Emerging Technologies

Web Content Management Systems

What Is a Web Content Management System (WCMS)?

“A Web Content Management System (WCMS) is a software system which provides website authoring and administration tools designed to allow users with little knowledge of web programming languages or markup languages to create and manage the site's content with relative ease.

“Most systems use a database to store content, metadata, or artifacts that might be needed by the system. Content is frequently, but not universally, stored as XML, to facilitate, reuse, and enable flexible presentation options.”

— Wikipedia

What Are Typical WCMS Capabilities?

Automated Templates: Standard output HTML templates that can be automatically applied to new and existing content.

Easily Editable Content: Most WCMS software includes WYSIWYG editing tools allowing non-technical individuals to create and edit content.

Scalable Feature Sets: Plug-ins or modules to extend an existing site's functionality.

Workflow Management: Cycles of sequential and parallel tasks to be accomplished in the CMS, as in the submission of a story by an author that is not published until a copy editor cleans it up and the editor-in-chief approves it.

Document Management: Managing the life cycle of a document from initial creation time, through revisions, publication, archive, and document destruction.

…Plus a host of other features

Why Should the AB Tech Web Technologies Program Care about WCMSs?

updating of their site and/or clueless about their business and what was important to it. And their businesses were suffering therefore.

These conversations illustrate a paradigm shift that has been in progress since, oh, the turn of the century. Web sites are no longer “gee whiz, look at our cool cyberspace presence” company calling cards. Increasingly they have become integral to the way companies do business. A portion of the website may be included within the company intranet for sharing critical documents and information. Other parts may face outward toward (often demanding) vendors and customers. And then, of course, there is the piece that is available to the entire World Wide Web. The point is that a company website has become mission critical in the organizational workflow, and a business that wants to survive can’t leave this resource to people who don’t understand the business, nor can it delay critical updates until a web designer returns from his/her snowboarding trip. That’s rather like having to call a programmer every time you want to update a customer database. (In fact, that’s exactly what it’s like.)

Unfortunately, AB Tech’s Web Technologies program, despite a wealth of offerings in graphics and multi-media design, database implementation, programming, and markup and styling, is still teaching into this old designer/developer-centric paradigm. No question design and development are important, but only until the website is up and running. At the point content and maintenance become paramount, often for extended periods The company doesn’t need new site features or yet another look. What the company DOES need is for Ed in Marketing to discount an advertised price, or for Irma on the Orders desk to help a customer with a shopping cart problem. Now, today, not next week.

And that’s where a WCMS that puts content responsibility into the hands of company employees comes into play.

In recent weeks the author has spoken to two different business executives who were fuming about their organizations’ web sites, both for the same reasons. Their web development staff was slack about timely

What Are the Advantages of a WCMS?

Low Cost: Several good Open Source Web Content Management Systems are free.

Easy Customization: Many use a universal layout, meaning pages have a similar theme and design without much code. It is easy for novice users to create custom front-ends, or to add content pages.

Easy to Use: Simplicity in design of the administrative user interface allows content managers and other users to update content without much training.

Workflow Management: This is the big one. Controlling how content is published, when it is published, and who publishes it. Some WCMSs allow administrators to set up rules for workflow management.

Three WCMSs AB Tech Should Consider

WordPress

Joomla

Drupal

They are listed in order from easiest to use to industrial strength.

All three are free, Open Source software with plenty of functionality. All three are easily hosted on Apache servers, and all are written in PHP, use MySQL as their database, and make heavy use of CSS in their themes.

In other words, they all play to the current strengths of AB Tech’s Web Technologies program.

WordPress

WordPress is great for getting stuff on the Web quickly. Though often used as a blogging framework, it can be configured in other ways as well. For instance one designer reported that a client needed a website that would give him and his staff an internal website for sharing notes, documenting tasks, and comparing processes. WordPress was an obvious solution since it was easy and some of the staff was already familiar with it.

Ease of setup and use are key with WordPress. Most users can pick it up more quickly than Drupal… great for folks new to websites and CMSs. Here’s a link to a video.

Pros:

• Ease of setup, ease of use.• Great for blogging.

Cons:

• Not as developer friendly as some.• Add-ins are of mixed quality.• Content management categorization and organization are the

weakest of the three. Has trouble transcending its bloggishness.

Joomla!

If WordPress is for end-users and Drupal is for developers, then Joomla! must be for designers, right? That’s a good assumption, but actually Joomla! mixes all things well. The name “Joomla” means “all together” in Swahili (Urdu), and Joomla’s developers seem bent on living up to the name.

Designers will like the way its engine can make websites look great. Newcomers to website management will like its ease of use and customization. Developers gravitate to its capacity for development and customization. Here’s a link.

Pros:

• Friendly to all types of users.• Large, helpful community and growing rapidly.• Solid, business-relevant extensions.• Good content management capabilities, getting better with the

impending release of 1.6.

Cons:

• Not many, but one might be that it’s a “tweener.” Neither as easy as WordPress nor as powerful as Drupal.

Drupal…

…resembles a developer platform more than a traditional CMS. Being more developer friendly does not say, therefore, that Drupal is more user friendly; the developer must labor to turn the end product to a user friendly site. It requires plenty of hard coding and can be a real challenge for design types.

That said, when an industrial strength site is needed, Drupal is probably the best choice because of its security features and functionality. Websites like MTV UK, the BBC, the Onion, Greenpeace UK, and the White House use Drupal. Here is a link to a 57-second video.

Pros:

• Strong developer community support.• Can create awesome, high-performance websites.

Cons:

• Not user friendly.• Theming is problematical because, up to now, developers and not

designers have been creating the themes.• Getting a Drupal site up is often more labor intensive than the other

two.

In Summary

The author has an initial bias toward Joomla! and intends to use it as he begins developing websites for small to medium-sized businesses. In fact he will probably develop in both WordPress and Joomla! Frameworks as time goes along. The key point, that was made earlier, is that both these packages are very user (read “customer”) friendly and invite the client, with a little training, to contribute site content. This means the author can work as a designer/developer and then turn the site over to the client on an ongoing basis, getting involved again when more development or redesign is needed.

Again, to return to a previous point, the author feels the College’s Web Tech should begin to embrace to this paradigm of “Design, Develop, Train, and Relinquish” as well, by incorporating the tools that promote it into the curriculum. Client-maintained websites ARE the emerging paradigm and frameworks like Joomla! are the emerging technology that support it.

So which of the three frameworks mentioned should AB Tech adopt? As a combination teaching device and practical, usable skill builder the author suggests either WordPress or Joomla! (or both). Both applications capitalize on skills learned earlier in the AB Tech program. Both are free and both enjoy community support and will be around for some time to come. (For instance, lynda.com has training series on both.)

Drupal seems too difficult and designer surly to be a good pedagogic tool. Plus , if the student encounters Drupal in the real world, he/she will have a grounding in either of the other two as a starting point.