design complexity because reuse has to be planed respectively information has to be structured carefully use of tools is very necessary for producing, administrating and combining the information blocks staff has to work with new technique 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Agenda Motivation of this talk DITA – History & Background DITA – short system overview Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

What is DITA? The Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML-based architecture for authoring, producing, and delivering technical information. DITA divides content into small, self-contained topics that can be reused in different deliverables. The extensibility of DITA permits to define specific information structures and still use standard tools to work with them. The ability to define group-specific information architectures enables DITA to support content reuse and reduce information redundancy. 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Basic concepts in DITA Topic: Map: A topic is a unit of information with a title and content, short enough to be specific to a single subject or answer a single question, but long enough to make sense on its own and be authored as a unit. Map: DITA maps are documents that collect and organize references to DITA topics to indicate the relationships among the topics. They can also serve as outlines or tables of contents for DITA deliverables and as build manifests for DITA projects. 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Other features of DITA Tailoring DITA / inheritance: Topics and maps can be specialized according to the actual needs New element definitions are derived from existing ones Comparatively easy syntax and known structures (XML, .html) Built-in support for multi language documents by using language typed strings 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Example: Topic03.ppt <reference id="Folie3“> <title>Process models: used terminology</title> <refbody> <section> <ul> <li>Software process models</li> <li>Phase models</li> <li>Life cycle models</li> <li>Software development models</li> <li>Project models</li> </ul> <note>(Note: terms are …</note> </section> </refbody> </reference> 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Agenda Motivation of this talk DITA – History & Background DITA – system overview Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Basic idea Slide as a specialisation of a DITA topic: ‘slide_topic’ ‘slide_topic’ consists of the elements of the slides Layout information is kept in a separate style sheet individual layout of slides (save original .ppt layout) Change standard design for other output formats A whole ppt file is represented as a specialisation of a DITA map 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Current state: PPT ‘Com Add-Ins’ for Transforming ppt to DITA + stylesheets Transformation DITA  PPT Changing layout / appearance of the material 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Original Rebuild from DITA Actual state problems: Changing fonts in a paragraph Direction of lines Transparent colors Tables & pictures 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007

Sources OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Language Specification: http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-LangSpec20050509.pdf OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Architectural Specification: http://xml.coverpages.org/DITAv10-OS-ArchSpec20050509.pdf OASIS DITA Technical Committee http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita DITA open source kit (http://dita-ot.sourceforge.net/) Michael Priestley, DITA XML: a reuse by reference architecture for technical documentation, Proceedings of the 19th annual international conference on Computer documentation   Don Day, Erik Hennum, John Hunt, Michael Priestley, David Schell, Nancy Harrison: An XML Architecture for Technical Documentation: The Darwin Information Typing Architecture DeveloperWorks site: http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita1/ XML Cover page DITA: http://xml.coverpages.org/dita.html "DITA for DocBook: Implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture for DocBook." "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 1: A DITA Specialization Design. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content.“    "An XML-Based Information Architecture for Learning Content, Part 2: A DITA Content Pilot. Use DITA XML to Develop Reusable Learning Content."    John P. Hunt, Robert Bernard "How Global Companies can Close the Globalization Gap DITA." Idiom Technologies, Inc. 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007