Content Management

A primer on taxonomy

Sethu Iyer — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 04:05:15 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/20/2009 9:05:15 PM

What is Taxonomy?

Taxonomy basically evolved from biology for a hierarchical organization or classification of information. The terms taxonomies, classifications and categorizations are often times used synonymously. Hierarchical formations usually have a tree like structure starting from a single parent node with multiple children nodes beneath them. In the content management world, taxonomy refers to the way in which content is categorized in this tree like structure. For example the Windows Explorer is a hierarchical organization of content with folders and sub-folders and is a good example of physical categorization of content. Such a hierarchical organization of content is also known as a "containment taxonomy" where by the content is physically stored within the hierarchical structure. Think of these are physical file folders. In a real world scenario, however a content item (or an electronic document) may be falling under different heads of classification. In such cases a single content item may be associated with multiple nodes within the hierarchical structure. This is also known as "associative taxonomy". For example a single content item referenced filed under "Travel Policy" and under "Expense Policy" as well. Sometimes a single term might have equivalent meanings (or synonyms). In such cases the taxonomy relationship is also known as "equivalence relationship"

Metadata: in simple terms metadata may also be defined as data about data. Think of the way library cards are physically organized. These cards are metadata about the physical location of books in a library and may contain pertinent information about a book such as the "Authors Name", "Books Title", "Publishers Name", "Physical Location" etc. This information is also known as Metadata and helps us in easily locating a book by its title, or authors name etc. Such metadata is applied to content in electronic formats as well. The way in which such metadata is applied depends on the capability of a content management system. Some of these systems store the actual content in a file system and wrap metadata information around the content, and the metadata information itself may be stored in a database. Content in HTML and PDF formats may have the metadata within the content item itself, though additional information may also be stored to a datastore outside of the content item. Usually enterprise class CMS systems allows for extensive metadata management capabilities including the ability to apply metadata from controlled vocabularies and also allow for nesting of metadata when required. Such metadata management is hugely important in R&D systems in LifeSciences and Pharmaceutical companies.

Difference between storage taxonomy, and navigation taxonomy: Taxonomies may be used for several purposes, and there are many companies engaged in the business of creating industry specific taxonomies. Though a limited number of parent-child hierarchical relationships may be used for content storage and retrieval, this becomes very complex and unmanageable when used in the context of an enterprise system. Hence many systems tend to separate out the taxonomies as "content storage taxonomies" and "content display taxonomy". For example the "navigation tabs" we see in a site can be the content display taxonomy which is different from the content storage taxonomy.

There are different ways by which the "content storage taxonomy" is associated within the "content display taxonomy". This may include techniques such as simple content filtering rules, intelligent templating mechanisms and dynamic content targeting capabilities. Some search solutions are also capable of creating dynamic navigation hierarchies for content display purposes.

Auto Categorization: also known as auto classification is done using a content mining and analysis tool that can identify patterns of words in documents and classify them into separate categories based on pattern similarities. Vendors offering these capabilities use several different algorithms similar to those of search engines. Though useful from a content taxonomy stand point, such solutions are also used for text-mining, pattern matching, concept matching, dynamic cataloging, and content clustering.

Indexing: - this may be fall under the category of search; it is also related to taxonomy because many search engines that offer auto-classification capabilities also provide search and indexing services. Indexing is the process by which a search engine (or an indexer) parses and scans through content items, including the metadata and identifies the key patterns and words and stores them separately in an index. When an end-user executes a search, the engine locates the content attributes from the index and provides pointers to the location of the content.

Typical features of a CMS solution

Sethu Iyer — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 03:54:58 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/20/2009 8:54:58 PM

