DITA Metadata and Subject Schemes

© 2013 Eberlein Consulting, LLC
DITA Metadata
Kristen James Eberlein
Eberlein Consulting
CMS/DITA North America 2013
Providence, Rhode Island, USA

Who I am
 Owner, Eberlein Consulting
 OASIS member
• Co-chair, DITA Technical Committee
• Lead editor, DITA 1.2 specification
• Charter member, DITA Adoption Committee
 Daily user of DITA since 2004; participated in beta
testing of DITA in 2002
 Eight+ years associated with IBM
• Information developer
• Project manager
• Build automation specialist
• Information architect

Agenda
1. What is metadata?
2. What can I do with it?
3. Metadata within DITA architecture
1. Prolog elements in topics
2. Prolog elements in maps
3. Subject scheme
4. Classification domain
4. Summary

What is metadata?
 Most generally, “Information about information”
 In a DITA context: “Information that can be used to
classify, describe, or identify content”

What is DITA metadata used for? Example 1 of 4
It can be used to generate content on cover pages or trigger specific style
sheets …

It can be used to generate indexes …

It can be used to produce variant documentation from a single set of DITA
source, using conditional processing …

It can be used to provide a faceted browsing experience…

Summary: What is DITA metadata used for?
Category Goal
Authoring Improve search and retrieval of DITA content for
authors
Publishing • Provide content for publications:
• Cover pages generated from metadata in
maps
• Indexing
• Conditional processing of DITA content
End-user search and
retrieval
• To improve search and retrieval of published
Web content
• Search engine optimization (Web browsers
and help systems)
• Personalization
• Filtered and faceted browsing
• Dynamic document assembly

File system and CCMS metadata
 File system metadata
– Descriptive file or object names
– File or object location (directory structure)
– Information type (concept, task, reference, etc.)
 CCMS metadata
– Can store a rich array of administrative, descriptive, and
workflow metadata
– Metadata fields can be customized to meet customer’s needs
– Can add metadata automatically
– Can enforce consistent application of CCMS metadata by
content authors

Prolog elements
 Focus on elements grouped
as prolog elements
 Available in both DITA topics
and maps

Prolog elements: Topic level
 Available in <prolog> element of
topics
 Some map to Dublin Core terms
 Looks overwhelming, but breaks
into two distinct categories:
– Lifecycle management
information
– Subject information

Prolog elements: Lifecycle management
 Elements directly nested
within <prolog> element
 Overlap with CCMS
administrative metadata

Lifecycle management elements
DITA element What it describes Dublin Core
equivalent
<author> Creator of the content. Creator
<copyright> Legal owner of the content: Name and
year of copyright
Rights
<critdates> Critical dates, such as creation and
revision
Date
<permissions> Level of entitlement needed to access
the content
Rights
<publisher> Publisher of the content Publisher
<source> Resource from which the topic is derived Source
<resourceid> An ID for applications, such as context-
sensitive help

Prolog elements: Subject information
 Elements directly nested
within <metadata> element
 Only small overlap with
Dublin Core element

Subject information elements (1 of 2)
DITA element What it describes Dublin Core
equivalent
<audience> Intended audience for a topic.
<category> A category by which the topic is
classified for retrieval or
navigation.
Coverage
<keywords> Terms from a subject vocabulary
that apply to the topic; location for
keywords and index terms.
Subject
<prodinfo> Information about the product,
including a mandatory
specification of version level.
<othermeta> Implementation-specific
properties. Each <othermeta>
element provides a name and
value pair.

Subject information elements (2 of 2)
DITA
element
What it describes Comment Can appear
more than once
<brand> Manufacture or brand of
product
Yes
<platform> Operating system or
hardware on which
product runs
Yes
<prodname> Name of product Must contain
<vrmlist>
No
<prognum> Order # or product
tracking code
Yes
<series> Series of product Yes
<vrmlist> Must contain <vrm> No
<vrm> Version, release, &
modification information
Yes

Problems with prolog elements (1 of 2)
 Most elements take text content, which can introduce
great inconsistency:
• Makes using content of prolog elements for an accurate
search experience difficult
• Makes using prolog elements to drive output processing
difficult
 Some elements are attribute driven, but if authors
hand code the attribute values, we have the same
problems with inaccuracy and inconsistency.

Problems with prolog elements (2 of 2)
 It can be difficult to define and reuse metadata
elements using @conref, @conkeyref, and @keyref.
– DITA lacks elements that could be used to wrap groups
of elements, so metadata elements must be reused one-
by-one.
– Not all elements can appear multiple times in a topic or
map, so multiple objects are required to hold the reuse
elements.

