CS3051: Digital Content Management

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1 CS3051: Digital Content Management Lecturer: Adrian O Riordan Office: Room G.71 WGB a.oriordan@cs.ucc.ie Course Webpage: Lectures 1 & 2: Course Overview and Introduction to CMSes 1

2 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. 2

3 CS3051 On-line Webpage at Will contain: Course Overview: module content, etc. Notices All lectures slides (as course progresses) Reading list and Web links Assignments and Exercises 3

4 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. 4

5 Teaching Methods It is important that you attend both the lectures and labs. Labs will use the PHP programming language and a free opensource 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. 5

6 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 6

7 CS3051 Useful books and Websites Further reading list on course Website: (to do) And relevant Web links 7

8 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. 8

9 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) e.g. Web, mobile, newsletter, Web syndication (RSS) 9

10 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? Security issues such as access control 10

11 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 Support publishing in multiple ways 11

12 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 12

13 Architecture of CMS diagram from 13

14 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 Web-based publishing. 14

15 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) Enables the deliver the same information in different media channels 15

16 Example: HTML and CSS <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <style> p { } text-align: center; color: red; </style> </head> <body> Every paragraph will be affected by the style. Me too! And me! <p>every paragraph will be affected by the style.</p> <p id="para1">me too!</p> <p>and me!</p> </body> </html> 16

17 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., s, business documents, and more); used throughout the enterprise. 17

18 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: 18

19 CMS Market Share data from collected using Wappalyzer, an addon for Firefox and Google Chrome browser 19

20 Drupal Drupal is a free and open-source content management system for publishing Web content 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 20

21 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, 21

22 Example Site: The Weather Channel (weather.com) 22

23 Drupal Backend 23

24 Joomla! Joomla! is another free and open-source content management system for publishing Web content Free open-source software available under GNU General Public License It is also written in PHP Initial release in 2005; current stable release in

25 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) 25

26 Joomla! interface 26

27 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 27

28 Wordpress Dashboard 28

29 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 29

30 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 support for large volume and high numbers of users 30

31 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 different layouts 31

32 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. 32

33 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. for a comparison 33

34 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 34

35 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) Cumulus (Canto) 35

36 WebDAM 36