At the moment the tools used to publish news on the web site is the IPGRI CMS, I developed last year.This is the text file I prepared to introduce this technology.
IPGRIWEB AS CONTENT PORTAL
The Content Management System can publish articles, news, electronic documents on IPGRIWeb website, and produce and distribute outputs for web, databases, RSS, Web Services, XML, email systems, using templates and procedures available on request.
Each item is fully indexed and searchable by any internal/external search engine, via web or through SQL queries.
The CMS uses a database to generate web content. The database holds the content to be placed on the web site. When a page is uploaded, you actually update a database with the information - and the page is generated dynamically.
IPGRI Content Mangement System
The IPGRI CMS collects items written in plain text or HTML files and can manage different kind of items:
• Articles
• News
• Documents
• IPGRI publications
• Vacancies announcements
• Training materials
• Events
All languages are supported and an item can be easily translated in many languages.
This flexibility reflects another feature of the CMS: a template can be filled out with the items of the selected language and published immediately on the client’s screen.
An item can be linked to many contexts:
• IPGRI Regions, IPGRI Networks, IPGRI Networking programmes and Working Groups
• Generic Genus/Species, Crops
• Existing IPGRI publications
• IPGRI Events
• Existing Training Materials
The item can be also linked to existing databases as:
• SINGER
• InHouse
• Germplasm Database
The CMS integrates easily new services as the Newsletter Portal: all the web focal point can send items via email as newsletters to their contact lists members.
Indeed the database structure is fully compatible with the Institutional Databases directives and analysis.
THE CMS INTERFACE
The input interface is intuitive and fully customizable. Only one page is used to add new items. During the first access, login and password are required and they can be stored as cookies in the client browser.
Web address:
http://web.ipgri.cgiar.org/ipgriweb/CMS/ (To enter in the web intranet ask me login and password.)
The logon is useful to customize the input interface.
According to the web policy, each web focal point will be able to insert items related to his/her group only.
Each item is composed by different parts and a set of attributes can catalogue it better.
The attributes can be customized and are the following:
- Theme (compulsory field): Each item can be catalogued by theme:
- Title (compulsory field): contains the title of the item
- Optional image with its caption: user can associate an image to the current item. CMS uploads it immediately at CGNet web server
- Introduction: this contains the first part of the item
- Full Content: full content of the item
- Options:
o Active and visible: the item will be released and available for queries and publishing
o Publish in my sub-website: it publishes the item in the homepage of the user’s sub-website
o Publish in Weekly News: the weekly newsletter could benefit of the items inserted in CMS (not yet implemented)
o Publish in IPGRI What's New: (not yet implemented)
o Send request for publishing in IPGRI Homepage: the user can request the publishing of the item in the homepage. A workflow can be implemented for the acceptance. Each item published in the homepage will be sent via email, for information, to the Publication Committee.
o Starting Date (dd/mm/yyyy): the item is published after this date.
o Expire Date (dd/mm/yyyy): the item can expire. After this event it will be not published anymore
o Copyright: Copyright text can be included in the item
o Set Priority: 3 levels of priority can effect the layout
- Links Table: user can include up 4 links in a table that will be published at then of the item text. The text for each link can be printed in different languages.
- Internal Notes: remarks for internal purpose
- Advanced Categorization
o Authors and Author Details: it associates authors to the item
o Bibliographic Reference
o Publication ID: the item can be linked to publications already published by IPGRI.
o Additional Options: these options can be customized and are used to characterize better the item. The user can select one or more items from the following lists:
Genetic Resources Themes
Regions
Networking Programmes, Networks, Working Groups: the web focal point will have lists related to his/her group.
Countries
Training
Events
Crops / Species
Further links can be made with Genus/Species table.
WORKFLOW FOR APPROVAL
CMS can implement workflow to approve or reject an item before its release.
Each item can be published in the homepage. In order to check if the content is appropriate and pertinent for the homepage, an approver accepts or declines the request for publishing the item. The policy behind this process is not yet defined, but the workflow proposed and implemented is depictive below.
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Being an Open Knowledge Organization
With CMS, IPGRI is able to export and communicate easily with other institutes using different types of standards. The format can be HTML, XML, plain text. The supported protocols are HTTP, SMTP, SOAP. The tools used to send the content via web are HTML web pages, email system (with CGNet support), Web Services, database views, and other interface applications.
The CMS is platform independent and is in keeping with software quality attributes: scalability, maintainability, reliability, usability, security, availability .
• Scalability, maintainability, reliability, security, availability are ensured by IPGRI Computer Services
• Usability is guaranteed by the E/R structure of the database and the usability attribute applied directly to the output devices.
Behind of this system, there is the huge effort made by ITC from IPGRI to harmonize standards, and structures to avoid redundancy and promote integration among groups and areas.
One-to-one marketing
A CMS system may also provide tools for one-to-one marketing.
One-to-one marketing is the ability of a Web site to tailor its content and advertising to a user's specific characteristics using information provided by the user or gathered by the site (for example, a particular user's page sequence pattern).
What can I do with IPGRI CMS?
The first consequence is IPGRIWeb will become a News Portal: fresh content will be sent by media devices as Web, Email, databases, Web Services and XML. The update will be easy and flexible. As we already know, IPGRI publishes volumes of information for multiple audiences. For this reason, the content will be customized and published via web, emails, electronic services using different formats and layouts. Users will be able to publish articles, news, newsletters, and create views of the content without any knowledge of HTML. They will be able to export data to your partners and send them via email, web, etc. It will be possible to associate content to keywords, databases, etc. and perform structured queries to print data in a very straightforward manner. News will be published depending on the user needs as well.
IPGRI will open its window of knowledge using international standards as XML; it will be one of the first centers in the CGIAR to adopt Web Services to spread out its information throughout the web, using multiple languages.
The system can be replicated in many regional offices to improve performance and response time.
