PDI 2008 Sessions: Content Management Systems (CMS)

What is it?

A content management system is a Web-based application for organizing, storing, maintaining and displaying files and information.

Functionality
- create a complex, dynamic site
Appearance and Usability
- organizational and coding standards
- uniform appearance and branding
- separate content from presentation
- CSS and standard templates
- page layout, header, footer, navigation bar, color scheme
Efficiency: reduce staff time for administration and maintenance
- less technical Web expertise needed
- content staff focus on content
- technical staff focus on presentation and coding

Server and/or client software licenses
Administrators needed to manage the software and users
- Security holes and bugs
- Regular upgrades
No long-term industry-leading CMS packages
- New and unreliable
- No standard set of features
- Time-consuming to switch to another package
Inflexibility
- Customization limited without programming
- Difficult to mix scripting languages
Separate tools or a custom-built CMS may be better
- Features may be unneeded or missing
- SSIs, stylesheets and JavaScript for headers, footers and look and feel
- Linux, Apache and Samba for managing user and directory permissions
Still need enforcement of content structure and quality
- Organize content of pages into categories and hierarchies
- Create a navigation structure that is logical for users
- Review page content for accuracy, writing style, etc.
- Too easy for novices to post pages without review
Easy to be attracted by bells and whistles of feature-bloated CMS packages
- Stick to simple solutions that solve key workflow/process problems

* = CSU Libraries has implemented, tested or considered this solution

User interface is a list of articles
- Navigation: search; categories; archives by date; recent posts
- Subscribe to blog's news feed
- Permalink to an article
- User comments
- Trackback/pingback - links to other sites that refer to the entry
Posting - Entries - title, category, body, extended entry, excerpt
- Basic HTML formatting, links, images
Community - publish or delete comments, send automatic emails
Configuration
- Templates - page layout for index and category/date archives
- Categories - for grouping articles
- Settings - blog name, description, display, new entries, comments, publishing
Authors - profile, permissions
Plugins - extended features
Utilities - Search & Replace - global changes e.g. updated URLs
CGI/Perl scripts and MySQL database build HTML pages

Browse interface is more free-form like Web pages
- Navigation: main page, recent changes, Search box
- Toolbox: what links here, upload file, special pages, printable version
- Page: article, discussion, view source, history
- Page contents: TOC, headings, lists, links
- Footer: modification date, page views, breadcrumbs
Create account/login
- Only logged in users can contribute content
- Libraries staff can create their own staff wiki accounts
- Public wiki accounts created upon request
To edit pages, use simple wiki syntax
- * bullets, # numbers, = headings, [] external links
- Page links: [[]], namespaces
- Some HTML codes are allowed
- Page: protect, delete, move, watch
- Upload files (images and other file types)
Configuration
- LocalSettings.php - namespaces, file sizes/types, plugins
- Skin - page layout (.php file), stylesheets (.css files), images
- MySQL database tables hold page content, user info

Applications: built-in and plugins
- wikis, blogs, RSS, chat, email
- calendars, FAQs, image gallery, user/staff list
- forms, surveys, polls, tests/quizzes
Templates for different page types: customizability, skins
Workflows/roles: writer, editor, publisher
Version control: view and compare versions, major/minor edits, rollback, automatic emails of changes
Access control: users/groups, read/write permissions, folder and file-level
Security: SSL, Captcha
Monitoring and evaluation: list recent changes, maintenance and usage statistics reports
Page Editing: HTML and WYSIWYG views, external editors, metadata
Navigation: multilevel, breadcrumbs, backlinks, site map, A to Z, search, printable view
Import and export existing page content
- Global search and replace
- Autoforwards to prevent broken links
File Structure: multilevel, formats accepted, max. file size, simple URLs
File Administration: import/export, rename/move, search/replace, automatic redirect, list owners

Provider: Commercial? Cost? Licensing? Open source?
Platform: Windows or Unix? Apache or IIS? PHP, ASP.NET or Java? MySQL or MSSQL?
Ease of configuration: GUI-based and/or file-based?
Ease of customization: When is programming needed?
Usability and accessibility:
- W3C/WAI compliance (CSS, XHTML, JavaScript)
- Can be crawled by search engines
Support: phone/email, user community, documentation, training, upgrades, longevity