DITA a language for single source publishing with

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

Agenda l Motivation of this talk l DITA – History & Background l DITA – short system overview l Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 2

Starting point - JCSE l Distributed, mainly independent development of PPT slides: there are different independent Versions (in different language variants) originating from more or less one source English Version 1. 1 l High effort in maintenance and for developing new materials / tailor materials for another auditorium Language variants English Version 1. 6 Language variants English Version 2. 0 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 Language variants 3

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 4

History of last workshops: Shapes, Slides, Pictures, Textfields Learnativity Content Model (Duval & Hodgins 2003) o e t n n s e e e s t y s w y Associated n Slides s w g Section Topic JCSE Course 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 5

History of last workshops: Authoring systems for teaching materials for groups of authors Author External content Local file system Authoring environment Repository Learning Objects export import Courses Local file system Meta data 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 6

Author Some questions emerged Author External content Authoring environment Local file system expor t impor t Courses Local file system Repository Learning Objects Authoring environment: Meta data • Structure ? • Properties / Features • Workflow o n n n e e t s s w y e y s w s g e t • Data representation of the material 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 7

Desired target state: Architecture Online Browser local authoring tools Offline Authoring environment Teaching material repository Repository DB Synchronization Metadata DB Browser / Eclipse Authoring environment Teaching material repository (local) Synchronization local authoring tools Metadata DB Repository DB 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 8

Schematic Workflow Process (Ravda 2006). doc (Semi-) Automatic generation of “Raw media objects“ . pdf . ppt e. Lesson . . . knowledge grid Automated. Some AI? Tool Essence Tool 2 Interactiv „Authoring by Aggregation“ process uses fragments/modules to generate new material (Semi-) Automatic grouping of connected objects Ahyco Interactivity. Some NI Half-baked essence Tool 3 Final document Tool 4 Moodle . ppt Slides What is the essence? Text? Pictures? Style? Raw data and media elements in XML format Information objects (groups of objects, graphics) XML? Objects in some Teaching Material Language (LMML /<ML 3>) Teaching / Learning Object or Material Repository 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 . . . Something 9

Data Representation: Core: DITA as basic data format Versioning of slides / objects / fragments. ppt Tra (bo nsfo th rm a dir ect tion s) Input from different versions e. g. in different languages New slides? Changed objects? DITA Graphical presentation (color, fonts, shapes corporate identity) Different slide formats (. ppt, . pdf (1, 2, 6), Lecture Notes) Aspects concerning localizing • separated management of language specific elements 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 10

Advanced features: l l Translation support with Translation Memory Systems Creation of teaching objects l l l Different output styles l l for new courses different combinations of existing material Textbook, . ppt, . pdf (Slides: 2 on 1, 6 on 1), . 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 11

Agenda l Motivation of this talk l DITA – History & Background l DITA – short system overview l Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 12

DITA – Abbreviation & Overview The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an XML architecture for producing and reusing technical information. DITA developed by IBM: l 3 rd May 2005 DITA 1. 0 OASIS Standard l 31 th May 2007 DITA 1. 1 OASIS Standard DITA features: l Scalable reuse l l l you can reuse content in any number of delivery contexts simultaneously without complicating the source Single Source Publishing Interchangeability l l you can treat specialized markup as if it were general getting reuse of tools and processes 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 13

What is Single Source Publishing ? Why Single Source Publishing ? l l There is a trend toward publishing content in different media In a manual way: time-consuming, error-prone and expensive How does SSP work? l l Manuals, reports, catalogues Web SSP data source Online help Slide presentations en detail: Content is divided in information e. g. paragraphs, sentences, graphics Content is managed in a single l These information: location / source - are produced only one time From this source: generate - are administrated in a single place specialized content for different - can be reused target media - can be used to generate output in different media l 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 14

Single Source Publishing Example: DB 2 installation manual The Installation manual for DB 2 appears in different scenarios / documentations: l Different roles and needs in the documentation lifecycle l l l consistency l l Standalone Database Content Management System Lotus Notes DB 2 Intelligent Miner Project manager l l Technical Writers l l Has to manage huge amounts of documentations Administration of dependencies in these documentations Version management Authoring tools for producing documentation User l Different target media e. g. HTML, PDF, RTF 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 15

Single Source Publishing – pro & con pro n n n n 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 n 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 16

Agenda l Motivation of this talk l DITA – History & Background l DITA – short system overview l Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 17

What is DITA? l l 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 18

Basic concepts in DITA Topic: l 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: l 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 19

Other features of DITA l l l Tailoring DITA / inheritance: l Topics and maps can be specialized according to the actual needs l 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 20

Example: Topic 03. ppt <reference id="Folie 3“> <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 21

Agenda l Motivation of this talk l DITA – History & Background l DITA – system overview l Teaching Material Repository: Current state & future work 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 22

Basic idea l Slide as a specialisation of a DITA topic: ‘slide_topic’ l l ‘slide_topic’ consists of the elements of the slides Layout information is kept in a separate style sheet a) individual layout of slides (save original. ppt layout) b) Change standard design for other output formats l 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 23

Current state: PPT ‘Com Add-Ins’ for (1)Transforming ppt to DITA + stylesheets (2)Transformation DITA PPT (3)Changing layout / appearance of the material 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 24

Original Rebuild from DITA Actual state problems: l l 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 25

Sources OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Language Specification: http: //xml. coverpages. org/DITAv 10 -OS-Lang. Spec 20050509. pdf OASIS Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA) Architectural Specification: http: //xml. coverpages. org/DITAv 10 -OS-Arch. Spec 20050509. 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 19 th 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 Developer. Works site: http: //www. ibm. com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita 1/ XML Cover page DITA: http: //xml. coverpages. org/dita. html "DITA for Doc. Book: Implementing the Darwin Information Typing Architecture for Doc. Book. " "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 'Dita – a language for single source publishing with support for multilinguality', Risan, Montenegro, September 2007 26