OASIS Launches DITA XML.org Focus Area

March 22, 2006 Blog No Comments

The Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) today announced the release of the DITA XML.org Focus Area, a website that the organization describes as “the community gathering place and information resource for the Darwin Information Typing Architecture (DITA), an approved OASIS Standard that builds content reuse into the authoring process.

“Interest in DITA is tremendous right now, and there is strong support in the community for a resource to share information,” noted Don Day of IBM, chair of the OASIS DITA Technical Committee. “The DITA XML.org Focus Area combines the free expression of a wiki with stable background materials on the standard, as well as organized community postings on topical issues. Novices, experienced implementors, providers of DITA-compliant products and services, local user group members, those interested in advancing the standard-everyone will be able to make use of the site.”

All DITA XML.org Focus Area pages are accessible by the public, and users are encouraged to contribute content. The site features three main sections:

DITA Knowledge Base, which provides a technical and educational background on the standard, as compiled by the site’s Editorial Board
DITA Today, which serves as a community bulletin board and directory where readers share news, events, product listings, services,

case studies, testimonials, and recommendations on other useful resources
DITA Wiki, which enables the public to dynamically collaborate on documents and add new pages to the site

XML.org also supports blogs and forums to encourage open discussions on issues of interest to the DITA community. It serves as an access point to related information on the OASIS-hosted Cover Pages (http://xml.coverpages.org), a comprehensive public resource for

information on XML and related technical standards for the structured information community. The Focus Area also supplements and references the official OASIS DITA Technical Committee pages, which are devoted to documenting the development of the standard.

Creation and oversight of content for the DITA XML.org Focus Area is provided by the site’s Editorial Board, which includes: Don Day and Michael Priestly of IBM; Bruce Esrig of Lucent Technologies; Kay Ethier; JoAnn Hackos and Jen Linton of Comtech Services; Scott Prentice of Leximation; and Jerry Silver of Blast Radius.

Funding for the Focus Area is provided by Adobe, Blast Radius, Comtech, Innodata Isogen, PTC, and Vasont.

Visit the DITA XML.org Focus Area.