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  admin 11:12 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Information Portals VS Content Management Portals 

  

  Information Portals

  Information portals are the portals that consolidate many varied kinds of information sourced from a number of sources into one single user experience or one single screen. Information portals are also known as Enterprise Information Portals or Vertical Enterprise Portals. People using information portals mostly, are not the ones who publish it or in another way, people who use information portals can be categorised as the consumers for the information that other people put together and publish. Typically, information portals that are used within an organization or a company or a corporation may contain the following –

  – Access to calendars, bookings for the meeting room, email client, centrally stored assets and documents or any kind of central application of the business wherein one is required to view items or files

  - Information regarding share prices, local news and weather, which could be taken from RSS feeds or XML

  - Corporate information like HR events or programs or other information

  - Forms or requests, which allow requisition of any information for assisting in business choices

  - Access into other information portals that are smaller and may not be maintained centrally, though they could be accessed via the main information portal

  Portals can give a common or static experience in which the interface could be same at the starting point for all the users while they can also be personalised frequently. Personalisation enables the users to modify the gateway or window of the portal so that the information, which is presented to them is tailored as per their profile, preferred interests or behavioural clicking.

  Content Management Portals

  Content Management Portals are designed for the improvement of information access and sharing, which is stored in a company or an organisation. In this type of portal, one has the feature of self publishing that allows end users in posting and sharing all kinds of documents, records, web content or other digital assets with the other users, who could also be far off geographically since these kind of portals are browser based so that one could access the portal from anywhere with access to internet connection. For example, a global organization dealing in software has people working at various levels and designations like product managers, developers, sales, marketing etc. all over the world, in which every member of the company has access to the information they would need that is shared from a place across the globe! In these types of portals, many users would have the rights to add information but only some might have the rights to edit or delete the content posted by others. Typically, a Content Management Portal used in a company or an organization could contain the following –

  - The ability for checking in and checking out information in “in progress” status, preventing users from overwriting changes by others. Such capability is seen in WCMS, RMS, DMS, DAM solutions, which could reside in a Content Management Portal window.

  - The workflow that establishes the process In which a request or a document flows between users.

  
   

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  admin 11:11 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Digital Record Management 

  Records Management also abbreviated as RM refers to the practice of maintaining an organization’s records since the time of their creation till the time they are eventually disposed. This includes the process of classification, storage, archival preservation, securing and the destruction of records. A record could either be digital information or an object that is tangible. Examples include birth certificates, office documents, medical papers like x-rays, application data, databases and email. Record Management, primarily is concerned with evidences of the activities done by an organization and usually is applied as per the value of records than the physical format they are in.

  Generally, the Records Management principles apply to many formats. However, digital records, which are mostly referred to as electronic records, do raise certain issues as it becomes difficult to make sure that records’ structure, context and content are preserved and also protected particularly for the records that do not exist physically, implying the importance of reliability, trustworthiness and authenticity of records. A lot of research is still happening in the field of electronic records management. One such research is that of The International Research on Permanent Authentic Records in Electronic Systems, also referred to as InterPRARES.

  There are some concerns that raises questions over the ability in accessing and reading electronic records with the passage of time since the pace of technology has been very rapid in the last few years, which could bring a scenario wherein the record creation software would become obsolete soon enough, making the records unreadable. A good number of researches are also in the process to address the issues in digital preservation. However, the Victorian Electronic Records Strategy, also abbreviated as VERS, published by the Public Record Office Victoria, also abbreviated as PROV, which is situated in Melbourne, suggests a standard which could be used in preserving, storing and accessing electronic records, permanently. All the departments of Victorian Government have adopted the VERS standard. PROV even set up one digital archive for the use of accessing permanent records by the common people. In fact, even Archives New Zealand is following the same way by putting up digital archive.

  A computer program or a host of programs, which track as well as store records is called as Electronic Document and Records Management System, which is also abbreviated as EDRM. This term is different than imaging and also systems of document management, which are specialised in capture from paper and management of document, respectively. The systems in EDRM very commonly give special security and as well as auditing functionality, which are tailored according to what the record managers need.

  The publication from European Commission, “MoReq”, in 2001, suggests about the Model Requirements in the management of Electronic Documents and Records. Though it is not set as a standard formally, it is still known to be widely accepted and even considered as a standard! February 2008 saw the update to MoReq, which was named as MoReq2, accompanied by a framework of software testing and XML Schema.
   
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  admin 10:46 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Choosing a Content Management System 

  The CMS or the Content Management System that is used for the maintenance of your website can make a lot of difference to your life as you would want to spend less time on it while also keeping the whole procedure simple. However, with a number of options out there for choosing the right kind of CMS for yourself or your enterprise, there ought to be some guidelines that would help you pick the ideal one! Read on further to ease your worries about getting a right CMS.

  1. Firstly, you should be clear about the focus your website is going to have on. Different kinds of CMS are good at different tasks. Some are good for blogging, while others could go a long way in helping you put up across media like videos, music and image galleries and in case your website’s main functionality would be online shopping, you need a CMS that can work seamlessly with the online store sans any glitch or trouble.

