CS3051: Digital Content Management
Lecturer: Adrian O’Riordan
Office: Room G.71 WGB Email: [email protected]
Course Webpage: http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~adrian/cs3051.html
Lectures 1 & 2: Course Overview and Introduction to CMSes
CS3051 Overview
• 5 Credit course on Content Management and Content Management Systems
– Pre-requisite: CS2051 Introduction to Digital Media or equivalent
– Lectures: 2 lectures in Period 1 – Tuesdays 11-12am and Wednesdays 3-4pm – Labs: to be announced, starting in week 4?
– Tutorials: as required
Assessment will consist of an end-of-year written examination (80%) and continuous assessment during the year (20%).
You have to pass combined total. There is a re-sit in the autumn – your continuous assessment mark is carried forward.
CS3051 On-line
Webpage at http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~adrian/cs3051.html
Will contain:
• Course Overview: module content, etc. • Notices
• All lectures slides (as course progresses) • Reading list and Web links
CS3051 Learning Outcomes
According to Book of Modules:
• Understand the issues associated with managing digital content
• Appreciate the underlying content storage and delivery technologies • Apply the skills learned to the design of multimedia websites.
Teaching Methods
It is important that you attend both the lectures and labs.
• Labs will use the PHP programming language and a free open-source Content Management System.
• Assignments and exercises will be placed on the course webpage during the year.
• No textbook covers all the material exactly. See the list of books/Websites on course Website.
Course Contents
• Content Management Systems Overview • PHP Programming and form processing • Content indexing, discovery, and search • Web publishing and syndication
• Content storage – file-based, XML, Relational DB • Putting it all together
CS3051 Useful books and Websites
Further reading list on course Website:
http://www.cs.ucc.ie/~adrian/CS3051books.html (to do)
And relevant Web links
CMSes
• A Content Management System is software or a suite of software applications and tools that enable the creation, editing, reviewing and publishing of electronic text and multimedia content.
• They are used in a lot of large Websites
– informational sites, e.g. news, and e-commerce sites (shopping), and blogging sites
• It is the term used to represent a broad scope of systems.
• In most CMSes maintenance is via a central interface, such as a Web-based GUI, enabling publishers to access the CMS online using a Web browser.
Content and publishing
• Content
– text, images, video, etc. used for electronic publication on the Web. – content often has associated metadata
• Content is often marked up or tagged in formats such as HTML, XML
• Multichannel publishing means delivering a publication to your readers in many ways (channels)
Why can’t I just use plain HTML?
• Doesn’t scale well for large sites that can have thousands of documents with images, video, etc.
• Difficult to search for content or to reuse content • Difficult to maintain content
• How do you handle multiple versions of the same object? • How to you deal with different user devices, e.g. desktop and
mobile?
CMSes to the rescue
• Avoid the need for hand coding (writing the actual HTML/XML) • Allow users with little knowledge of Web programming
languages or mark-up languages to create and manage Website content
• Support multiple content formats • Support content reuse
CMS layers
• A presentation layer displays the content to website visitors • An application layer with the CMS features
• A data layer uses a content repository or a database to store page content, metadata, and other assets
Architecture of CMS
CMS features
• CMSes vary widely from simple file-based systems to complex enterprise systems
• Most CMSes support features such as
– management of text and multimedia
– indexing, search, and retrieval
– revision (version) control
– separation of presentation and content
Separation of presentation and content
• Design philosophy and a methodology applied in the context of various publishing technology
• Make a distinction between the actual meaning of a document, and how this meaning is presented to its readers
• Example: HTML (content) and CSS (presentation)
Example: HTML and CSS
<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <style> p { text-align: center; color: red; } </style> </head> <body><p>Every paragraph will be affected by the style.</p>
<p id="para1">Me too!</p> <p>And me!</p>
</body>
</html> 16
Every paragraph will be affected by the style.
Me too! And me!
Types of Content Management Systems
• Web Content Management System
– managing and delivering content to Web sites
• Digital Asset Management System
– managing multimedia components and their corresponding metadata
• Document Management System
– managing whole documents rather than the actual content itself
• Enterprise Content Management System
– managing all aspects of content within an organization (i.e., e-mails, business documents, and more); used throughout the enterprise.
