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| What
is a Content Management Tool ? |
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A
content management tool, as
you would expect, is used to
maintain the content on a
complex web site. Some of the
features in such a tool
include
1. Easy creation and
modification of content by
non-web-experts.
2. Automated maintenance
tools, like identification of
bad links, expiration of
information no longer
relevant, etc.
3. Easy organization and
retrieval of content using
appropriate menus and search
technology.
This FAQ discusses different
approaches to content
management tools, from
all-in-one packages, to tools
designed for a specific
limited task (like on-line
calendars or e-mail archivers).
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| What
are the advantages of a
Content Management Tool? |
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Content
management tools have the
following advantages
1. End users can enter
information into the system
without having to be expert
HTML coders.
2. The content manager
provides and enforces a
standardized appearance to the
web site that remains
consistent from one department
to another.
3. End users are much less
likely to do something that
would destroy a web page, as
they are limited as to what
can be changed on the web
page.
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| How
does a Content Management Tool
work? |
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A
content management tool can be
implemented as an all-in-one
package, or implemented as a
collection of separate
programs each doing a specific
task. However, they generally
have these common features:
1. A web-based forms
front end for maintaining,
updating, or creating
information.
2. A "database" to
store the information. This
could be a real database
program, or it could be a
collection of web pages that
are maintained by the program.
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| What
are some of the All-In-One
Content Management Tools ? |
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Many
universities have "rolled
their own" content
management tools using cgi-scripts.
However, there are a few
commercial products out there.
Here's some names that have
come up in the list:
1. Estrada Web
Technology
2. Revise
3. Net-It
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| How
is Content Management
different from Document
Management ? |
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Content
is the actual units of
information, this could be a
chart, a diagram, a table or
text. A specific document
could be a collection of these
content units, in fact a given
version of a document will
contain a specific version of
these content units. In a
simple case a document may
contain only one content unit,
however in large documents
(e.g. Instruction Manual) it
is usual to have a number of
text content units and several
diagram content units.
Document
Management is about managing
the Documents in terms of
versions, access control,
distribution, etc. whereas
Content Management is about
managing the content units in
terms of versions, access
control, re-use, etc. So
Content Management separately
manages the content from the
presentation whereas Document
Management controls the
content and presentation as a
pair.
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| What
is Digital Asset Management
(DAM)? |
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As
organisations invest
considerable amounts creating
graphics, text, images, etc.
the need to track these assets
becomes an important activity.
There are a number of software
packages available that
specifically address this
functionality. The better
Content Management systems
also provide this
functionality although some
only give access to the assets
for objects that are being
created within the Content
Management's control.
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| What
is the entire life cycle and
why is traditional `content
management` unable to achieve
this? |
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Traditional
content management only
addresses the structure and
organisation of content, not
the authoring/contribution or
delivery/ distribution of
content. Organisation's
websites have become more than
just html, java script, and
animations. Businesses are
using these sites as
extensions of their businesses
integrating their
transactional systems and
including interactive content.
Possibly the criteria for a
complete content lifecycle
management solution consists
of the following:
1. A production system
that manages the creation,
structure, management, and
delivery of content
2. A platform for integrating
information with established
business applications
3. A personalisation engine
that applies business rules to
the delivery of customised
content to individual users
4. A commerce system that
connects the web front end to
the enterprise's transactional
systems
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| How
important is workflow
technology in the new content
management environment? |
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It
is very important in both the
authoring/development
environment as well as in the
run time environment. Without
it, it is very hard to
`manage` content
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| How
do you incorporate more
non-traditional unstructured
data such as video, audio,
images and spatial rather than
for example, spreadsheets,
into a Content Management
solution? |
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Creating
an inventory of all the
organisation's enterprise data
both structured and
unstructured, and then based
on the business rules of the
organisation, assign meta data
to all data objects. Once the
data can be referenced via XML
or meta tags, it can then be
delivered to a variety of
devices.
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| What
is Content aggregation and how
can it be defined? |
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Content
aggregation is simply the
organisation of data in such a
way that it can be delivered
in a personalised, meaningful
format to the end user.
Corporate data and information
can be grouped, sorted and
viewed in an infinite number
of ways. Information systems
in the past have been
organised vertically around
departmental divisions which
does not promote information
integration.
Currently, classification of
data within an organisation
depends largely on the
subjective perspective of the
business managers and system
architects who are doing the
development. Incorporating
unstructured data means first
having connectivity to those
systems.
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| In
terms of the Content
Identification and Content
Delivery, should an
organisation standardise and
minimise the devices used to
create/disseminate structured
or unstructured data? |
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The
fewer devices and systems an
organisation has to maintain
and administrate, the easier
and less expensive it will be
to manage its structured and
unstructured content.
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| Why
is XML important for Content
Management ? |
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As
XML can be used to separate
Content from presentation it
generates the opportunity for
the separation of skills in
the overall Content Management
process.
Authors can create content,
designs, compose page layout
and programmers can make the
data available, etc.
XML can also be an important
mechanism to allow content to
be created once but deployed
to many different output media
such as web pages, as pages
for Wap phones, as pages for
interactive TV, as hard copy,
etc.
With organisations progressing
towards e-business, some
content an organisation uses
will be provided by suppliers
and some the content a company
produces will feed directly
into its customers content
systems. This can only be
achieved using the flexibility
provided by XML to encapsulate
content and facilitate its
effective presentation.
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