How does DITA facilitate collaboration between maritime teams, shipbuilders, navigators, and content developers?

November 10, 2023
|By Bryan Tipper

DITA XML significantly enhances collaboration among maritime teams, shipbuilders, navigators, and content developers by providing a structured and modular approach to content creation and management. This structured framework fosters efficient communication, content sharing, and concurrent work, ultimately improving the quality and effectiveness of maritime documentation.

Modular Authoring

With DITA, content is authored in smaller, reusable modules known as topics. Each topic addresses a specific aspect of maritime documentation, such as safety guidelines, ship specifications, or navigation procedures. Maritime teams, shipbuilders, and navigators can collaborate on these individual topics simultaneously, focusing on their areas of expertise. Content developers can then assemble these topics into complete documents, ensuring that the latest information from different teams is integrated seamlessly.

Version Control

DITA’s versioning capabilities allow teams to track changes, revisions, and updates to content. Shipbuilders can update ship specifications, navigators can provide input on navigation procedures, and content developers can manage these changes efficiently. The version control system helps maintain an audit trail, making it easy to identify when a topic was last modified and who made the changes. This transparency enhances collaboration and accountability across teams.

Example:

Here’s an example of how DITA XML supports collaboration among maritime teams:


<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-modified>2023-11-10</last-modified>
  <modified-by>John Smith</modified-by>

In this example, shipbuilders and navigators collaborate on safety guidelines within the same DITA topic, and versioning information tracks changes and contributors, promoting effective teamwork.