The Implications of Single Sourcing for Writers and Writing    

Argues that single sourcing puts pressures on the workforce and the very conception of 'writer' and 'document. Examines literature on change management for clues into managing the impacts of single sourcing on writers.

Carter, Locke. Technical Communication Online (2003). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing>Rhetoric

The Importance of Content Management System Usability

The rollout of a content management system (CMS) has the potential to impact on more users than any other system since e-mail. More crucially, the success of a CMS depends entirely on how much it is used, whether it is authors creating content, or users accessing the published site. It is these two challenges that place usability as a central issue to be raised and addressed.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Design>Content Management>Usability

Incorporating Usability into Content Management

This article describes the importance of incorporating usability into all stages of implementing content management, including assessing your needs, assessing your users (of both the content and the content management system), and assessing your content. It questions the emphasis of technology in many of the current discussions about content management, and instead, advocates looking to the field of usability to form the basis of a content management implementation.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Usability

Indexer Wants to Retrain

With such a considerable portion of our collective mindshare devoted to information management products these days, it's no wonder that you're lost in terminology and technology. And it's no wonder that so many of us are confused.

Byrne, Tony. CMSworks (2004). Careers>Content Management>Indexing

Information Architects and Their Central Role in Content Management

The process of content management begins when an organization comes to the realization that it needs a system to manage content. While the interpretation of the term content management (CM) can be as simple as a set of guidelines for organizing and maintaining content, more typically today it means a sophisticated software-based system. A full-featured content management system (CMS) takes content from inception to publication and does so in a way that provides for maximum content accessibility and reuse and easy, timely, accurate maintenance of the content base.

Warren, Rita. ASIST (2001). Articles>Content Management>Information Design

Information Architecture of Content Management

When people think about content management, they generally think about it from a systems perspective, focusing primarily on tools and technology. While it is true that content management usually requires a technological solution, it also requires that content be designed for reuse, retrieval, and delivery to meet your authors' and customers' needs. Content management requires that tools be configured to support authoring, reviewing, and publishing tasks, but first, those tasks must be designed. Designing content and the processes to create, review, and publish it is what information architecture is all about. The Information Architecture section of The Rockley Report will focus on the different aspects of information architecture for content management. This article introduces you to some of the components of information architecture that we will cover in The Rockley Report over time.

Rockley, Ann. Rockley Bulletin (2004). Articles>Content Management>Information Design>User Centered Design

Information Delivery: Single Source Documentation for Multiple Delivery Mechanisms  

Information for a software product is often presented in multiple places and in multiple formats, including printed manuals, quick-reference cards, online Help, online tutorials, online product information, and training materials. Delivery formats can include Acrobat Portable Document (.pdj files, he&n ( hlp) Jiles, HTML ( htm) files, PostScript Jiles, Write (wri) files, text files, and document book$les. Delivery media can include CD-ROM, floppy diskettes, magnetic tape, Web pages, and paper.

Flanders, Melanie G. and Nicole Y. Smart-Wycislo. STC Proceedings (1997). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Information Modeling  

Information models are a critical component of single-sourcing, enterprise content management, and dynamic content management. This session explains how to design information models, including information product models and element models. It also explains the role of metadata and how to effectively design it.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (2002). Design>Content Management>Information Design>Metadata

Information Modeling: A Practical Approach  

Information models are a critical component of single sourcing, enterprise content management, and dynamic content management. The information model is your blueprint for the effective writing, structuring, and delivery of reusable content. This session explains how to design information models, including information product models and element models. It also explains the role of metadata and how to effectively design it.

Rockley, Ann. STC Proceedings (2003). Articles>Information Design>Content Management>Project Management

Information Process Maturity Model (IPMM)  

There are several reasons for the Information Process Maturity Model: moving beyond chaos; moving beyond the heroism of talented and dedicated individuals; moving toward a repeatable, reliable process.

