About the CMS

Background

At the commencement of this project there were approximately 300,000 to 500,000 Monash web pages that were not tracked or authorised in any standard or consistent fashion. Web site management/maintenance was ad hoc. There was a significant risk that out of date or incorrect material was displayed on the web. The lack of appropriate metadata standards is an inhibitor to effective search and discovery on the web site, and makes organisation, navigation, and management of the content more difficult.

One barrier to having appropriate web content is the need for web authoring skills, where the person with the appropriate content knowledge does not have the level of skill to create a web page.

These factors may create the image that Monash is not the most desired tertiary institution as new entrants to Universities determine where they wish to study, as many prospective students refer to the University web site as a part of their decision making process.

What is Content Management

Management of content in this context means

• enabling web authorship without complex technical knowledge,
• enabling collaborative authoring of web pages,
• enabling workflow processes including authorisation processes,
• providing template driven publishing to ensure consistency of look and feel,
• enabling multi channel output to ensure consistency of information across the web site,
• enabling simple migration of existing web pages into the system, and
• management of metadata to enable personalisation, searching and syndication. 

Who is using the CMS?

CMS Capabilities

The Monash CMS has implemented Enterprise Content Management products from Interwoven Inc.  See Teamsite and Metatagger.  These products provide the following capabilities

Separation of content and presentation

The content is the intellectual property or information that the web page intends to display, and the presentation is the way that it displays that information. Providing content and displaying content on a web page are disparate skills. By separating these activities, authors are able to contribute their information directly, ie. without needing indirect presentation by a webmaster

Implementation of processes through Workflow

The workflow is the automation of a sequence of tasks to form a process. The CMS workflow allows a defined set of steps to be performed repeatedly, involving automated actions and user actions such as an approval and publish process

Versioning and Rollback

The CMS tracks all changes to the content and identifies each version. It has the capability to roll back (that is to retrieve a previous version) to any point in time.

Uploads from Microsoft Office

There are various ways of uploading non html objects. One way is a plugin for Microsoft Office called Front Office which allows menu selection of "save and check in" to the CMS

Dimensions of Quality

Timeliness and Currency

Timeliness refers to the appropriate time of publication, ie. not too early and not too late. Currency refers to the validity of the material in relation to time, ie. is it now out of date information?

Accuracy and Relevance

The CMS uses the workflow capability to enable an approval process. This process seeks to have an appropriate person check the content for accuracy (is it correct) and relevance (is it what the reader would be seeking). The system also prompts for a review of the material after a predetermined time

Availability

The CMS ensures that the information is published in the right place and can be restored in the event of any problems on the web servers

Discovery

The CMS enhances the discovery of the material through the use of metadata, which increases the assessment of relevance and enables metadata driven searches

Security

The CMS can remove unapproved material from the website and identify the author of any changes in the CMS

Who to contact