Benefits and disadvantages of adding metadata in
topics
 Benefits
– Metadata is located in topics:
• It can be easily shared; no dependency on map or CCMS
• It can be used for searching on a file system
• With customized transformations and viewing applications,
it can be used for end-user search and retrieval
 Disadvantages
– Metadata is located in topic and hard-coded; difficult to
maintain
– Metadata likely to be inaccurate, due to authoring errors or
omissions
– Labor intensive for content authors

Prolog elements: Map level
 The same metadata elements that are available in a DITA topic
are also available at the map level.
 Everything valid within <prolog> can be contained within
<topicmeta>.
 Metadata cascades :
– If applied at the top of a map, it cascades throughout the entire map.
– If applied at lower level in a map, it cascades to the children of the
element on which it is applied.

How applying metadata at the map level works
When the metadata cascades, it augments or overrides
metadata specified directly in the topic.

Benefits and disadvantages of adding metadata in
maps
 Benefits
– Metadata is located in maps and will cascade to topics
during processing:
• Less labor intensive for content authors
• Easier to modify and maintain
 Disadvantages
– Metadata is not located in topics; if you share or publish
an individual topic, it will lack the metadata imposed by
the map.
– Requires a processing step

Subject scheme and classification domain

Subject scheme
 A specialized map: <subjectScheme>
 It can be used to:
– Define subjects
– Define taxonomies (hierarchies of subjects)
– Define lists of controlled values for attributes
– Bind an attribute to a controlled list of values
– Bind an attribute/element pair to a controlled list of values
– Associate metadata with subjects
– Define relationships between subjects

Subject scheme: Illustration
Let’s start by building a very simple subject scheme …
Operating
systems
Linux WindowsUNIX
Red Hat SUSE Windows 7 Windows 8

Subject scheme: Defining a subject hierarchy
• baseScheme.ditamap
• It contains new two
elements:
• <subjectScheme>
• <subjectdef>
• It defines operating-
system subjects.

Subject scheme: Binding an attribute to a subject
• Two new elements:
• <enumerationdef>
• <attributedef>
• Defines controlled
values for the
@platform attribute
• The controlled values
are those defined by
the operating-systems
subject.

Controlled attribute list: So what can this do? (1 of 3)
Provide a controlled experience for content authors by restricting the values that
they can select for attributes …
Screen captures
are from oXygen

The DITA-OT
generates warning
messages if DITA
content contains an
unauthorized
attribute value.
oXygen does a nice job of presenting these DITA-OT errors:

 Make it easier to develop and maintain DITAVAL objects
 Example:
– You want to exclude all content with the @platform attribute
set to either “linux”, “redhat”, or “suse”.
– Your DITVAL only needs to exclude “linux”.
– If you add other Linux flavors to the subject scheme and DITA
source (“ubuntu” or “mandriva”), no need to modify the
DITAVAL.

Subject scheme: Associating metadata with a
subject

Subject scheme: <subjectRelTable> (1 of 2)
You can use a specialized relationship table to define relationships between
subjects in different taxonomies …
Header row

Subject scheme: <subjectRelTable> (2 of 2)
Using a customized transformation, the “Required skills” label and links
are auto-generated as the result of the subject relationship table …

Classification domain
 Provides the mechanism for associating a subject
with topics – classifying content
 This domain is integrated into a classification
map, which is simply a DITA map with the
classification domain elements available:
– <!DOCTYPE map PUBLIC "-//OASIS//DTD DITA
Classification Map//EN" "classifyMap.dtd">

Classification domain
Elements for identifying
the subjects
Elements for creating a
specialized relationship
table for defining
relationships between
topics and subjects

Classification map: Example
Classifies the entire map
with the following subjects:
• Information architecture
• Task Modeler
Classifies the topic collection
with the “Installing” subject
Topic collection
References the subject
scheme

Power of subject scheme and classification maps
 Separates subject definition and subject association
(classification)
 Can work with taxonomies defined in other
applications, such as CRMs
 Presents exciting possibilities to build applications that
use classifications for enhanced search, faceted
browsing, filtered browsing, etc.
• Enhanced editors, CCMS
• Enhanced help systems, browsers, viewing applications

Barriers to adoption of subject scheme and classification
domain
 Key-based architecture
 DITA 1.2 spec content is poor in quality, perhaps underspecified
– Might lead to conflicting markup practices
– Content and applications developed by one company might be
unusable with another company’s content or application
 Little or no tutorial/explanatory material about subject scheme
and classification
 All but the simplest uses require custom transformations and
custom applications for viewing
 Lack of published case stories to demonstrate possibilities
 Sparse support from authoring tools and CCMs

Questions?
I offer a half-day workshop on
DITA metadata …
Kristen James Eberlein
Eberlein Consulting, LLC
Durham, NC, USA
kris@eberleinconsulting.com
(919) 682-2290

