The Challenges of Unified Content

GovCamp 2011Matt Johnson, Eduserv

In the beginning was the hand-crafted Web

• 1994: HTML 2 (draft), browser-specific tags• First UK (non-academic) websites

We started reusing common content…

• 1995: Server Side Includes gain traction• 1996: Server-side scripting (including ASP)

…and separating content and presentation

• 1997: CSS v1 published by W3C• Very limited browser support (Netscape 3)

Then the rise of the CMS…

• 2002: Adoption of custom CMS within government• Basic page-based functionality

…and more content-presentation separation

• 2009: Content-based CMS widely available• Web-standards support (RDF, HTML5, CSS3)

Public sector websites at the start of 2011

• Predominantly CMS-driven (both CoTS and OSS)• Page-based content editing• Hierarchical Information Architecture

• Accessible (mostly), but not always usable• Growing problem of content archiving / “findability”

• Content is mostly held within departmental websites• RSS (and now RDF) offer a partial sharing solution• DirectGov an attempt to centralise some content

• Is there an alternative approach?

One concept: Unified Content Platform

• One store of information• Content + Metadata• Workflow and versioning

• Many delivery endpoints• Websites & CMS integration• RESTful API with RDF / XML outputs

The benefits of unified content…

• True separation of content and presentation/delivery• Content authors do not determine URIs• Web teams define site structure and appearance

• Dynamic site architecture• Content is delivered based on associated metadata • Content can appear in multiple places

• Content reuse• Content is open and accessible• Machine-readability (almost) out-of-the-box

…and the drawbacks

• Content authoring is different• Users are used to thinking in pages, not articles…• …and don’t like the lack of control…• …hence the demand for in-context visual previews

• Multi-tenancy complexities• Workflow integration with shared content• Security and permissions need standardisation• Common templates & vocabularies are needed

• Requires replacement of existing systems

So how about a Unified Data Platform…

ContentEditor

Author

Author

Author

DataStore

API

Users

Simpleinterface

Dept ACMS

Dept BCMS Dept ..

CMS

SharedPlatform

Unified Data Platform

Full CMSinterface

3rd party

Users

…offering the possibilities of a hybrid model

• Gives the best of both worlds• Traditional structures for regular website content• Metadata driven structures for data collections

• Ease of integration• With existing CMS / content services• Could build on the Data.gov.uk model

• (Relatively) simple to deliver• Most of this already exists• Provides a platform for transparency

Finally, some things to think about

• Is truly “unified” content desirable…• …do public sector want and/or need to share content?• If so, how much is that worth (effort, money)?

• How much appetite is there for standardisation…• Different for content and data?• …are sector-wide content templates a possibility?• Can we agree on standard APIs / interfaces?

• Who are the trailblazers?

Questions?

Matt Johnson

Head of Research email: Matt.Johnson@eduserv.org.uk twitter: @mhj_work web: http://labs.eduserv.org.uk/