Topic 1: The meaning of “DITA”

DITA stands for Darwin Information Typing Architecture.

Charles Darwin had proposed the theory of evolution. Wherein he stated that everything that exist in life form today are developed from one thing, and are actually gradual evolution and specialization of the same thing. DITA uses the same principles of specialization and inheritance as the Darwin’s theory.

Information typing is the base of DITA. This makes DITA a structured content model. Using Information Types, you can structure, capture, store, and publish content. Topics that answer different kinds of questions can be categorized as different Information Types. DITA has defined three basic Information Types to start with—Concept, Task, and Reference. Answer to “What is it?” is a Concept. Answer to “How to do it?” is a Task. Answer to “Is any other info required?” is a Reference. You can specialize from these Information Types or from their parent “Topic” to have your own Information Type. Just like the different shapes of Lego blocks.

DITA is a way, a specification, or a standard, to model or design content. It defines the architecture of the content products. You can design the outline of your content product by using the rules and artifacts specified in DITA.

Practice Assignment:

Study and classify the information types for the following: 

• A section of document is titled as “About the mobile phone”. 
• A section of the document titled as “Configuring files”.

Further reading:

• Charles Darwin and Evolution; http://darwin200.christs.cam.ac.uk/pages/index.php?page_id=d3

Quizzes:

1) What does DITA stand for?

             a) David’s Infinite Typing Attributes

             b) Darwin Information Typing Architecture

             c) Direct Ideation Technology—Advanced 

2) What is an Information Type?
             a) Different types of data or information such as lists, tables, figures are information types.
             b) Valid XML documents are Information Types.
             c) Topics that answer different kinds of questions can be categorized as different information types.

3) What does ‘A’ stands for in “DITA”?
             a) Analysis
             b) Architecture
             c) Anatomy

4) What is Information Typing?
             a) The process of defining types of information.
             b) Typing data or information in XML documents.
             c) Designing the outline of documents.

5) Can you design the model of your content in DITA?
             a) Yes
             b) No

Answers:

[1 b, 2 c, 3 b, 4 a, 5 a]