Some of the basic features available in most content management systems include

Content Creation Capability: The core feature of a content management system is the ability for users to create and manage content. Most content management systems provide this capability through an editing interface also known as a content input form (CIF). For enterprise class content management systems these CIF are configurable and would contain one or many form fields including fields for capturing content metadata such as authors name, date, and embedded WYSIWYG editing interface for editors to create and edit content.
Content Acquisition/Consumption: This can be defined as the ability to consume structured and unstructured content from third party sources. For example ability to directly consume Microsoft Word documents, PDF documents etc.
Content Transformation: is typically referred to as transformation of XML through XSLT, but can also mean the ability for on demand PDF conversions (on the fly), dynamic content assembly such as content from a database and file system assembled to provide a single unified view to the end-user etc., or in the world of digital asset management could mean resampling of image and audio files to transcoding of video to multiple formats.
Library Services: this includes capability such as check-in and check-out of content to ensure there are no conflicts during content editing, and multi-stage content approvals.
Versions: ability to store multiple versions of the same content object with capability to roll back to previous versions as and when required. Many CMS solutions also provide capabilities for visual comparison of versions.
Workflow: is the process used to manage content through its life cycle from content creation, authoring to content reviews (example editorial review, technical review, and legal review) through to publishing and ensuring the content is retired on its expiration date.
Audit Trails: ability to log any changes made to a content item such as edits, deletes, versions changes etc.
Notifications: these are triggers sent out based on predefined events such as content edits, or for notifying any workflow tasks.
Search: ability for users to search based on various attributes such as content title, metadata, author, publish date, content body etc.
Metadata Management: ability to appropriately tag a content item such that it can be easily classified and categorized. Extensible metadata management ensures easier content storage and retrieval.
Taxonomy/Categorization: ability to categorize content based on predefined attributes. There are several types of taxonomies but the typical ones are the hierarchal organization of content based on a parent child relationship. Some search engines too have capabilities to dynamically generate taxonomies based on occurrences of frequently used tags and keywords.
Publishing: is the process of delivering the content to the right end-point (or website) such that users may be able to view the content. The end-points in this case are also known as Content Delivery Applications (CDA). This is one of the core features of a content management system. High-end or enterprise class content management systems are capable of delivering content to multiple end-points/sites, while in the lower end ones the Content Management and Delivery happens in the same application.There are several checks and controls required when publishing involves physical delivery of content from a CDA to CMA. This includes capabilities such as guaranteed content delivery, automatic error handling, ability to configure publishing queues etc.
Archival: this is the ability to store the content after its expiration date to an archival database prior to its disposition.
Disposition: is the process of removing content objects from a datastore at on a predefined schedule after expiration. Legal/Compliance needs may dictate the need for an objective evidence of content disposition.
Analytics: there are several type of analytics such as content operational metrics to web analytics. Operational Metrics show the efficiencies of the content management process such as the cycle time from content creation to publishing clearly identifying bottlenecks in the process. Web Analytics shows statistics such as content usage, most used content; least used content, general traffic patterns, page views, number of hits etc. This is usually done with a web-analytics tool, and some of the high end tools have capabilities to narrow down collection of data for individual page elements/components, and may be used for marketing purposes such as A/B tests and multivariate testing etc.
Security: Content security has several connotations, but at a minimum it means the ability to ensure that only user with sufficient privileges are allowed to see content items that they are entitled to. Typically content management systems filter the content based on user privileges that are stored to database or LDAP repository.

Components of Enterprise Content Management Systems

Sethu Iyer — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 05:03:05 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/15/2009 10:03:05 PM

Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:16:06 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/15/2009 3:16:06 PM

Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Static Content - content in static form such as in HTML, text files, or office documents, pdf files etc., that stored and delivered/rendered in the same form.
Dynamic Content - content that is dynamically assembled at run-time (on the fly) at the at delivery end point. For example content that may be shown to a logged-in user may be different from the one show to a general unauthenticated user.
Transactional Content - content that is usually retrieved from a transactional system. For example credit card balances you may get from a banking website or mileage points from airline website are all examples of transactional content.
Personalization capabilities

Implicit personalization - Content that is implicitly personalized to a user based on pre-defined variables. For example content shown to a paid subscriber to a website may be different from the one shown to an unpaid subscriber. In an intranet your own emails are implicitly personalized based on your credentials. There are many aspects of implicit personalization including behavior based personalization to personalization capabilities based on common wisdom of the crowd.

Explicit personalization - ability for an end-user to personalize the content based on the privileges assigned to the user. For example capability of iGoogle or netvibes where you can explicitly drag and place content within a webpage, change color and font settings etc.

Roles based personalization - this is especially relevant in intranets and extranets where users get to access content based on their role in an organization. For example a users belonging to a Financial Role may be see content that is not visible to Sales and Marketing.

Rules based personalization - This is personalization of content based on explicit rules that may be based on several content attributes and user attributes. For example users in San-Francisco may see local news from their region and users in New York my access the same site but would be seeing content that is local to New York. There are several ways of accomplishing this capability such as profile based personalization to automatic geographic detection thorough a user's ip address.

