XML.org DITA Focus Area Meeting Notes

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

OASIS DITA TC members:
Below are minutes from yesterday's planning meeting on the XML.org DITA Focus Area. Information on subscribing to the Focus Area
Editorial Board will be distributed to the TC on Monday, and all are invited to participate.
Carol

________________________________________________________

XML.org DITA Focus Area Planning Call
29 Sept 2005

Attending: Duane Nickull of Adobe; Christa Prokos of Arbortext; Don Day of IBM; Jennifer Linton and JoAnn Hackos of Comtech; Mary
McRae, Robin Cover, Carol Geyer of OASIS

1. Project Goals 

Don provided a brief history of the DITA community. He articulated the need to provide cohesion for people trying to implement DITA,
foster local user groups, build a DITA community around a website through collaborative services, and provide a platform for
practitioners and thought leaders who have experiences to share. 

Carol presented background on the XML.org site and discussed OASIS' intention to redesign the interface and add Focus Areas for
OASIS Standards. Each Focus Area will be supported by an Editorial Board made up of TC members. Focus Area sponsorships will be
offered for 5,000 USD/year; a portion of that may be designated to fund TC-recommended projects to advance use of the spec. 

2. Content 

Jen reviewed a list of possible types of content that may be included in the DITA Focus Area. She stressed the importance of
providing information that's easy to find, including DITA 101 introduction materials, product data, events calendar, user groups
info. Some of this information would be non-editable; other pages would be open to public collaboration and contributions, e.g.,
DITA definitions, press releases, case studies, white papers, books, etc. 

Don highlighted the advantages of using a wiki to organize best practices, to facilitate users teaching other users about tools,
maps, and how to manage topic-oriented writing in an organization. He described DITA as a self-policing community, based on
experiences with the yahoo newsgroup, thus abuse of a wiki would be rare. The Editorial Board would need to address practices for
regular review of content and removal of inappropriate postings. He informed us that the OASIS DITA TC talked about using the Focus
Area to nurture DITA specializations, maybe with a TC sponsor of each specialization area.

The team agreed that the Focus Area would provide links to information published on other sites (including the Cover Pages) whenever
possible. The intent is not to re-publish existing information. 


3. Technical requirements 
 
Mary discussed the technical requirements for publishing the site and described the advantages of using a wiki with a customized
interface. Team articulated the need to choose wiki software that provides search capability and support for calendars and
newsletters. We may want to support on-site blogging at some point in the future, or we may provide links to blogs hosted on other
sites. Team discussed providing IRC, but concluded it was not necessary/appropriate for the site.


4. Editorial Board and Policy

All members of the OASIS DITA TC are invited and encouraged to provide one or more representatives to the Editorial Board. An
official TC rep to the Board should be appointed. Ideally, the Board should have at least one end-user member to be sure the needs
of that audience are represented. Team agreed to publish a lightweight governance policy, perhaps based on something that's already
in use elsewhere.


5. Action items:

* Carol to post meeting minutes.

* OASIS staff to create mail list for Editorial Board and post subscription instructions to TC.
 
* Those interested in serving on the Editorial Board should subscribe to the mail list and begin refining content outline and
compilation. Jen and JoAnn to post the content work they've done to the Editorial Board mail list. Board may wish to use TC wiki for
internal collaboration while XML.org wiki is being developed.

* Editorial Board to provide any additional input necessary for technical requirements.

* Carol to draft basic Editorial Policy and guidelines for Editorial Board's review.
 
* Carol to draft Sponsorship Program details and distribute to TC.

* Mary to finalize technical requirements, work with OASIS IT staff to implement, and provide timeline to group.

* Carol and Mary to discuss needs with graphic designer.








______________________________
Carol Geyer
Director of Communications
OASIS
Voice: +1.978.667.5115 x209