Darwin Information Typing Architecture

The Darwin Information Typing Architecture or Document Information Typing Architecture (DITA) is an XML data model for authoring and publishing. It is an open standard that is defined and maintained by the OASIS DITA Technical Committee.

The name derives from the following components:

• Darwin: it uses the principles of specialization and inheritance, which is in some ways analogous to the naturalist Charles Darwin's concept of evolutionary adaptation,
• Information typing, which means each topic has a defined primary objective (procedure, glossary entry, troubleshooting information) and structure,
• Architecture: DITA is an extensible set of structures.

The choice of DITA for publishing the NHS Data Model and Dictionary

The NHS Data Model and Dictionary Service has chosen DITA to enable two new capabilities:

• Content reuse for multiple products, including the whole NHS Data Model and Dictionary, but also focused parts, such as a single data set.
• Flexible publishing in multiple formats, especially accessible web pages and documents with flexibility to use different colour schemes, layout and other brand characteristics.