Examples of Web CMSes
• Popular content management systems include – Wordpress – Joomla – Drupal – Magento – TYPO3 – Microsoft SharePoint® – Alfresco
• These are all free open-source software except SharePoint
– free because software costs €0
– open source because source code is made available.
– Full list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_content_management_systems
CMS Market Share
data from https://www.gavick.com/blog/wappalyzer-and-cms-including-joomla collected using Wappalyzer, an addon for Firefox and Google Chrome browser
Drupal
• Drupal is a free and open-source content management system for publishing Web content https://www.drupal.org/
• Available under GNU General Public License v2 • Written in PHP
• Runs on any platform that supports a Web server capable of running PHP such as Apache
• Initially released in 2001; Current version is 8 • Available in 100+ languages
Drupal continued
• Data stored in database
– such as MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, or Microsoft SQL Server
• Supports more than 32K community-provided Modules (expansions) and 2K Themes that alter and extend the core capabilities and
appearance of a Drupal site.
• Basic Web site installation and administration of the framework require no programming skills.
• Used by thousand of Websites
– e.g. cbsnews.com, nbc.com, TheWhiteHouse, Le Figaro newspaper online, Typepad, weather.com, androidcentral.com, economist.com, hollywood reporter, utexas.edu, Columbia.edu, telecomitalia.it, royalmail.com, menshealth.com,
Example Site: The Weather Channel
(weather.com)
Joomla!
• Joomla! is another free and open-source content management system for publishing Web content https://www.joomla.org/
• Free open-source software available under GNU General Public License
• It is also written in PHP
Joomla! continued
• Backend storage in MySQL, MS SQL Server, or PostgreSQL
• Extensions available from Joomla! Extension Directory (more that 7.5K)
– five types of extensions: components, modules, plugins, templates, and languages
• Used by thousand of Websites
– e.g. Harvard University (educational), Citibank (financial institution intranet), The Guggenheim Museum (museum), Everything Peru (tourism), Peugeot.com (car manufacturer)
Wordpress
• Wordpress is a blogging tool and a CMS (wordpress.org)
– Wordpress started live as a blogging tool but was expanded to a full CMS
• Wordpress is the most popular CMS but not as powerful as Joomla or Drupal
• It’s free open-source software available under GNU GPL v2
• Uses PHP programming language and MySQL database system • Wordpress can be extended using plugins
Benefits of CMS for an Organization
• Centralized and shared content
– content is not scattered throughout the organization, which would result in erroneous content, duplication and content in many different formats
• Secure content
– privileges are assigned, so only authorized people can access content
• Quick creation of new publications
– content can be organized, searched, retrieved, and reused
• Timely delivery of publications
– single-source content can be updated once and send to multiple media channels
Choosing a CMS I
• Cost
– many are free although extensions may not
• Features
– certain features may be required, e.g. Collaboration ─ allowing content to be retrieved and worked on by one or many authorized users
– others desirable but not essential
• Performance
– response time
• Scalability
Choosing a CMS II
• Extensibility and Integration
– CMS of your choice should easily integrate with other technology and platforms
– often CMSes can be extended with plugins/modules
• Works reliably
– bug rate and update schedule
• Ease of Use
– A CMS should be usable by non-technical people
• Customizable
Choosing a CMS III
• Security features such as Access control • Multisite support
• Mobile support
– Android, iPhone
• Training/Support
• Cost of maintenance
– maintaining CMSs may require license updates, upgrades, and hardware maintenance.
Drupal or Joomla or Wordpress?
• Wordpress in simpler and often used for small sites
• Joomla has been favoured by medium business market largely due to the ease in theming (source: CMSwire)
• “Drupal has some (out-of-the-box) features and functionality that makes it a more natural choice in the enterprise”, Dries Buytaert, founder of Drupal
• see e.g.
Digital asset management (DAM)
• Management of annotation, cataloguing, storage, retrieval and distribution of digital assets, multimedia content
• Can include other features such as managing workflow, policy tracking, backing up, rating, grouping, and archiving
• Assets can include text documents, images, video, audio files, animations
• Asset have associated metadata
– metadata can describe means of encoding/decoding (e.g. MPEG 4), ownership; rights of access, and many other features
DAM continued
• Assets can be stored in the file system, or in a database • Workflow Automation streamline content creation and asset
handling
• Specialized software for DAM includes
– WebDAM (Shutterstock) www.webdam.com