CIDM Information Management News April 2006: OASIS Launches DITA XML.org Focus Area

OASIS Launches DITA XML.org Focus Area

Boston, MA, USA; 22 March 2006—The OASIS international standards consortium today introduced the DITA XML.org Focus Area. The new site serves as the official 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; and
DITA Wiki, which enables the public to dynamically collaborate on documents and add new pages to the site through a wiki interface.

The site 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 (xml.coverpages.org), a comprehensive public resource for information on XML and related technical standards for the structured information community.

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. These individuals have generously devoted their time and talents over many months to lay the foundations for what we hope will become a valued gathering place for the DITA community worldwide. The Editorial Board remains open to any member of OASIS.

We also applaud the DITA XML.org Focus Area sponsors, including Adobe, Blast Radius, Comtech Services, Innodata Isogen, PTC, and Vasont, for their support and dedication to advancing the adoption of DITA.

About OASIS

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards) is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development, convergence, and adoption of e-business standards. Members themselves set the OASIS technical agenda, using a lightweight, open process expressly designed to promote industry consensus and unite disparate efforts. The consortium produces open standards for Web services, security, e-business, and standardization efforts in the public sector and for application-specific markets. Founded in 1993, OASIS has more than 5,000 participants representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries. Approved OASIS Standards include AVDL, CAP, DITA, DocBook, DSML, ebXML CPPA, ebXML Messaging, ebXML Registry, EML, OpenDocument, SAML, SPML, UBL, UDDI, WSDM, WS-Reliability, WSRP, WS-Security, XACML, XCBF, and XML Catalogs. For more information, please visit www.oasis-open.org.

Additional information

DITA XML.org Focus Area: http://dita.xml.org
OASIS DITA Technical Committee: www.oasis-open.org/committees/dita

Press contact

Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
(978) 667-5115 x209