  2. The simpler a CMS is, the simpler your life becomes. An ideal CMS should be such that any average person, authorised to make changes can go through the backend of the website and do those changes. Things like posting a new content, editing a current content or simpler things like switching themes of the website or fiddling with the sidebars should be simple like a cakewalk.

  3. Everyone likes to see consistency and standard things throughout a particular system so that they do not get confused thus, making unnecessary mistakes. It applies to a CMS as well. Every section in a CMS should have standard way of executing tasks. For example, if a section in a CMS has drop-down kind of menus, it is ideal to have them at other similar, applicable section as well. In addition, even the way things are named at the backend, there should be uniformity in the way they are named all over the system so as to avoid confusion with similar suggesting terms.

  4. An ideal CMS would have a simple and organized layout so as to bring in ease while going through the backend of the website. There could be different sections for new content, editing current content and for editing the layout of the page or sidebars or the theme etc. An organized backend can make your life a lot easier while browsing through to make changes over the site.

  5. The basic idea behind a CMS is that an average computer user can go through the backend of the website and do those crucial changes on the fly. So, ideally a CMS that you would choose for yourself, which would also be used by the personnel around you should be something very simple to use. You might be in love with a CMS for whatever reasons but, if the same is causing a lot of confusion and difficulty for the necessary people around you or even your clients, you need to start looking at other good options!
   
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  admin 10:45 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Web Content Management System, also referred to as WCMS refers to a software method to help authoring websites while also providing a user having less knowledge about languages of web programming, with collaborative and administrative tools. This system gives the “less-knowledgeable” user the independence for creating and managing website in a relatively easy manner. A strong WCMS gives way for collaboration, giving users the capability of managing documents and also to give output for editing and participation by multiple authors.

  Many systems make use of a database for storing contents of a page, the metadata as also the other assets, which carry information, which could be the requirements the system needs. The presentation layer begins displaying content on the website, which can be seen by a visitor depending on a collection of templates. These templates could be XSLT files. A number of systems make user of a function that sets caching to the server side so as to have an improvement in performance. It works the best provided the WCMS remains unchanged and there are regular visits. Administration is mostly done with the help of interfaces that are browser based, however some of the systems require using fat client.

  A WCMS enables the users, with less technical expertise to execute changes in a website. Typically, WCMS would require one systems administrator along with the web developer for adding features. However, it is a tool for website maintenance for the non-technical personnel. Majorly, there are 3 types in WCMS – first is offline processing, second is online processing with hybrid systems being the third kind. They are concerned with the way of deployment pattern in the WCMS with respect to the time the presentation templates get applied for rendering the web pages from the structured content.

  Online processing – In these kind of systems, the templates are applied on demand. HTML can be generated at a time when a particular user makes a visit to the page or can also be taken from cache. Many of the WCMS, which are open source can support add-ons, thus providing extended capabilities which includes blog, forum, wiki, photo galleries, web stores, contact management etc. They are mostly called as modules, widgets, nodes, extensions or add-ons. Add-ons could either be open-source or even a paid one. Web Content Systems can significantly differ in terms of features and target audience.

  Hybrid Systems – Systems that use the combination of approaches from both online and offline processing are referred to as hybrid systems. There are systems that can write executable code than just HTML, which is static. This makes it unnecessary for the deployment of CMS on all the web servers. Examples of such system include ASP, JSP, PHP, ColdFusion etc. There are also hybrids that can either operates in offline or online mode.

  WCMS offers the advantage of maintaining and updating websites either free of cost or at really affordable prices as many of them are very simple to use and offer complete control to the owner of the website as to how and who can publish content to their website.
   
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  admin 10:43 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Benefits of Content Management System 

  Any business or enterprise having a website would most probably know about Web Content Management System or popularly known as CMS. As its name would suggest, a content management system is simply an interface or the system that allows users to manage content of a website. The CMS could be as large as to handle several thousand pages of data or content for a big organization or can also be small and customize for relatively smaller and local businesses.

  Some of the benefits of Content Management System are –

  1. You get to control the content that goes up on your website and how it looks there. Thus, it helps in putting your imagination and your plans on your website.

  2. With a CMS in place for your website, you can easily add more and more content as you like, thereby increasing the content on your website while also increasing the chances of your website getting catalogued by many and popular search engines and get good rankings since many of the search engines give more importance to fresh content. In this way, the traffic could definitely go up on your website. Moreover, the freshly added content would make your website lively and active, generating good “first-impression” on the users who log in to your website.

  3. CMS gives new ways for communicating with your customers or say, your audiences, whether you are looking for new services or opportunities to expand your business. Many users like to log in to a website and get the information they need than waiting or depending on e-mails, that increase the chances of virus infection to their computers.

  4. Many of the Content Management Systems keep your content or data or information inside a database, where the access to the stored content can be restricted more easily. If it is done properly, the information can be accessed only through the CMS, ensuring that only you or your trusted people can access the valuable content you planned for your business, thus keeping you away from the regular attacks on websites.

  5. A CMS can put in place, an engine for your workflow so as to have a smooth and efficient workflow for the other users or your staff to create, edit and approve the content before it goes up on the website.