5. Globalization, Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) - This is the ability of the content management system to support multiple international languages and their local formats. The system must be able to support "left to right" (example English) and "right to left" (example Arabic) content editing and rendering capabilities.

6. Collaborative Content Management - allow geographically dispersed users to collectively participate in the content management process.

7. Content Baking – Is usually associated with delivery of static content pages. In this case, the Content Management Application creates the page at the pre-publishing stage and serves them up through a WebServer. Thus every user is served the same static page. Traditionally baking was considered to be good for high performance sites, but with cost of resources going down this may not be the case now. Also this is useful if entire sites have to be archived and versioned for compliance reasons. Some sort of pseudo dynamism could be made possible in Baked Content using intelligent Templating and JavaScript capabilities such as through the “dojo toolkit”. Also Content Caching strategies for Baked Content can be usually straightforward, without the need for dynamic dependency management.

8. Content Frying - This is equivalent to serving up dynamic pages. Multiple variations of the same content item may be served up by dynamically assembling content at run-time. This strategy is used for personalization of content such that users get to see something that is personalized for them. Many of the high end content management systems provide this capability.

Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:35:09 GMT

Revision 4 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/15/2009 2:35:09 PM

Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Static Content - content in static form such as in HTML, text files, or office documents, pdf files etc., that stored and delivered/rendered in the same form.
Dynamic Content - content that is dynamically assembled at run-time (on the fly) at the at delivery end point. For example content that may be shown to a logged-in user may be different from the one show to a general unauthenticated user.
Transactional Content - content that is usually retrieved from a transactional system. For example credit card balances you may get from a banking website or mileage points from airline website are all examples of transactional content.
Personalization capabilities

Implicit personalization - Content that is implicitly personalized to a user based on pre-defined variables. For example content shown to a paid subscriber to a website may be different from the one shown to an unpaid subscriber. In an intranet your own emails are implicitly personalized based on your credentials. There are many aspects of implicit personalization including behavior based personalization to personalization capabilities based on common wisdom of the crowd.

Explicit personalization - ability for an end-user to personalize the content based on the privileges assigned to the user. For example capability of iGoogle or netvibes where you can explicitly drag and place content within a webpage, change color and font settings etc.

Roles based personalization - this is especially relevant in intranets and extranets where users get to access content based on their role in an organization. For example a users belonging to a Financial Role may be see content that is not visible to Sales and Marketing.

Rules based personalization - This is personalization of content based on explicit rules that may be based on several content attributes and user attributes. For example users in San-Francisco may see local news from their region and users in New York my access the same site but would be seeing content that is local to New York. There are several ways of accomplishing this capability such as profile based personalization to automatic geographic detection thorough a user's ip address.

5. Globalization, Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) - This is the ability of the content management system to support multiple international languages and their local formats. The system must be able to support "left to right" (example English) and "right to left" (example Arabic) content editing and rendering capabilities.

6. Collaborative Content Management - allow geographically dispersed users to collectively participate in the content management process.

Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:01:59 GMT

Revision 3 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 10:01:59 PM

3. Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Static Content - content in static form such as in HTML, text files, or office documents, pdf files etc., that stored and delivered/rendered in the same form.
Dynamic Content - content that is dynamically assembled at run-time (on the fly) at the at delivery end point. For example content that may be shown to a logged-in user may be different from the one show to a general unauthenticated user.
Transactional Content - content that is usually retrieved from a transactional system. For example credit card balances you may get from a banking website or mileage points from airline website are all examples of transactional content.
Personalization capabilities

Implicit personalization - Content that is implicitly personalized to a user based on pre-defined variables. For example content shown to a paid subscriber to a website may be different from the one shown to an unpaid subscriber. In an intranet your own emails are implicitly personalized based on your credentials. There are many aspects of implicit personalization including behavior based personalization to personalization capabilities based on common wisdom of the crowd.

Explicit personalization - ability for an end-user to personalize the content based on the privileges assigned to the user. For example capability of iGoogle or netvibes where you can explicitly drag and place content within a webpage, change color and font settings etc.

Roles based personalization - this is especially relevant in intranets and extranets where users get to access content based on their role in an organization. For example a users belonging to a Financial Role may be see content that is not visible to Sales and Marketing.

