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Key components of a content management solution

The key components of a CMS that purchasers need to look out are listed below. How important each aspect of functionality is to an individual organization depends upon particular priorities and the characteristics of the resource.            

Data repository: this is a single logical storage place for all content, which may be physically located in many places, with the capability to associate different types of content with the applications that create or otherwise manipulate them.

Metadata repository: a storage place, usually a relational or object database system, for information about the content such as bibliographic and rights information, as well as the metadata generated by components such as Link Management, Version Control and Content Classification. Keeping metadata separate from the content itself provides the opportunity to leverage the metadata and turn it into new revenue streams, e.g. citatory products, free standing link databases, etc.

Version control: enables changes to be tracked, provides an audit trail (which is important in areas where regulatory compliance is a factor) and enables rollback to previous document versions.

Security: these are management tools to authenticate users at different access levels and ensure content assets are used only as authorized.

Link management: tools to support inter-linking and references to other content in the repository and outside it, and to maintain the stability and currency of those links over time.

Content delivery: features that allow deployment and publishing of the content, including conversion to output standards, styling, transformation, etc.

Collection management: ability to create a variety of new data sets from existing content. Getting Best Value from Content Management 15

Content classification: enables tagging and categorization of content within a predefined taxonomy, most likely through a combination of manual and automatic processes.

Distributed editors and authors: efficient self-service authoring for remote authors using standard desktop applications and web-based editorial tools.

Import and conversion utilities: tools to bring newly authored or imported content to the agreed quality standard.

 User interface: customizable and personalized graphical tools giving the user easy access to all the tools in the system in a standard and uniform way.

 Search engines: the capability to perform searches of many types on the content of the CMS.

 Workflow and approval routing scheme: methods for identifying actions which must be carried out on content, ordering and scheduling the work, assigning it to users with a specific role, and monitoring progress through the system.

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