Part III

From Web Management Committee Policies and Procedures

Part III: Best Practices for Choosing a Web Application to Manage Your Content

Content on the UH Libraries website is managed through a variety of tools including: blogs, wikis, and the Libraries content management system. While there are similarities between these tools, each has its own strengths and weakness; and content types which it most effectively manages. Staff wishing to create new content need to consider which tool best serves their needs and the needs of the Libraries' users. Below are reccomendations regarding what tools are suited to particular types of content and sites.

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   Blogs

   Blogs are journal-like and content on them is displayed in reverse chronological order on the homepage. They are useful for maintainin content which changes frequently over time and that you want multiple people to contribute to and others to comment on. Additionally, blogs are good for discreet announcements that one wishes to catagorize in some way. Blogs also can have pages which are more static. For example, the Branches Weblog and WMC weblog are in essence sites which contain posts but also pages that are more static in nature. Blogs also have the advantage of RSS feed to which people can subscribe. An RSS feed contains the latest entries from the blog. Blog are typically suited to content such as news and announcement information.

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   Wikis
   

   Wikis are highly collaborative in nature. They allow multiple people to contribute content to the same page or site. Unlike blogs the content on wikis is not organized by when it was created. A wiki homepage can be anything the wiki owner wants it to be. The content of wikis is iterative and wikis store the history of changes to a given page. They are useful for maintaining content or documents which need to be updated by a large group of people and which no one individual has solely ownership or review authority. Wikis are well suited to maintaining documentation, help files, or bodies of knowledge like an encyclopedia or manual.
   

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   Libraries Content Management Tool

   The Content Management Tool is designed to maintain pages which contain multiple types of content: text, graphics, contact information, hours, electronic resources, news, and XML content. Pages in the content management system have a specific owner who is responsible for maintaining the content on that page. While other Libraries staff can suggest changes to a page, thhe page owner has review authority and must approve all changes.The content management system should be used for all pages which incorporate multiple types of content.