Content Management Systems

Content managementI. Foundations of content management • Why we have to manage content • What is CMS?II. How do CMS work? • Technical infrastructure

I. Foundations of content managementWhy we have to manage content

Web sites are growing way too quicklyOutdated content is typically placed in archivesTools to create new content are becoming easier to use This increases the pool of potential authorsThere are economic and organizational pressures to move more information to the web Inside every small web site is a huge site struggling to get out

How many authors do you have?How many items does each author create or change per month?

Ex: news, press releases, short tidbits, calendar events, articles3 authors @ 5 items a month: 15 updates a month; 180 per year5 authors @ 10 items a month: 50 updates a month; 600 per year100 authors @ 12 items a month: 1200 updates a month; 14,400 per year

If the number of authors increases and they post the same amount of content, the number of updates increases

Factors that drive CMSThe number of pages on commercial, academic, and government sites continues to increaseUsers are becoming more demanding and sophisticatedPeople in the organization want changes, updates, and revisions This causes bottlenecks on page production Slowdowns can lead to stale content and inconsistency An unintended consequence of the slowdown is that it’s easier for them to absolve themselves of responsibility for the siteTechnology changes the way an organization creates and manages content

Old-school content managementMany web sites were originally done by hand Hand coding does not scale for large and complex web sitesThere was an inter-dependency between design, code, and content People on the team would typically do several tasks Changing one part meant changing everythingThere was no clear production process This was not really necessary with small teams and small sites

Issue: what parts of the process can be automated?

The advantage of CMSContent management applies technology to automate the most tedious parts of the old school approachIt defines a system for separating site design from the server code The server code is kept separate from the contentA CMS provides the means and the opportunity to make a site manageable It will change the workflow of the web team It should result in cost and time savings over time

What is a Content Management System (CMS) ?It refers to products that offer the basic technical infrastructure for developing, organizing and publishing contentThree main tools: Asset management interface Used to create and manage content Repository Used to store content Template engine Used to publish content

A wide range of content will be published using the CMS:Simple pagesComplex pages, with specific layout and presentationDynamic information sourced from databases, etcTraining materialsOnline manuals (policy & procedures, HR, etc)General business documentsThousands of pages in totalExtensive linking between pages

What do CMS do? CMS automate the process of creating, publishing, and updating Web site content

They make maintaining and updating the content of a site easierContent contributors have ability to manage their own content

CMS usually have three components A front-end editor for inputting contentA back-end system for storing the contentA template mechanism to get the content onto the site

Content management involves publishing content with digital toolsIn its simplest form, it does three things:

Asset management Creating, organizing, and managing units of content Preparing content for publishing and disseminationTransformation Presenting the content Deciding on formats and layoutsPublishing Delivering the content to the audience Determining the channels for delivery

A good CMS will supportContent creation

Integrated authoring environment: a seamless and powerful environment for content creators Easy access to the full range of features of the CMS

Separation of content and presentation A strict separation allows publishing to multiple formats Authoring must be locally style-based, with

formatting applied during publishing Multi-user authoring

There must be good version control and tracking

CMS supportsContent control

Single-sourcing (content re-use) A single page (or even paragraph) can be used in different contexts, or by different user groups

This allows managing of different platforms (intranet, internet) from same content sourceMetadata creation

Capturing metadata (creator, subject, keywords) is critical Powerful linking Authors create stable cross-links among pages

CMS supportsContent control

Non-technical authoring Authors are not required to use HTML (or other markup) when creating pages

Content managementVersion control & archiving Necessary for legal accountability, backup and disaster recovery

Workflow Decentralized content creation relies on a workflow model, that is customized, and resilient against organizational change

CMS supportsContent management

Security Adequate security levels and audit trails must be in place to protect integrity of content Integration with external systems A CMS will only be successful if it can be cleanly integrated with existing business systemsReporting It must provide an extensive range of reports, for users and administrators

CMS supportsPublishing

Stylesheets Final appearance is controlled through the use of stylesheetsPage templates Specifies overall page layout with a non-technical interfaceExtensibility Allows integration of code to provide additional publishing functionality

CMS supportsPublishing

Support for multiple formats It must publish to multiple formats (HTML, print, PDF,

WAP Allows for additional formats, as new standards evolvePersonalisation Different information is presented based on either user profiles, or metadata in the source contentUsage statistics It provides comprehensive usage statistics to be gathered, and displayed

CMS supportsPresentation

Usability The system should produce pages that have ease of use, learnability and efficiencyAccessibility It must conform to W3C Web Accessibility Initiative and other relevant standards Cross browser support The pages must be viewable in all major web browsers

CMS supportsPresentation

Speed Page size must be limited to ensure that load times are acceptable for usersValid HTML All pages must conform to the current HTML specificationMetadata All pages must provide sufficient metadata to allow effective indexing and searching

CMS supportsContracts and business

Training The vendor must list the training materials that exist for the CMS, and the training services that they can provide Documentation

