Content Management Systems (CMS)

Readings

List of Content Management Systems
Try them at your own risk.

Companies generally have one or more staff who provide content for internal and external print and web communications. These content providers will want to update content anytime, anywhere; so providing a web application which allows this will save time and money in the long run. Web applications are essentially Content Management Systems (CSM), which usually provide these sophisticated components:

  • User Management and authentication of various levels of users
    • Super Administrative privileges (usually the web developer(s)
    • Administrative privileges (supervisors of content providers)
    • User privileges (content providers)
    • User Authentication for all user levels
  • Intranet, Internet, and Extranet areas
  • WISIWIG and Source editing
  • Spell checking
  • Approval and “go live” functions.
  • File management (add, move, rename, and delete pages and data)
  • Media copyright tracking
  • Templates/Themes/Skins customization
  • Plugable modules
  • On-the-fly installation and upgrades
  • Management of blog posts, comments, pages, links, media, categories, tags, galleries, and custom content types
  • Custom menu building with combinations of pages, posts, tags, and categories
  • Import and export of data
  • Automated backup
  • Really Simple Syndication (RSS) ability

Sophisticated systems take months/years to develop and can be quite spendy. For smaller companies, Open Source and low-cost options are available to download and install on web servers. Open Source web applications are available in numerous types to manage any single function or a combination of several:

  • Blogs, for news and discussion
  • Forums, for topical discussions
  • Galleries, for displaying photography and art
  • Wikis, for collaboration
  • Projects, for planning and collaboration
  • Courses, for managing classes, course materials, grading, and students/faculty