It wasn't a big surprise that most people (64%) indicated that Insufficient standardization of content among multiple authors was their biggest issue. Controlled Authoring (Setting and enforcing your writing and branding standards to ensure the consistency and quality of your documents) is a prime benefit of XML and DITA. This issue has been a significant reason why people look at XML as a solution.

Other reasons to consider an XML implementation include:

Collaboration and Teamwork

Being able to have many people simultaneously collaborating on a document. Involve more people in the documentation process, such as subject matter experts, application developers, translators, and trainers, without the fear of losing changes, damaging, or destroying your documents.

Security and Workflow

Control who in the organization can create, see, and use content at any stage of the content life-cycle, through drafts, reviews, translation, release, and archiving.

Separation of Content from Format

Traditional documents combine words and pictures with format and layout. In XML, content and format are separated and stored independently so they can be combined in different ways to produce different types of documents in different output formats.

Translation into Other Languages

Reduce the time and cost of translation into other languages by translating re-used content once and have it automatically reflected wherever it is used.

Reduce Time-Market

Reduction in production times are achieved through more efficient use of resources, re-use of content, controlling standards, eliminating duplication, and effectively managing creation, localization, and publishing processes.

Competitive Advantage

Lower overall costs and increased customer satisfaction through consistent, accurate documentation of all types, resulting in fewer calls to customer support. These advantages are achieved through providing the right information, at the right time, in the right format.

2. In evaluating potential improvements to how you handle information, please rate the importance of these issues: (check one per row) Very Important Somewhat Important Not Important Ease of use for writers 80% 20% 0% Ease of use for data ‘consumers’ 78% 22% 0% Cost of maintaining information 65% 35% 0% Ease of use for customers / partners 79% 19% 2% Adherence to data standards 51% 39% 10% Cost of distributing information 52% 41% 7%

Most people considered Ease of maintaining information as a very important criteria. And with the current XML tools, trained users find these tools easier to work with than legacy data tools.

In fact, XML is well suited to address the other issues that conference attendees felt were most important:

Reduce Cost

XML improves efficiency of creation, maintenance, and management of documentation content. Time taken to produce a page through traditional authoring tools can be halved with XML.

Reusing content across applications

The ability to re-use content across documents without copying, so that you can write it once and maintain it in a single place regardless of how many times it is used. Use content created for one purpose equally well in other contexts and for other purposes.

If you would like to learn more about how XML technology can solve many of the documentation issues prevalent in the life sciences industry, you can download White Papers from our partners:

• Astoria (Structured Content Management)

• MarkLogic (Open Content Architecture)

• Vasont (DITA White Paper)

• X-Hive (Using XML & Databases - Gilbane Report)

• XyEnterprise (DITA White Paper)

You can also contact Data Conversion Laboratory by phone (718)307-5767 or e-mail (info@dclab.com) and we will try and answer your questions and point you in the right direction.