The Content Management System (CMS) is designed to allow authorised content administrators, authors and editors in an organisation to easily manage their individual content areas via a simple, yet secure web interface without the need for special HTML or programming skills. Simply put, a CMS allows you to manage the content (words, images, photographs, etc) of a website.

The main goals of a CMS are to separate content from its presentation in order to facilitate the easy creation, publishing and retrieval of web information by non-technical users. This means that, unlike a traditional HTML website, the content of the site and the code that defines how the content looks are kept separate in a CMS. This allows technical people to handle the programming of site layout and functionality, while allowing non-technical people to manage the content of the website.

Using a simple interface, your CMS will enable you to:

• Create new pages of content
• Edit existing pages
• Retrieve previous versions of pages
• Add features such as online polls, news and calendars of events
• Create public and secure areas of your website
• Edit and change the structure and layout of your website

Web Browser

A web browser is a simple application, such as Internet Explorer, that allows users to visit and view web sites. The Content Management System uses the web browser to provide the tools you need for adding, editing and deleting folders and content. This CMS is compatible with all major web browsers.

Folders

The CMS uses a simple yet effective folder system analogy for the management of website structure. Just like the Microsoft Windows filing system, a folder is used to store content. Folders can also store sub-folders and hence be used to create a hierarchical website structure.

Content

Content is simply the information contained in your website. It can either be information that is read directly off the website (usually referred to as HTML text) or information that is downloaded as another format from the website server to the local users computer (such as minutes of a meeting in Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat PDF format). To simplify the content management processes, many commonly identified content types have been templated to provide you with easy-to-use forms that you simply have to fill out to create content.

Templates

A template is an easy way of providing consistency in the creation of content, ensuring that all necessary information is captured and displayed in the right area. Templates work in a similar manner to online forms, providing the user with a list of fields to fill in. The Content Management System uses templates for the creation of all content types including, web pages, news items, events, FAQs and folders. It is important to use templates for content where they exist, as templates can also be related to website functionality. For example, using the News template for an article ensures that it is displayed in News area of the site, in the correct date and layout format, and allows the article to be displayed on the homepage.

Metadata

Any object in the Content Management System can have metadata assigned to it. Metadata may be used to provide information such as keywords, copyright and contributor information. It is also useful for categorising or classifying information. The properties form has several fields that are common to all types of objects.

The Australian Government Locator Service (AGLS) metadata standard has been endorsed by Federal, State and Local Government authorities to describe their online content. The Content Management System has been AGLS-enabled for both the File and Web Page content types, allowing Local Governments to comply with national standards for describing content.