ComTech Services (2000). Articles>Content Management>Workflow

Integrating Content Management with Portals: Meeting Enterprise Information Needs  

Effective communication is a top priority for most businesses. To help create, manage, and access information that is used to conduct e-business, technologies such as content management (CM) and enterprise information portals (EIP) are dominating IT and CIO discussions. We will review how these rapidly evolving technologies come together to provide benefits for enterprise implementers. Given the historical deployment of these technologies, many associate the application of content management solutions to externally facing sites, serving transactional e-business needs; and the application of portals to internally facing sites for general employee access to a wide range of information sources and applications. However, both technologies can provide support for the complete information lifecycle, from information creation to management to delivery.

CAP Ventures. Articles>Content Management>Information Design

The Intranet as Ecosystem: A Model for Sustaining Development

The complexity of the intranet and the interrelationship between it and the organization’s overall environment mean that traditional methods for supporting company information technology and communication (in which geographically and administratively separate groups determined company standards and guidelines) may not be adequate for the new medium. Available resources are also inadequate; material for web 'authors' (writers, information architects, graphic artists, and programmers) usually focuses at the site level, and most academic and trade articles on intranets focus on the central internal home page or on aspects of the physical infrastructure. Resources covering the whole intranet generally focus on management issues—hiring staff, setting goals, overseeing the design process, selling ideas to upper management, and getting people to use the system once it is deployed. But support groups tasked with the everyday design and maintenance of the intranet also need to “manage” it—that is, to envision the intranet’s role in the overall communication and technological structure of the organization, design and maintain its architectural structure, and sustain it by ensuring its content is accurate, timely, useful, and usable.

Wilder, Pam. University of Washington-Seattle (2000). Books>Content Management>Intranets

Introducing a Strategic Approach to Outstanding Content Development  

Great content doesn't happen by accident. By taking a rational approach that includes careful planning, diligent implementation, and well-tested delivery, vendor teams can ensure a successful project that satisfies client needs, budget constraints, and schedule demands while meeting the business objectives of both the client and the vendor.

Sakson and Taylor (2004). Articles>Content Management

Introduction of the DocuCat Information System for the Entire Product Documentation at Unaxis Displays

In order to improve this situation, the "Integrated Documentation" project was started in the fall of 2002. Our goal was to place the entire documentation of a system in a convenient manner (on CD or via Internet) at the disposal of Unaxis Displays service technicians and customers. Special attention should be paid to the linking of important information which is required again and again during maintenance and service work. The project derived benefit from the fact that Unaxis has been shipping electronic versions of operating instructions and spare parts catalogs to a number of customers for several years. The required internal processes and the software had been developed by CPTec GmbH. To be consistent, the same company was hired in order to extend the existing spare parts catalog solution to an overall solution named "DocuCat".

Ratz, Günter. CPTec GmbH (2003). Articles>Content Management

An Introduction to Content Management  

CMS analysis and design; an implementation example.

Garrett, David and Mary Pitz. STC Region 7 Proceedings (2002). Presentations>Content Management

Introduction to Single Source, Part 1  

In the first of a two-part article, Butland examines the arguments for and against single sourcing, a method of producing documentation for several media from a single source. He also discusses the differences between manuals and help, and offers suggestions on how to conduct single source projects involving these media.

Butland, Philip. Intercom (2001). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Introduction to Single Source, Part 2  

In the second installment of a two-part article, Butland discusses obstacles to single sourcing and how to overcome them. Part 1, which explored the advantages of single sourcing and discussed the differences between manuals and help, was published in the February 2001 issue of Intercom.

Butland, Philip. Intercom (2001). Articles>Content Management>Single Sourcing

An Introduction to Single-Sourcing  

A brief, high-level introduction to single-sourcing.

Simply Written. Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Is a Documentation Wiki in your Future?

If we can solicit user participation in a Web 2.0 knowledge community (a volunter wiki documentation, for example), we might have a powerful means for creating high quality content. But how should this process work?

