DITA for training materials?

[Scott Prentice]

Structured FM (regardless of the data model) can offer benefits with 
regard to consistency and control. There have recently been a number of 
threads on this subject. Whether DITA offers any specific advantages 
over another data model is yet to be seen. Even though your client may 
not seem to be a good candidate for reuse, I'll bet that they do use 
repetitive blocks of content or phrases that could benefit from DITA's 
conref feature. Also, if they produce different versions of their 
training material (beginner, advanced, ??) they might find that being 
able to easily generate different versions of content by 
including/excluding specific topics from the output might be a nice 
thing. One other possible advantage of using XML (not necessarily DITA) 
is that it might allow for tighter integration with the software strings.

There is a recently formed OASIS subcommittee that is developing a DITA 
specialization for Learning and Training. This may focus more on 
computer-based training output, but it might of interest to your client 
.. 
http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=dita-learningspec

Granted, there may be a fair amount of initial overhead to move in this 
direction, but doing so may open up new opportunities that they hadn't 
considered. It certainly seems worth investigating.

...scott

Scott Prentice
Leximation, Inc.
www.leximation.com
+1.415.485.1892



Pat Christenson wrote:
> I have a client who wants to move from Word to FrameMaker for their 
> training materials. Someone else told them they should go to 
> Structured FrameMaker/DITA. The training  group has only one output 
> for their materials - print. They don't reuse the materials except to 
> revise them with software updates.
>
> Does Structured FM/DITA offer any benefit to such a group? I know it's 
> a lot more overhead getting it set up and with just one output and no 
> multipurposing, I don't see the usefulness.
>
> Thanks.
>
> Pat
>
>
>
>