New content management standard

1. 1
New International Standard for
Content Management
Annette Reilly
STC Standards Council
May 7, 2013

2. What will we be talking about?
 How are standards developed?
 What standards are relevant to technical communicators
 What in content management should be standardized?
 What’s in the draft ISO standard for Content Management—
draft 26531
 Aimed at acquirers, users, and producers
 Aimed at documentation of systems, software, and
services
 Content management systems use systems engineering
and systems/services management
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3. Why have standards?
 Support interoperability
 Further world trade
 Promote consistent products
 Allow repeatable processes and process improvement
 Basis for contracts and audits
 Obtain ISO/IEEE standards at www.iso.org or
www.ansi.org or
http://www.techstreet.com/ieee
 OASIS standards at
 https://www.oasis-open.org/standards
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4. What is a technical standard?
 ―… [A] formal document that establishes uniform engineering
or technical criteria, methods, processes and practices‖
(Wikipedia)
 Issued by a respected, authoritative entity
 IEEE – Computer Society and Standards Association
 Membership based
 International Standards Organization (ISO)
 Nation-based, Software and Systems Engineering documentation
standards from JTC 1/SC7
 National standards organizations
 American National Standards Organization (ANSI)
 Other national organizations (BSI, Standards Bureau of Canada,
etc.)
 National Information Standards Organization (NISO)
 Carnegie Mellon University Software Engineering Institute (SEI)
 Project Management Institute (Guidance)
 W3C (web standards)
 OASIS--DITA
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5. When is it really a standard?
 Covers a process or product
 Not proprietary, tool-bound, or vendor-
specific
 Open participation from all interested
stakeholders
 The result of consensus agreement from
a balance of stakeholders
 Maintained by a recognized, impartial
standards-producing organization
 Normative (mandatory) or guidance?
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6. How do standards get
developed?
 Project proposal and approval
 Development and review of drafts by
a working group or fast-track
 Ballot by interested parties
 Revise and reballot
 24-36 months start to publish
 Publish, maintain, sell
 Periodic reviews – update, withdraw,
stabilize
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7. ISO/IEC/IEEE suite of standards for
software, systems, services documentation
 26511: Requirements for managers of user documentation
 26512: Requirements for acquirers and suppliers of user
documentation
 26513: Requirements for testers and assessors of user
documentation
 26514: Requirements for designers and developers of user
documentation
 26515: Developing user documentation in an agile
environment
 15289: Content of life-cycle documentation (information
items)
 Developed by STC members working with other technical
communicators
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8. Where does the working
draft come from?
 Existing organizational, national, or international
standards
 Book and article descriptions of best practices
 STC Summit presentations
 Working group discussions about best practices
 For content management – draft by STC members
 JoAnn Hackos, STC Fellow
http://comtech-serv.com//index.php?main_page=contact_us
 Casey Jordan
http://easydita.com
 Ralph Robinson, STC Fellow
 ralphrobinson1@hotmail.com
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9. What’s in this new Content Management
standard 26531
 Requirements and recommended practices for
 Developing a content management strategy
 Checklist for organizations – business case
 Developing a workflow for content management
 Content management system functions
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 Not--
 How to use DITA
 Which CM system to buy
Publication late 2014

10. Business Case for content management
 Current state of documentation
 Customer benefits
 Consistent, easy to find information
 Reduction in support calls through self-service information
 Finding same information through multiple devices and media
 Cost reduction opportunities
 Acquisition and implementation costs
 Return on investment
 Risks
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11. Content Management Processes
 Business Case Development
 Requirements Definition
 Content Management
Planning – process and
project
 Information Model Definition
 Authoring Guidelines
 Content Reuse Strategy
 Workflow Specification
 Quality Management
 Content Review and Approval
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 Metadata Model
 Content Search
 Content Conversion
 Content Authoring
 Graphics and Multimedia
Management
 Content Localization
 Release Management
 Content Publication
 Content Deletion
 Content Archiving

12. Workflow for the content life-cycle
 Project initiation – content conversion or authoring
 Content editing and proofreading
 Content technical review
 Content testing
 Content approval
 Content translation
 Content publication
 Content sustainment and reuse
 Content archiving after initial and subsequent releases
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13. What’s in the information model for
structured authoring
 Document type definitions (outlines, templates)
 Definitions of the information types
 procedure, process, policy
 Structure of the information type (content units and their
sequence)
 Definitions of content units
 paragraphs, lists, tables, illustrations, examples, warnings
 Collections of content objects
 chapters, parts, sections, books
 Content object metadata
 author, date, subject, version
 Reuse mechanisms
 File naming conventions for text and graphics
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14. Content Management system requirements
 Repository management
 Content object and asset management
 Check-out, check-in, link management, search, versioning
 Graphics and multimedia management
 System administration
 Authoring functions
 Workflow functions
 Content publication
 Localization and translation management
 System interoperability
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15. ISOspeak
 ISO/IEC: International Organization for
Standardization/International Electrotechnical
Commission
 JTC1/SC7: Joint Technical Committee 1,
subcommittee 7, responsible for software and
systems engineering standards
 WG2: Working group 2, responsible for systems
and user documentation
 http://isotc.iso.org/livelink/livelink?func=ll&objId=8914719
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16. What is unique about
ISO/IEC standards?
 Represent the efforts of experts from a
minimum of 5 countries
 Iteratively drafted and balloted, with all
technical comments resolved
 Published by ISO and widely adopted around
the world
 The vast majority of WG members are volunteers.
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17. Getting involved with standards
 Adopt a single-sourcing approach
 Have models for your process and
products
 Use standards at work
 Support a capability assessment
 Become a standards reviewer or editor
 Join IEEE-Standards Association, OASIS,
W3C, PMI
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18. Your turn
 Questions?
 Comments?
 Experience with content management
or other standards?
 Obtain ISO/IEEE standards at www.iso.org or
www.ansi.org or http://www.techstreet.com/ieee
 OASIS standards at
https://www.oasis-open.org/standards
Contact annette.reilly at computer.org
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