DITA Classification and Subject Scheme Enabling Successful Content

Joe Gelb, Suite Solutions

Who is this guy?

Joe Gelb • Founder and President of Suite Solutions

• Extensive expertise implementing DITA

• Helps companies get it right the first time

• Couldn’t do it without my team

• Focus on comprehensive Content Lifecycle Implementation

Main Topics

• The continual challenge: helping people find the information they

need quickly and effectively

• What is metadata?

• What’s wrong with metadata?

• What is the DITA classification and subject scheme?

• How can it help?

• Use cases

The challenge for the information consumer

Quick access to useful information

What is useful?

• Specific and concise information with limited number of links to

other relevant information

• Based on context

• What is my goal? What do I need to accomplish? How do I succeed?

• Who am I? What is my role?

• What equipment am I using?

• Where am I located?

• What device am viewing the information on?

The challenge for the information consumer

Quick access to useful information: Examples

• I’m a service engineer.

How do I install

the 2400S Valve

with ProLink protocol

using an AMS Device Manager controller

version 10.5?

The challenge for the information consumer

Quick access to useful information: Examples

• I’m a support professional at a call center.

How do I troubleshoot

a Samsung Galaxy S2 smart phone that

fails to synchronize on a Dell laptop

running Windows7 Home Edition?

• I don’t know what I am. But I just want to…

Update maps

on my Garmin Nuvi 2350 GPS

using bluetooth

while I’m on my trip in Europe

The challenge for the information developer

Effective methods and tools to provide useful information

What is useful?

• Based on context: understand who the consumers are

• What are their real goals? What do they need to accomplish? How do

I help them succeed?

• Who are they? What is their role? What is their level of expertise?

• What equipment are they using?

• Where are they located?

• Based on our domain knowledge

• Categorize the content: for what is it applicable? For whom? When?

• Provide links to other relevant information

But: we can’t spend all our time “tagging up” the content.

Or it just won’t get done.

Approaches to categorizing content

Metadata

Applying metadata to our content: topics and maps

Subject classification

Build a knowledge model of our domain – the subject matter which our

content comes to express – and apply it to our content

How about using conditional attributes?

Not an effective approach:

• Based on model of “excluding” irrelevant content on any level

• Used for filtering, not retrieval

• Filtering operation is generally done during publishing

• Setting filter criteria would be much more complex if conditional

attributes were loaded with categorization information

What is metadata?

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What is metadata?

Metadata is “data about data”

It describes the nature of a publication or topic:

What is this information applicable or effective for, when and for who

Examples:

• audience

• category

• keywords

• product info

• versions

• product name, brand, component, feature, platform, series

• othermeta

• data

Can specialize new elements

What is metadata?

OK, but:

• How can relate this to the Device Manager controller? And the

version? And the protocol?

• What happens when my device gets supported by a new controller?

What’s wrong with metadata?

Metadata can categorize my content, but:

• There are a limited number of metadata elements

Yes, we can specialize, but it can be unwieldy to change DTDs to

correspond with a growing, robust information model

• Difficult to relate the content to other contexts

• Even so, if the content becomes related to new contexts, it would

require constant updating of each topic

• We may not know all the contexts where my content will be used

• Best practice: maintain the categorizations and relationships outside

the content

Introducing: DITA classification and subject scheme But first, some background….

What is Information Architecture for Content?

• Method for organizing content resources – text, media – into an overarching knowledge model

• The knowledge model is created and maintained separate from the actual content – like creating a global index

• “Allows us to provide access to the information based on the model of the knowledge it contains” Steve Newcomb

• Simple level: Organization of content by hierarchy and relationships

• Next level: Organization of subjects, and relating content to those subjects

Subject: thing, entity, idea or shared understanding of something

Subject Classification Scheme

“Subject Classification with DITA and SKOS,” Hennum, Anderson and Bird, October 2005

How can subject schemes help?

• Standardize subject matter, index and glossary

• Determine valid usage of metadata and applicability / effectivity

values

(DITA conditional attributes)

• Associative topic navigation, not just hierarchical

• Enable better planning and content reuse on the authoring side,

robust filtering and delivery on the production side

What is DITA classification and subject scheme?

Subject Scheme

• Used to define sets of controlled values for classifying content

• Subjects are defined in a subject scheme map

• Subjects are organized in a hierarchy (taxonomy)

• Allows you to define relationships between subjects

• Subject set can change to adapt to new situations and contexts

Classification

• Used to identify the subject matter of the content

• Content is classified using a classifyMap

Subject scheme maps

subjectScheme map

• Specialized DITA map

• Defines a collection of subjects rather than topics

• Comprised of nested subjectdef elements

• Can assign a key which is identified elsewhere with a keydef

- OR -

can use an href pointing to a topic that defines the subject

• Can specify type of hierarchical relationships

• hasInstance

• hasKind

• hasPart

• hasRelated

• hasNarrower

SubjectScheme Example

Subject Relationships

subjectRelTable: relationship table

• Establish relationships between subjects

• For example:

• User-types and products

• Products and features

• Features and interfaces

Subject Relationships Example Header

Subject Relationships Example Relations

Classify Topics by Subject

subjectRef

• Identifies a subject to classify the topic

• Classification done in maps

Associate Topics with Subjects

topicSubjectTable: relationship table

• Establish relationships between topics and subjects

• Tools can then retrieve content relative to a combination of subjects

• First column is reserved for references to content

• Subsequent columns are reserved for subjects that classify the

content

topicSubjectTable Example Header

topicSubjectTable Example Relations

Let’s see it in action

[DEMO] With help from one of our consultants, Michael Snoyman

Hmmm, this looks interesting…

For additional information, contact:

Joe Gelb

solutions@suite-sol.com

U.S. Office EMEA Office

(609) 360-0650 +972-2-993-8054

www.suite-sol.com