building a cms with content factories
DESCRIPTION
Content Factories are a way to manage re-usable content in a device-independent manner. Presented at WSSG Web Forum 2009-04-20 More at http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/cmsTRANSCRIPT
CMS “Content Factories”
A content management strategy for the University of Kent
Web Forum - 20 April 2009
Scope of “the web”
• At Kent, there is no such thing as just "the web"
• instead there are many web systems which combine to provide a plethora of web services
The wider web estate
Personalised, authenticated content
Internalaudience
Publiclyavailable
www.kent.ac.ukCore university message:
public, prospective students, research, press, etc
Main website
NetCommunity/Raisers Edge
Alumni
Portal.kent.ac.ukuPortal
Student portal
records.kent.ac.uk
SDS
moodle.kent.ac.ukMoodle
VLE
kentmail.kent.ac.uk
KentMail
opac.kent.ac.uk
Library catalogue and account
Existing mechanism for local files/intranet
Local only
Staff-focused but open to public?
Requirement: Intranet
New Exchange mail server
ConnectMail
Web-based file sharing and collaboration
SharePoint
acme.kent.ac.uk
Non-core businesses
Internal and multi-institution
Special projects
What is CMS?
• A Content Management System A system for managing content
• A computer system... primarily for web content but can manage other content
Our approach
• Concentrate on re-usable content first
• Create places to manage that content
• Make them system-independent and available to existing sites
• “Content Factories”
What will CMS do for us?
• Edit websites with a browser Any PC/Mac Minimal training for basic editing Offsite editing
• Empower web authors No limit Improved permissions Enable inter-departmental authoring
• Allow content re-use Between web pages Between web properties See later: Content Factories
See IS Committee paper: Update paper on proposals for a Content Management System ISC 08/08-09
Free-up content
• Currently we're just creating pages one file = one page To re-use this content it must be copied-and-pasted
into another file/page
• CMS will manage “blobs” of content blobs are known as "nodes”
• With these nodes content can be manipulated in a variety of ways A node can simply be a page A page can contain many nodes A page can show parts of nodes A page can show filtered nodes
Management of content can help…
• Departmental homepage
• Courses
• Staff profiles
A typical departmental home page
Welcome paragraph
News - three items: headlines with thumbnails,
date, excerptEvents - two items: title, intro, date
Facts box
Adding one item of news…
1. Create news page
2. Add excerpt to homepagea. Sort out imageb. Link to actual news page
3. Remove old excerpt from homepage
4. Copy files to ‘live’ a. Image, new page, homepage
5. Inform C&DO
6. Send emails, add to plasma, update RSS feed, etc…
How does CMS help Departmental home page?
• Add one news item and the following are automatically created: home page snippet a news page snippet the main news index an archive index
• Add one events item similar automation as news, but with different style
• Potential re-use of other content: welcome paragraph facts box
What happens to Dreamweaver?
Large amount of web properties
• 180-230 sites
• 250-400 web authors
• 350,000 pages
CMS will therefore be introduced gradually and incrementally
Key to this is “Content Factories”
Content Factories
• manage certain types of content
• provide re-usable content to parts of the site
• not necessarily visible themselves
Content Factories
Start with three basic types
• Publicity
• People
• Programmes
Content Factory 1: Publicity
• Handles: News Events Announcements
• Organised via taxonomies
• Content out is “Baked or Fried”
• Enables content sharing: Dept news to Media Office Event information all in one place etc
Content Factory 2: Profiles
• Online Directory
• Expertise directories: Media Enterprise Research
• Helps create: Staff profile pages Will include KAR info etc
Content Factory 3: Programmes
• Modules
• Courses
• Subjects
• Provides: online prospectus departmental pages user-friendly wizards
Current web site – Dreamweaver powered
Some content from Content Factories
CMS powered sites with Content Factories
Getting content out of the CMS: Fry vs Bake
• Fry vs Bake Fried eggs: made on demand Baked muffins: made in advance
• Fried Created by filtering Happens automatically A page that shows:
• last 5 news from KLS • next 5 events on the topic of Politics
• Baked Created by choice Chosen manually
Further info
• http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/cms