Hackos, JoAnn T. Center for Information-Development Management (2007). Articles>Documentation>Content Management>Wikis

Is it Document Management or Content Management?

There is considerable confusion in the market between document management systems (DMS) and content management systems (CMS). This has not been helped by the vendors, who are keen to market their products as widely as possible. These two types of systems are very different, and serve complementary needs. While there is an ongoing move to merge the two together (a positive step), it is important to understand when each system is appropriate.

Robertson, James. Step Two (2003). Articles>Content Management

Is Wiki Under Your Radar?

Your staff may already be using one of the most productive collaboration tools ever built.

Dickerson, Chad. InfoWorld (2004). Articles>Collaboration>Content Management>Wikis

It's about the Community Plumbing: The Social Aspects of Content Management Systems  

In the summer of 2003, we worked on creating a general description of Drupal--an open source content management system (CMS)--for the "About Drupal" page on drupal.org. While Drupal is clearly within the class of applications known as content management systems, we felt that to describe it with that term alone would not present a clear picture of the breadth and range of Drupal's capabilities. Thus, the final description ended up describing Drupal with a total of four characteristics, although notably not distinct content management; weblog; discussion-based community software; and collaboration. Why is it then that the term CMS alone would not suffice? The word "content" places much emphasis on the product over process; it fails to emphasize the social use of CMSes, a mislabeling which places too much emphasis on the content itself at the expense of the communication and collaboration the better of these systems implement. In order to better understand how CMSes are being influenced by the precepts of social software and their role in creating social networks online, this presentation will: explore Drupal's social software features, narrate its genesis as software serving a community; and explain the influence of the community itself on Drupal development and the software's influence on the community that creates and uses it. In composing this text, we draw on the coauthors' unique perspectives. One of us is the founder and lead developer of Drupal, and the other a researcher in Computers and Writing and a participant in the Drupal community.

Lowe, Charles and Dries Buytaert. Kairosnews (2005). Presentations>Content Management>Community Building>Collaboration

The Joy of Single-Sourcing

At MYOB® (Mind Your Own Business) Australia, we have just finished our first single-sourcing project using mif2go to convert FrameMaker source files to HTML Help *.chm files. These files are also the source of our printed user guide and the hyperlinked PDF of the user guide placed on the distribution CD. There was considerable once-off pain setting up conversion templates (including CSS files) and conversion options but our next project will be much faster. The converted files do not require any hand tweaking -- we just hand over to the release people to put the *.chm file on the installer CD. Our testing and support people are rapt, and consider the new help far better than the old help. It has a navigation pane with Contents, Index, Search, and Favorites tabs, a toolbar with Hide [navigation pane], Prev, Next, Back, Forward, Print, Options, and Welcome (custom Home) buttons. An outsider would have no inkling that the help was converted from FrameMaker source files as the appearance is completely different from the printed book and hyperlinked PDF. You, too, can single-source successfully provided you plan beforehand and your team understands the process.

Finger, Hedley. IRTC (2001). Design>Content Management>Single Sourcing

Knowledge Management Benchmarking Association

The KMBA brings together knowledge management professionals from a variety of companies. KMBA conducts benchmarking studies to identify practices that improve the effectiveness of Knowledge Management activities.

KMBA (2006). Organizations>Content Management>Knowledge Management

Learner Attitudes Towards a Tutor-Run Weblog in the EFL University Classroom

The purpose of this personal mini-research project is to investigate learner attitudes towards a weblog that I recently set-up and have been running for my classroom-based university EFL learners here in Japan. What follows will be my attempt to relate my experience as a first-time researcher: from formulating the research questions to selecting research methods and describing their deployment. I will then report on the outcomes, give a short analysis, and discuss what the entire process meant to me.

Campbell, Aaron Patric. OCN (2002). Articles>Education>Content Management>Blogging