Benchmarking the Document Management Process  

The Bank of Canada manages the public debt as fiscal agent, for the Federal Government. As a public service organization, it is committed to deliver quality services to its clients in a cost effective and efficient manner. Recognizing that a fundamental role of documentation is to provide continuity within a changing environment, the Public Debt Department (POD) piloted best practices benchmarking of its internal documentation unit with partners identified as having best-in-class processes.

Edwards, Roy, James D. McGuire and Shirley A. Hancock. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Content Management>Assessment>Case Studies

Does Your CMS Vendor Have Product Expertise?

Choosing a content management system (CMS) is not just about finding the product with the right functionality. It's also about dealing with a vendor who can support your needs for the lifetime of the solution. This briefing explores the way most CMS vendors have evolved, what this means for the way they work, and what you should be looking for when purchasing a solution.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Fifteen Steps to Select a Content Management System

These are suggested steps to research Content Management System options for your organization, large or small. They can take you from knowing nothing about CMS to final vendor and product selection. Even if you are replacing a CMS with a new tool, you should follow these steps in the CMS lifecycle.

Doyle, Bob. CMS Review (2004). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

The Five Biggest Mistakes in CMS Selection

Describes the big 'gotchas' in choosing a web content management system.

Welchman, Lisa. CMSwatch (2003). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Identifying the Components of Your ROI

Identifying Return on Investment (ROI) for your content management business case begins with a thorough analysis. This article reviews the information you need to gather to identify ROI for an effective business case for content management.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Assessment>Business Case

Selecting a Content Management System  

Learn about what a content management system (CMS) does and the different types of systems available in order to better understand how to select a new system or replace an existing one with a CMS that will be more effective for your organization.

Doyle, Bob. Intercom (2007). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Ten Problems With Single Sourcing  

Though there have been numerous conference papers, articles, and books devoted to the topic of single sourcing, there have been fewer works about potential problems that should be identified before adopting a single-source documentation strategy. This study looks at ten specific problems (including issues of training, productivity, and morale) that can arise during the implementation of a mature single-sourcing model of documentation management. This list of problems, while not comprehensive, does provide some points of reference and a framework within which technical communicators can consider the implications of adopting a single-sourcing documentation model.

Yeats, Dave and Heather Hull. STC Proceedings (2004). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Assessment

Top Ten Mistakes When Selecting a CMS

Selecting a content management system (CMS) can be a complex task, and organizations often run into pitfalls with processes, politics, and understanding the CMS environment. James Robertson outlines a common-sense approach to avoiding the most common mistakes.

Robertson, James. IdealWare (2007). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Total Cost of Adoption: A Framework for Evaluating Content Management Solutions  

Total Cost of Adoption is the missing link to forecasting and maximizing return on investment.

Holst, Sebastian. Gilbane Report (2004). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Understanding the Need for Content Quality Management

An interview with Scott Abel, The Content Wrangler that's both a bit controversial and inspiring that looks at how good content quality management can be a great benefit for tech pubs departments.

Wieland, Diane. Writing Assistance (2006). Articles>Interviews>Content Management>Assessment

Using Scenarios to Select a CMS

Scenarios are narrative descriptions or stories that concisely outline how something will work in practice. In the context of a content management system (CMS) project, scenarios are a very effective way of documenting key CMS requirements, and they complement the formal lists of functional requirements typically found in tender documents.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2007). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

Why Content Management Fails

Of just under 100 companies, only 27 percent of companies surveyed planned to continue using their Web content management systems as they do now. So why do these CMS projects almost always fail?

Veen, Jeffrey. Adaptive Path (2004). Articles>Content Management>Assessment

How to Manage Out of Date Content

Organizations are in urgent need of professional review processes for their intranets and public websites. Out of date content is growing year by year, and there are many horror stories about out-of-date content waiting to happen. It’s time for management to get serious and professionally manage their websites.

McGovern, Gerry. CMSwire (2008). Articles>Content Management>Editing>Assessment

Is Corruption an Issue?

You might think corruption is mainly an issue in places like sub-Saharan Africa or Myanmar, but unfortunately I’ve been exposed to several cases of this inside the online industry.

Boye, Janus. JBoye (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Assessment

Comparison of Home Page Loadability Scores for Major WCM and ECM Vendors

YSlow assigns letter grades (A thru F) for a page in each of 13 categories of best-practice. I decided to run YSlow against the home pages of 35 well-known web content management and/or enterprise content management vendors, then calculate a Grade Point Average. The scores are posted below.

Thomas, Kas. Lulu (2009). Articles>Content Management>Software>Assessment

Toward Content Quality

How do we know whether content is any good? This simple question does not have a simple answer. Yet, I think having a good answer would help us show our employers and clients why their content needs to improve and how their content compares to the competition’s.

Jones, Colleen. UXmatters (2009). Articles>Content Management>Quality>Assessment

Evaluation of an XML-Based Content Management System in the Translation Process

Translation companies typically embrace innovations in methods for efficiently creating final formatted documents. About a year ago a client asked if we would be interested in testing and evaluating a content management system (CMS) and how it would relate to our translation process.

Argondizzo, Peter. STC International TC SIG (2008). Articles>Content Management>Translation>Assessment