Over the past year or more, you may have heard the term "CMS" in discussions of Agriculture and University Extension web content. Until recently, that term referred to the content management system (CMS) created and maintained by NDSU ITS, known as TYPO3. Now there is another CMS available for use in creating and maintaining web content. The Ag Content Management System (Ag CMS) will officially launch June 15.
What is a CMS?
A content management system or CMS is a web-based application used to create, maintain and manage information. In our case, that information is in the form of web-based content. A CMS has some distinct advantages over the file-based approach to creating and editing web pages most of us are used to.
First, a CMS is web-based. That means you add and edit web content through a web browser (like Firefox or Internet Explorer) rather than a program installed on your computer. Likewise the content your are editing does not reside in a file on your computer. It is housed on the web-based content management system.
Second, a CMS tracks workflow, making collaboration on web content much easier. The system keeps a history of changes made to a web page or content item and allows a user to revert back to a previous version if needed.
Finally, a CMS can improve the consistency and accessibility of an organization's web presence. Because all the web content is stored in the CMS rather than on an individual's computer, templates can be applied to web content. These templates provide a consistent page structure, navigation and design. They also provide the structure needed to make pages more easily accessible to users with a disability.
What's the difference between the NDSU CMS and the Ag CMS?
The NDSU CMS (TYPO3) has been available for use for more than a year. However, in the past few months, Agriculture Communication discovered that the NDSU CMS would not fully-support a number of functions that are key to our web strategy. Two of the most important functions not supported are embedding and incoming feeds.
Embedding allows you to display specialized web code from another site inside your own web page. You often see this function used to display a YouTube video inside a web page, rather than providing a link to the video on YouTube. Embedding is important to Agriculture & University Extension because it is the way we include the eXtension Ask an Expert widget inside our web pages.
Incoming feeds allow you to post headlines or new topics from another web site inside your own web page. Providing outgoing feeds and consuming incoming feeds are critical elements of our web strategy. By consuming an incoming feed, you can provide the latest information from sources like the Ag News from NDSU (http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/news/). Incoming feeds are important to Agriculture & University Extension because they are one way for us to share information across our web presence and they keep our web pages automatically updated with new information.
With these and other functions in mind, Agriculture Communication began developing the Ag CMS. The Ag CMS will offer the functions described above. It will be administered and supported by Agriculture Communication.
What's Next?
If you already have a functioning site in the NDSU CMS/TYPO3, you don't have to do anything. Agriculture Communication will continue to provide additional support and training on that system. You are welcome to become more familiar with the Ag CMS and, if you choose, convert your site to this new system.
If you are starting a new site or have a web site that is not in the NDSU CMS/TYPO3, you should learn more about the Ag CMS.You can find out more about the Ag CMS at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/AgCMS.
A number of training opportunities have been scheduled. Online training via Wimba has been scheduled in three parts: Getting Started in the Ag CMS, Managing Content in the Ag CMS and Managing Portlets in the Ag CMS. Each session will be offered multiple times in the next few weeks. A two-part Ag CMS training has been scheduled on the NDSU campus on May 27 and 28.
Space in all these sessions is limited. You can review the training schedule and register to training at http://www.ag.ndsu.edu/AgCMS/training.