Rules based personalization - This is personalization of content based on explicit rules that may be based on several content attributes and user attributes. For example users in San-Francisco may see local news from their region and users in New York my access the same site but would be seeing content that is local to New York. There are several ways of accomplishing this capability such as profile based personalization to automatic geographic detection thorough a user's ip address.

5. Globalization, Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) - This is the ability of the content management system to support multiple international languages and their local formats. The system must be able to support "left to right" (example English) and "right to left" (example Arabic) content editing and rendering capabilities.

6. Collaborative Content Management - allow geographically dispersed users to collectively participate in the content management process.

3. Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:01:33 GMT

Revision 2 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 10:01:33 PM

3. Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Static Content - content in static form such as in HTML, text files, or office documents, pdf files etc., that stored and delivered/rendered in the same form.

b.
Dynamic Content - content that is dynamically assembled at run-time (on the fly) at the at delivery end point. For example content that may be shown to a logged-in user may be different from the one show to a general unauthenticated user.

c.
Transactional Content - content that is usually retrieved from a transactional system. For example credit card balances you may get from a banking website or mileage points from airline website are all examples of transactional content.

d.
Personalization capabilities

i.

Implicit personalization - Content that is implicitly personalized to a user based on pre-defined variables. For example content shown to a paid subscriber to a website may be different from the one shown to an unpaid subscriber. In an intranet your own emails are implicitly personalized based on your credentials. There are many aspects of implicit personalization including behavior based personalization to personalization capabilities based on common wisdom of the crowd.

                                                ii.

Explicit personalization - ability for an end-user to personalize the content based on the privileges assigned to the user. For example capability of iGoogle or netvibes where you can explicitly drag and place content within a webpage, change color and font settings etc.

                                              iii.

Roles based personalization - this is especially relevant in intranets and extranets where users get to access content based on their role in an organization. For example a users belonging to a Financial Role may be see content that is not visible to Sales and Marketing.

                                              iv.

Rules based personalization - This is personalization of content based on explicit rules that may be based on several content attributes and user attributes. For example users in San-Francisco may see local news from their region and users in New York my access the same site but would be seeing content that is local to New York. There are several ways of accomplishing this capability such as profile based personalization to automatic geographic detection thorough a user's ip address.

e

5. Globalization, Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) - This is the ability of the content management system to support multiple international languages and their local formats. The system must be able to support "left to right" (example English) and "right to left" (example Arabic) content editing and rendering capabilities.

f

6. Collaborative Content Management - allow geographically dispersed users to collectively participate in the content management process.

3. Standard Content Management terms and capabilities

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:54:35 GMT

Revision 1 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 9:54:35 PM

a. Static Content - content in static form such as in HTML, text files, or office documents, pdf files etc., that stored and delivered/rendered in the same form.

b. Dynamic Content - content that is dynamically assembled at run-time (on the fly) at the at delivery end point. For example content that may be shown to a logged-in user may be different from the one show to a general unauthenticated user.

c. Transactional Content - content that is usually retrieved from a transactional system. For example credit card balances you may get from a banking website or mileage points from airline website are all examples of transactional content.

d. Personalization capabilities

i. Implicit personalization - Content that is implicitly personalized to a user based on pre-defined variables. For example content shown to a paid subscriber to a website may be different from the one shown to an unpaid subscriber. In an intranet your own emails are implicitly personalized based on your credentials. There are many aspects of implicit personalization including behavior based personalization to personalization capabilities based on common wisdom of the crowd.

ii. Explicit personalization - ability for an end-user to personalize the content based on the privileges assigned to the user. For example capability of iGoogle or netvibes where you can explicitly drag and place content within a webpage, change color and font settings etc.

iii. Roles based personalization - this is especially relevant in intranets and extranets where users get to access content based on their role in an organization. For example a users belonging to a Financial Role may be see content that is not visible to Sales and Marketing.

iv. Rules based personalization - This is personalization of content based on explicit rules that may be based on several content attributes and user attributes. For example users in San-Francisco may see local news from their region and users in New York my access the same site but would be seeing content that is local to New York. There are several ways of accomplishing this capability such as profile based personalization to automatic geographic detection thorough a user's ip address.

e. Globalization, Internationalization (I18N) and Localization (L10N) - This is the ability of the content management system to support multiple international languages and their local formats. The system must be able to support "left to right" (example English) and "right to left" (example Arabic) content editing and rendering capabilities.

f. Collaborative Content Management - allow geographically dispersed users to collectively participate in the content management process.