Back-up slides
 How prolog metadata is rendered in default DITA-OT XHTML
 Additional information about subjectScheme and classification domain
– Example of a more complex map
– How to associate a subject scheme with a map
– Using the @href attribute in a subject scheme map
– <elementDef> and <defaultSubject>
– <subjectHead> and <subjectHeadMeta>
– <hasKind> and brethren
 Resources about DITA metadata, keys, and taxonomy
– DITA specification
– Articles
– Conference & user group presentations
– Recorded webinars

• This example
introduces a new
element: <schemeref>
• Demonstrates best
practice of separating
subject definition and
attribute binding
Subject scheme: Example of a more realistic map

Subject scheme: Associating a scheme with a map
So how does your master map know about the subject scheme?
Use a <mapref> element to reference the subject scheme map. By
default, subject scheme maps do not contribute to navigation.
Note: The DITA-OT currently requires that subject
scheme maps be referenced using
type=“subjectScheme”. It’s not clear whether this
is a DITA-OT bug or limitation.
Return to earlier
slide

Subject scheme: Using the @href attribute
 You can add an optional @href attribute to a <subjectdef>
element.
 Possible use cases:
– Associate a definition of the subject
– Provide an explanation of how a value of a conditional-
processing attribute should be used
 You can publish a subject scheme by modifying the default
values of the root element.
– Set toc=“yes
– Set processing-role=“normal”

Subject scheme: Example of a published scheme
An IBM taxonomy prototype from 2008

Subject scheme: Additional attribute binding
elements
 <elementdef>
– Enables one to bind a controlled list to a specific element.
– Especially useful for the @otherprops attribute
 <defaultsubject>
– Enables one to set a default value for an attribute.
– The default value is used if no value is set for the attribute in the
source.

<subjectHead> and <subjectHeadMeta>
 Use these elements to group subjects and assign
a label and description
 Enables one to group topics that are part of
different taxonomies
 Equivalent to <topicgroup>

Subject scheme: And yet more elements
 Elements for adding precision to a taxonomy:
– <hasInstance>
– <hasKind>
– <hasNarrower>
– <hasPart>
– <hasRelated>

Resources: DITA specification
 Prolog (metadata) elements
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/prolog2.html#prolog2
 Indexing group elements
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/indexing-
d.html#indexingdgroup
 <data> element
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/langref/data.html#data

Resources: DITA specification (cont.)
 Subject scheme maps
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/subjectScheme.html#s
ubjectscheme
 Classification domain elements
http://docs.oasis-
open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/common/classify-d.html#classd
 DITA metadata
http://docs.oasis-open.org/dita/v1.2/os/spec/archSpec/dita-
metadata.html#dita-metadata

Resources: Articles
 “Subject classification with DITA and SKOS: Managing formal
subjects”
Erik Hennum, Robert Anderson, Colin Bird (IBM)
18 October 2005
https://www.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/library/x-dita10/
 DITA Technical Committee FAQ about keys
Q1: Given multiple key definitions, how does a processor
determine which key definition is effective?
22 March 2011
http://dita.xml.org/resource/dita-tc-faq-about-keys

Resources: Conference & user-group
presentations
 “Using OASIS DITA Learning Maps to Align with Standards and Model
Learning Pathways”
John Hunt, IBM; 19 July 2102
http://www.oscon.com/oscon2012/public/schedule/detail/26436
– Includes information about using a “scheme map to manage US Common Core,
State, and local educational standards as a taxonomy, including alignment across
grades, subjects, and related standards”.
 “The next generation information portal: filtering to find the right information
quickly”
Sophie McMonagale, IBM; 25 May 2011
http://www.congility.com/images/downloads/eventslides/2011conference/T2/
Sophie_McMonagle_Congility2011.pdf
 “DITA, Metadata, and Taxonomy”
Mike Harris, Robert Berry, Paul Arellanes (IBM)
24 September 2008
http://dita.xml.org/resource/dita-metada-and-taxonomy
– Presentation at a joint meeting of the RTP and Central Texas DITA users groups.
Covered IBM’s work with taxonomy and classification within the IBM Systems and
Technology Group (STG) division.

Resources: Webinars
 “Dynamic Content Meets Social Engagement”
Joe Gelb, Suite Solutions; 29 August 2012
http://marketing.easydita.com/acton/form/2645/000c:d-0004/0/index.htm
 “Taxonomy for DITA 101: Classifying DITA Tasks”
Paul Wlodarczyk , Jorsek, LLC; 28 June 2012
http://marketing.easydita.com/acton/form/2645/0009:d-0008/0/index.htm
 “Taxonomy: why you need to move beyond standard metadata”
Amber Swope, DITA Strategies; 25 July 2012
http://marketing.easydita.com/acton/form/2645/000a:d-0002/0/index.htm
 “DITA 1.2 Interactive Tutorial -- Part 2: New Conref Features and
Subject Scheme”
Noz Urbina, Mekon; 07 December 2011
http://www.dclab.com/learning_series/20111207_dita_1_2_conref_subje
ct_scheme.asp

DITA Metadata and Subject Schemes

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