  6. A CMS ensures that you can make real-time changes to your website, which also reflect in the search engine rankings. It is a great deal of relief when it comes to making small changes in a small time frame with immediate and increased effectiveness.

  7. A CMS allows you to take over the website yourself with respect to content while also allowing you to put up the designs for your website by professionals thereby, letting you have the best of the designs and layout for your website and making you the owner of the content you produce, the way you like it!

  8. Last, but not the least! You can make changes to your website all by yourself with some simple steps in a CMS than outsourcing such a simple task, who could charge you significantly from your earnings!
   
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  admin 10:41 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Content Management System (CMS) can be defined as a system that provides a set of procedures so as to manage a flow of work in an environment where people work collaboratively. The set of procedures could be computer based or could also be manual. The procedures have the following functionalities –

  – A lot of people can contribute or share data amongst each other

  - The communication between the users get better

  - It allows for greater control over the data that could be accessed, viewed, edited or published, according to user roles

  - It helps in the easy storage as well as recovery of data

  - It improves the ease In report writing

  In a Content Management System, a data could be in any form like still images, videos, scientific data, phone numbers or any kind of document. Content Management Systems are many times used to store, control, revise, enrich semantically and publish documentation. CMS serves like a crucial, central repository while also providing a very important advantage of that of version control as it increases the level of version of newer updates to the existing file. CMS carries out the following functions –

  - Maintenance of security

  - Management of servers

  - Management of objects

  - Management of auditing

  - Maintenance of reports

  Enterprise Content Management also referred to as ECM refers to the content like documents, records and other details that talk about the organizational system in an enterprise. ECM is very useful in managing content, comprising of information that is unstructured and spread across different locations in different formats. Commercial organizations are known adopt this system. The primary objectives of ECM are –

  - Streamlining access

  - Removing bottlenecks

  - Optimizing security

  - Maintaining integrity

  A Component Content Management System also referred to as CCMS, is the content that is saved and managed from the component or granular or sub-document level so as to reuse the content at a greater level. A single component can represent an individual topic, asset or concept, for example – an image or a description of an object or a product or a chart. These components can be large like a chapter and can even be small like a single word. Components seen through assemblies comprising multiple content can be seen as either components or traditional documents. Any component is stored for only once in the CMS ensuring that only one single and trusted content source is provided. Then, the components are reused through copying and pasting in a document or in multiple documents, ensuring that the content remains consistent throughout the documentation set. Every component comes with its lifecycle, which includes details like version, owner, use, approval and has the ability to be tracked down individually or in a part of the assembly. CCM is mostly used in the multi-channel scenarios involving content faced by customers, for example learning, support, usage, marketing etc. CCM could either be a part of another CMS, which could be of any type like web content management or enterprise content management or it can also be an altogether different system.
   
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  admin 10:39 am on November 11, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

  Web Portals 

  Web portals, also known as link pages are nothing but websites, which function as access, points to information that is on the web world. A portal gives the information from varied sources in one way. A search engine is a standard feature for any web portal. However, in addition to that, web portals also offer many other services like e-mail, news, information, stock updates, entertainment, databases etc. Portals offer many solutions for enterprises with respect to applications and also databases, which are consistent in terms of their look and their feel and have good access control, although they could also have been separate entities completely. Some popular examples of web portals that are public are – iGoogle, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL etc.

  In the later part in the 1990s, a web portal was a popular and profitable venture. Once, many web-browsers entered into the lucrative business of web portals, there were many companies who wanted their share of profit from the newly and fast emerging market of Internet by having or acquiring a portal. Web portals got a lot of attention because it would be the starting juncture in the web browsers for most of the web users. Netscape merged with America Online while Walt Disney opened up Go.com. IBM, along with some others came up with Prodigy while Excite as well as @Home joined hands with AT & Tin the later part of 1990s. It is said that Lycos was at the target of media companies like CBS.

  The craze with web portals died down a natural death as dot-com took its place somewhere in 2000 to 2001 and so did the competition between the media companies for the web portals. Disney did away with Go.com, Excite got bankrupt as its remnants were sold off to iWon.com. However, Yahoo still remains active as a web portal.

  There are 2 broad categories of portals – the horizontal portals and the vertical portals. The main difference between them being that the horizontal portals cover a number of areas while the vertical ones focus only on one single functional area. Another way to define the horizontal portal would be that it serves as the platform for many companies that fall under the same economic division or same kind of distributors or manufacturers. Consequently, vertical portal refers to a specialized entry spot into a particular market or into an industry niche or subject area, which is also called as vortal.

  Vertical Information Portal or VIP as it can be called, refers to a specialized entry spot into a particular market or an industry niche. VIPs give news, editorial matter or content, publications (digital) along with the capabilities of e-commerce. Unlike the regular vertical portals, VIPs can facilitate applications of dynamic multimedia kind like video blogging and posting, social networking etc. The different kinds of portals that you see today are – personal web portals, news portals, corporate web portals, government web portals, tenders portals, stock portals, hosted web portals, health and medical web portals, search portals.