Can DITA streamline review and approval processes for maritime content?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

DITA XML offers valuable tools to streamline review and approval processes for maritime content, enhancing collaboration and ensuring content quality. The structured authoring approach and versioning capabilities in DITA simplify the review workflow, making it more efficient and transparent.

Structured Authoring and Collaboration

DITA’s modular authoring allows multiple stakeholders, such as maritime experts, shipbuilders, and content developers, to work on individual topics simultaneously. Each topic can be reviewed independently, with subject matter experts focusing on their areas of expertise. This parallel collaboration accelerates the review process as teams can provide input and feedback in real-time. Furthermore, DITA’s support for conditional text enables reviewers to focus on specific language variations, ensuring linguistic accuracy and cultural appropriateness in localized versions.

Version Control and Approval

DITA’s versioning capabilities provide a clear audit trail for content changes and approvals. Each topic can be tracked for modifications, and metadata, including the last review date and reviewer’s name, can be embedded within topics. This information ensures accountability and transparency in the review and approval process. Additionally, DITA allows for conditional publishing, enabling content developers to include or exclude specific sections based on the approval status. This ensures that only approved content is published, reducing the risk of publishing outdated or unreviewed information.

Example:

Here’s an example of how DITA XML streamlines the review and approval process for maritime content:


<topic id="safety_guidelines">
  <title>Safety Guidelines</title>
  <body>
    <section>
      <title xml_lang="en">Shipbuilders' Safety Tips</title>
      <p xml_lang="en">Shipbuilders contribute safety tips for ship construction.</p>
    </section>
    <section>
      <title xml_lang="fr">Navigator's Checklist</title>
      <p xml_lang="fr">Navigators provide a checklist for safe navigation.</p>
    </section>
  </body>
  <version>2.0</version>
  <last-reviewed>2023-11-10</last-reviewed>
  <reviewed-by>John Smith</reviewed-by>
  <approval-status>Approved</approval-status>

In this example, DITA tracks the review and approval status of a topic, ensuring that only approved content is included in the final documentation.