On November 08, 2021, the tekom Annual Conference digital will take place for the second time. Here, participants can visit the virtual exhibition stands of the exhibitors and take advantage of the opportunity to exchange ideas. Special added value is offered by the 175 specialist presentations, in which industry experts share their expertise with visitors. The Association of German Editing and Content Management System Manufacturers (DERCOM) will also be present. (DERCOM) is not missing. It contributes to the program with a keynote address and two topics with three half-hour presentations each.
"At the tekom annual conference, we want to take the opportunity to address basic topics," says Carl Pfeffer, board member of DERCOM. Many attendees would first need to be introduced to the topic of content management so that they could grasp the added value of the innovations. "Our goal is to provide visitors with the necessary information to support them on their way to a content management system.The second virtual tekom annual conference will take place from 08 to 15 November. Link to event
Dynamic adaptation to the user roles, tasks and applications contexts: The new data provision standard iiRDS (Intelligent Information Request and Delivery Standard) prepares technical information in a standardised form for the user – regardless of the originator or of the device that is used. DERCOM (Verband Deutscher Redaktions- und Content Management System Hersteller) has developed the new standard for intelligent information in cooperation with a working group comprising members from the fields of industry, research and teaching. The first draft version is scheduled for March.
"The provision of digital information in a context-specific and individualised manner requires an interdisciplinary standard. This gap will be closed by the new data provision standard iiRDS," explains Stefan Freisler, DERCOM Chairman of the Board. Apart from the members of the association, numerous stakeholders from the fields of industry, research and teaching were also involved in the development of this new standard. The iiRDS working group was initiated at the beginning of 2016 by the European Association for Technical Communication (Gesellschaft für Technische Kommunikation) (www.tekom.de).
Especially in view of a globalised economy in which various components of numerous manufacturers are combined during the production process, the advantages of a joint standard are clearly evident: Information originating from heterogeneous sources can be harmonised and specifically adapted to the individual needs of different situations, e.g. control tasks, error recovery or maintenance. In addition, iiRDS supports search and filter functions as well as different types of devices, and it can be expanded by the user. Thereby, the standard constitutes an important tool to optimise workflows, save time and work in a cost-efficient manner.
A typical area of application is the maintenance sector, for example. In this scenario, the technicians can request information froma server via mobile devices. Thanks to the iiRDS, the server identifies the request and the user's right to access the data. It then compiles the required information and sends it to the mobile device of the technician where the standard ensures that the information is displayed in the desired form. If the iiRDS standard is used in this manner, it is possible, for example, to generate maintenance plans for complete systems even if the individual components have been provided by different suppliers.
At the tekom annual conference in November 2016, the iiRDS working group presented the first user cases for the new format. The release of a draft version, which can be downloaded and commented on by interested users, is scheduled for March. This will be followed by the release of the first version as an open-source file in the summer of 2017. Since metadata are an essential part of iiRDS, DERCOM would like to call attention to the new standard at this stage since: "The production of this type of data requires an immense amount of editorial work. The new format is met with a lot of interest and numerous prolific comments," says Stefan Freisler who is delighted about a growing number of members for the association. With the new member Fischer Computertechnik AG, provider of the content management system TIM, the association now includes seven German system providers. DERCOM estimates that 80 per cent of the users of authoring systems and CCMS in German-speaking countries rely on systems offered by the association members.
Elections at DERCOM: The members of the Verband Deutscher Redaktions- und Content Management Systemhersteller once again appointed Stefan Freisler and Henning Mallok to the Executive Board. Stefan Freisler, Managing Director of Schema GmbH, will serve as the Chairman of the Association and Henning Mallok, Head of Sales of the gds group, as the Vice Chairman. Norbert Klinnert of Noxum GmbH holds the position of the Treasurer. As in the previous year, the re-elected members of the Executive Board will inform the public about the latest developments in technical authoring services and systems and campaign for the implementation of standards.
"We feel honoured that the members of our association have once again placed their trust and confidence in us and we take this as a confirmation of our successful past term," says Stefan Freisler. The re-elected members of the Executive Board will hold on to the aim of the previous year. In addition, the association, whose members provide more than 80% of the German market with authoring systems and CMS solutions, wants to provide information about current industry trends and developments and to campaign for the proliferation of standards.
In 2016, DERCOM published the Common Translation Interface (COTI), a bespoke interface for the automatic exchange of data for translations. Furthermore, the members of the association stated their position on the XML standard DITA and campaigned for iiRDS, the new data provision standard of tekom. At the end of last year, DERCOM welcomed Fischer Computertechnik as a new member.
Stefan Freisler performed intensive analyses of the semantics and structure of texts during his studies. The Chairman of DERCOM studied linguistics, philosophy and book studies at Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen-Nürnberg and has focused for almost two decades on various questions and topics in the field of industrial and collaborative text production. In 1995, he founded SCHEMA GmbH together with Marcus Kesseler.
Henning Mallok, too, has been active in the field of technical communication for nearly two decades. In 1999, the design engineer for machines and systems left the practical applications behind and instead focussed on the theoretical background. Starting as a technical writer in the service sector, Henning Mallok was quickly promoted to a member of the sales team and finally became the Head of Sales of the gds group with full signing power. In addition, he became the Managing Director of gds Sprachenwelt GmbH early in 2015. Since January 2014, Henning Mallok has been managing the Westphalia regional group of the European Association for Technical Communication (Gesellschaft für Technische Kommunikation).
The "Verband deutscher Redaktions- und Content Management System Hersteller e.V." (DERCOM) presents a new version of its Common Translation Interface (COTI). The release COTI 1.1 offers improvements in the field of web services and description language as well as the improved use of file attachments. The updated standard interface can be downloaded free of charge at www.dercom.de.
"The linguistic diversity of technical documentation is continuously expanding in Germany as a typical exporting country. At the same time, the time-to-market cycles are becoming increasingly short in the era of Industry 4.0," says Stefan Freisler, member of the board of DERCOM. This puts a lot of pressure on the documentation departments of the companies, forcing them to supply and manage high-quality translations at an increasingly fast pace. Consequently, automated data exchange via an interface is a must in today's industrial companies.
Apart from proprietary or project-specific interfaces between individual systems, there has never been a relevant standard for this type of data exchange before COTI was introduced. However, the members of the association want to leave the decision regarding the most suitable translation system at the discretion of their customers, which is why they have developed a standard interface.
With the aid of COTI, users can exchange translation jobs directly and automatically between their authoring systems and translation memory systems. This eliminates error sources in the translation chain and considerably facilitates the language management. The latest release COTI 1.1 has been further optimised in terms of web services and description language (WSDL). In addition, working with file attachments has become much easier and more efficient with this new release.
DERCOM: Common standards and joint public relations activities
The objectives of the DERCOM association, which was founded three years ago, are the definition and specification of standards or interfaces to products in the market segment of the members of the association and regular public relations activities concerning trends, technical topics or other standards in the field of authoring systems and CMS.
In this context, DERCOM members gave lectures during the road show of the European Association for Technical Communication tekom in Copenhagen, Zurich, Linz, Bologna and Bucharest in September 2015. In October, Stefan Freisler, chairman of DERCOM, gave a lecture on "The current situation and outlook for the use of module-based content management systems (CMS) in Europe" at the Japan Technical Communicators Association. The autumn meeting of tekom in Stuttgart in November was marked by panel discussions and lectures concerning the DITA (Darwin Information Typing Architecture) document format.
Further information and the download version of the COTI specification version 1.1 can be found at www.dercom.de .