It must be supported by adequate documentation for users, administrators and developers Maintenance agreements The vendor must outline preferred support arrangements (service level agreements and upgrade processes)

CMS supportsContracts and business

Skills required What skills and knowledge will be required within your organization to customize and maintain the CMS? Cost Both fixed costs for the CMS, and per-user ("per-seat”)Scalability The load levels that it supports, and additional resources for increased usageIT constraints Specify pre-existing hardware or software that the CMS must interface with, or run on

CMS involve workflow management, linking work practices and the CMS infrastructure

It is a predefined series of tasks through which content is created and publishedIt describes the progression of content through the asset management, transformation, and publishing activitiesIt makes work processes explicit and systematicIt applies rules to users and tasks to manage a processA good workflow tool automates reminders to move content assets through the entire process It generates logs so that we understand what is going on, what the status of each content item is, and where the bottlenecks exist

CMS are sociotechnical systems composed of the people involved (authors, editors, and developers) and the technology that supports them

Content management is a group activity, and requires cooperation to succeed It involves coordination and collaborationBusiness processes involved in the production of the

web site have to be examinedIt is important to understand what people do in the production process

Putting in place a technology infrastructure that will support that collaboration is not a trivial activity

It also includes the broader social and organizational context in which these tools are used

This always involves the business environment of the organization The goals, culture, and decision-making processes must be taken into accountIt typically centers on the purposes of the web site Organizations and people use web sites to communicate CMS supports the technical aspects of digital communication It is intended to help people get their jobs done faster

and more efficiently

Planning and implementing CMS is a serious high-level strategic activitySelecting a CMS is typically a job for CTOs or IT department heads because of the high cost of the tools

It is important for the IA to have input into this processCMS affects many people in an organization

It will change their workflows and there will be a learning curveIt will lead to policy changesThere is work to be done to convince the stakeholders that such a system is necessary

These systems are new enough that the impacts on organizations is often not widely understood

How CMS workTechnical infrastructureContent creation

Users add content via a browser-based interfaceThe interface is similar to the web site It typically has rich text editing capabilitiesAsset management is handled within this interface Users edit existing content, compare versions of content, and to approve content for publicationSome systems are integrated with apps such as Office or Dreamweaver

Some provide custom client-side applicationsA richer editing environment allowing administrative tasks An application programming interface (API) allows users to add or manipulate content stored via scripts

Workflow helps manage the flow of content through this technical structure

IA is aware of and can approve what happens throughoutVersion control helps people track changes to the content allowing management of changeThe administrator assigns users and groups to certain roles and actions User access control levels (ACL)

RepositoryThe repository can be a database, a closed file system, or a mixture of bothIt can be virtual One interface can provide access to numerous backend data sourcesIt stores content and any associated metadata Metadata enables a range of content management functions Allows the CMS to deliver more precise searches, It can generate topic-based navigation and create links to related pages It can track workflow status

PublishingA template engine applies design elements to content, in order to produce the desired output document The templates themselves usually contain placeholders for content from the repository More powerful schemes can allow inline code to be interpreted in the templatesLink management refers to how the tool tracks and maintains internal links and site navigation This can be driven by an internally maintained glossary of unique content Ids Other systems handle it by referring to a user-created site structure, which is also used to create navigation

Static publishing Pages are created and uploadedDynamic publishing Content is uploaded to the database When a request for a web page is received, the template engine publishes the content using the template A dynamic server requires more processing power, but is useful for presenting constantly changing or frequently updated content

CMS range from expensive, enterprise-wide packages to open source software

Vignette (300K): CM for rapid building, managing and deployment of web apps for real time enterprise http://www.vignette.com/

Interwoven (300K): manage enterprise content across internally and externally facing internet-based business applications, http://www.interwoven.com/

Microsoft’s CMS server ($43,000 per server processor): allows you to quickly and efficiently build, deploy, and maintain content-rich Web sites http://www.microsoft.com/cmserver/

More CMS Manila (1K): allows writers, designers and graphics people to manage full-featured, high performance Web sites through an easy-to-use browser interface http://manila.userland.com/

Zope (Free/1K): an open source platform for building content management systems http://www.zope.com/

TikiWiki (Free): an open source platform to create web applications, Sites, Portals, Intranets and Extranets and web-based collaboration tools http://tikiwiki.org/tiki-view_articles.php

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/managing_the_complexity_of_content_management.php

http://www.boxesandarrows.com/archives/managing_the_complexity_of_content_management.php

Recommendations from Lombardi’s studyKeep the team small to control communication and

complexityDon’t try to fix everything at onceOnly build what you needCMS have lots of features and it’s easy to get distractedChoose those that provide savings in efficiencyMinimize the number of templates used in the CMS with a good IADon’t lose sight of the content (creation and/or reformatting)

CMS Comparison

CMS Comparison

CMS Comparison

CMS Comparison

CMS Comparison

A simple CMS: Mambo

A Simple CMS: Mambo

A Simple CMS: Mambo

A Simple CMS: Mambo

A Simple CMS: Mambo