Why use a Content Management Solution?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 21:34:38 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/15/2009 2:34:38 PM

Why use a Content Management Solution?

There are several reasons for using a CMS system, and some of them are:

a. Ease of managing, storage, retrieval, archival and disposition. This is particularly important with high volumes of content.

b. Avoid duplication of content. One source of truth.

c. Content Reuse - Create content once and reuse across multiple distribution points such as multiple websites, hand-held devices, video terminals, kiosks, stream audio/video etc.

d. Efficiency Improvements - Empower business users and ensure right content is easily available to the right person at the right time. Ability to search and find the right content. Reduce cycle-time and faster turnaround of content from authoring to publishing.

e. Adherence to Compliance/Regulatory standards (such as DOD 5015, Sarbanes Oxley etc)

f. Knowledge Management - accumulate relevant content and distribute as per needs.Collaborative content management enables geographically distributed teams to participate collectively in content creation, editing and publishing.

g. Monetization of Content through sale of video, audio, documents etc.

h. Reduce Costs such as content production costs, content retrieval costs, content storage costs, maintenance costs.

i. Potential revenue drivers and business opportunities through capabilities such as publish on demand.

Why use a Content Management Solution?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:50:40 GMT

Revision 2 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 9:50:40 PM

Why use a Content Management Solution?

There are several reasons for using a CMS system, and some of them are:

a. Ease of managing, storage, retrieval, archival and disposition. This is particularly important with high volumes of content.

b. Avoid duplication of content. One source of truth.

c. Content Reuse - Create content once and reuse across multiple distribution points such as multiple websites, hand-held devices, video terminals, kiosks, stream audio/video etc.

e. Adherence to Compliance/Regulatory standards (such as DOD 5015, Sarbanes Oxley etc)

f. Knowledge Management - accumulate relevant content and distribute as per needs. Collaborative needs.Collaborative content management enables geographically distributed teams to participate collectively in content creation, editing and publishing.

g. Monetization of Content through sale of video, audio, documents etc.

h. Reduce Costs such as content production costs, content retrieval costs, content storage costs, maintenance costs.

i. Potential revenue drivers and business opportunities through capabilities such as publish on demand.

Why use a Content Management Solution?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:48:47 GMT

Revision 1 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 9:48:47 PM

There are several reasons for using a CMS system, and some of them are:
a.    Ease of managing, storage, retrieval, archival and disposition. This is particularly important with high volumes of content.
b.    Avoid duplication of content. One source of truth.
c.    Content Reuse - Create content once and reuse across multiple distribution points such as multiple websites, hand-held devices, video terminals, kiosks, stream audio/video etc.
d.    Efficiency Improvements - Empower business users and ensure right content is easily available to the right person at the right time. Ability to search and find the right content. Reduce cycle-time and faster turnaround of content from authoring to publishing.
e.    Adherence to Compliance/Regulatory standards (such as DOD 5015, Sarbanes Oxley etc)
f.    Knowledge Management - accumulate relevant content and distribute as per needs. Collaborative content management enables geographically distributed teams to participate collectively in content creation, editing and publishing.
g.    Monetization of Content through sale of video, audio, documents etc.
h.    Reduce Costs such as content production costs, content retrieval costs, content storage costs, maintenance costs.
i.    Potential revenue drivers and business opportunities through capabilities such as publish on demand.

What constitutes a Content Management System?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:07:52 GMT

Current revision posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 10:07:52 PM

What constitutes a Content Management System?

The term Data, Information and Content are often times used synonymously. Simply put (a) relevant Data can be termed Content, and (b) useful Content is Information. Content can be paper documents, electronic documents, media files such as audio, video, or data stored in a database etc. Content Management could be defined as a process to create, manage, store and deliver content. Packaged applications known as Content Management Systems that are used for managing this process.

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What constitutes a Content Management System?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 05:06:49 GMT

Revision 3 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 10:06:49 PM

What constitutes a Content Management System?

[[why-use-a-content-management-solution| Why use a content management solution]]

What constitutes a Content Management System?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:44:52 GMT

Revision 2 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 9:44:52 PM

What constitutes a Content Management System?

Sethu Iyer — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 04:44:22 GMT

Revision 1 posted to Content Management by Sethu Iyer on 3/14/2009 9:44:22 PM