http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/05/university-content-management-everyones-got-an-opinion/ Spotlight on random items from the web Sun, 28 Aug 2011 10:58:56 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/05/university-content-management-everyones-got-an-opinion/comment-page-1/#comment-170 nick Mon, 05 Nov 2007 14:52:54 +0000 http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/?p=56#comment-170 Thanks Patrick, sounds like you've got a very good system and the right attitude (IMHO). I've always feared the tendency of some system implementers/providers to lock things down as a matter-of-course due to a lack of trust in the users (in this case users being web providers) and extending from this, a lack of ability to oversee everything users post up to the web. There has to be trust, I suppose to get that users need training etc. and like you say, some of this requires fundamental changes in culture. Not impossible, but the last institution I worked for found that very hard in amongst the other normal politics. Still it's good to know someone's still pluggin away at it with good intentions intact, where I wimped out and decided to move on. Thanks Patrick, sounds like you’ve got a very good system and the right attitude (IMHO). I’ve always feared the tendency of some system implementers/providers to lock things down as a matter-of-course due to a lack of trust in the users (in this case users being web providers) and extending from this, a lack of ability to oversee everything users post up to the web. There has to be trust, I suppose to get that users need training etc. and like you say, some of this requires fundamental changes in culture. Not impossible, but the last institution I worked for found that very hard in amongst the other normal politics. Still it’s good to know someone’s still pluggin away at it with good intentions intact, where I wimped out and decided to move on.

]]> http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/2007/11/05/university-content-management-everyones-got-an-opinion/comment-page-1/#comment-169 Patrick H. Lauke Mon, 05 Nov 2007 13:16:56 +0000 http://www.nicksmith.co.uk/blog/?p=56#comment-169 Completely agree. Of course my article was using very broad strokes to only highlight one particular facet of the problem. Also, the CMS I have in mind is one that offers quite granular control/access levels, allowing the technically proficient authors to have far greater influence on the markup and behind-the-scenes code (creating sub-templates themselves, for instance, rather than having to use one centrally mandated template for everything; also the ability to actually write special modules that integrate into the CMS framework to allow for their very specific needs or special applications). I certainly don't want to see anybody downgraded because their only reason for having the job was their technical proficiency ... it's more a case of freeing up those who have been burdened with both the technical and content writing / organising aspects. A CMS is, of course, not a panacea, and also can't be implemented in a vacuum...it needs fundamental changes in culture and roles to go hand in hand with the (far easier, in comparison) technical roll-out. So yeah, this is all spot on. Completely agree. Of course my article was using very broad strokes to only highlight one particular facet of the problem. Also, the CMS I have in mind is one that offers quite granular control/access levels, allowing the technically proficient authors to have far greater influence on the markup and behind-the-scenes code (creating sub-templates themselves, for instance, rather than having to use one centrally mandated template for everything; also the ability to actually write special modules that integrate into the CMS framework to allow for their very specific needs or special applications). I certainly don’t want to see anybody downgraded because their only reason for having the job was their technical proficiency … it’s more a case of freeing up those who have been burdened with both the technical and content writing / organising aspects. A CMS is, of course, not a panacea, and also can’t be implemented in a vacuum…it needs fundamental changes in culture and roles to go hand in hand with the (far easier, in comparison) technical roll-out.
So yeah, this is all spot on.

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