Topic-based authoring is a modular

Modularity

Modularity is a general systems concept, typically defined as a continuum describing the degree to which a system’s components may be separated and recombined. It refers to both the tightness of coupling between components, and the degree to which the “rules” of the system architecture enable the...

 content creation approach (popular in the technical publications and documentation arenas) that supports XML

XML

Extensible Markup Language is a set of rules for encoding documents in machine-readable form. It is defined in the XML 1.0 Specification produced by the W3C, and several other related specifications, all gratis open standards....

 content reuse

Reuse

To reuse is to use an item more than once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function, and new-life reuse where it is used for a different function. In contrast, recycling is the breaking down of the used item into raw materials which are used to make new...

, content management

Content management

Content management, or CM, is the set of processes and technologies that support the collection, managing, and publishing of information in any form or medium. In recent times this information is typically referred to as content or, to be precise, digital content...

, and makes the dynamic assembly of personalized information possible.

A topic is a discrete piece of content that is about a specific subject

Subject

-Philosophy:*Hypokeimenon or subiectum, in metaphysics, the essential being of a thing**Subject , a being that has subjective experiences, subjective consciousness, or a relationship with another entity...

, has an identifiable purpose, and can stand alone (does not need to be presented in context for the end-user to make sense of the content). Topics are also reusable

Reuse

To reuse is to use an item more than once. This includes conventional reuse where the item is used again for the same function, and new-life reuse where it is used for a different function. In contrast, recycling is the breaking down of the used item into raw materials which are used to make new...

. They can, when constructed properly (without reliance on other content for its meaning), be reused in any context anywhere needed.

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture

Darwin Information Typing Architecture

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture is an OASIS standard XML data model for authoring and publishing. Many third party tools support authoring, including Adobe FrameMaker, XMetaL, Arbortext, Quark XML Author, Oxygen XML Editor, easyDITA, and SDL Xopus...

 (DITA) is a standard designed to help authors create topic-based content. The standard is managed by the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) DITA Technical Committee.

External links

• OASIS DITA Focus Area - the official OASIS DITA community.
• DITA Users - a member organization helping people get started with topic-based structured writing
  Structured writing
  Structured writing is a form of technical writing that uses and creates structured documents.The term was coined by Robert E. Horn and became a central part of his Information Mapping method of analyzing, organizing, and displaying knowledge in print and in the new online presentation of text and...
  
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• DITAToo - DITA-based content sharing tool