The Web Content Management Glossary
I originally wrote this as a web-only supplement to my first book. Its official home is over on the website for that book.
This is an archive of that site.
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A/B Testing
61“A method of marketing optimization which randomly displays different versions of content and tracks which version converts better over time. A/B Testing is narrowly limited to variables down a single axis, meaning multiple versions of the same content. Multivariate Testing is the usage of multiple…”
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Access Control List
33“A collection of Access Control Entries applied to a content object. Commonly referred to by its acronym, ACL. See Also”
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Administrator
50“A role responsible for managing the settings, users, permissions, and other configurable functionality of a CMS. This role manages the system itself, not the content within it. The person in the administrator role is often also a power editor, and occasionally one of the implementing developers.”
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Aggregation
58“An intentional grouping of content for the purposes of organization or presentation. Specific types of aggregations include:”
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Application Programming Interface
119“The language tools available for developers to communicate with and control software from code. For example, the API of a CMS usually allows a developer to connect to the CMS from their own code, and manipulate content objects. A key part of the API is the event model offered to developers in which…”
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Approval
181“The process by which content which has been submitted for publication is reviewed and approved by one or more people. It can used as a verb, to indicate the process of approving content. Often, it’s a noun, referring to the action of a single person . Approvals are usually serial approvals, where…”
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Archival
40“The act of ‘un-publishing’ content by removing it from publication, but not irrevocably deleting it. Archving has different meanings depending on the CMS and the context. See Also”
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Attribute
101“A smallest unit of content, and the basic building block of a content type. Content types are basically a collection of attributes. Attributes will usually always have a set datatype. Nomenclature varies widely. Many systems refer to an attributes as a property or field or a parameter. There is no…”
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Authentication
68“The security controls in place to verify human ownership of a specific user account, usually by way of a username or password. Authentication is different than authorization. The latter involves what a user account can do assuming successful authentication. In a CMS, the authentication system is…”
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Bootstrapping
58“An informal term which refers to getting a software system running quickly, at the most basic level of functionality possible. frameworks assist in bootstrapping a code project. A software installer will often install a CMS and a single content object, template, and editor in order to bootstrap an…”
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Category
188“A type of aggregation which represents a conceptual structure to which content objects are assigned. The assignment is simple and binary – the object is assigned, or it is not. Objects can normally not be assigned in any particular order, nor can the assignment carry any additional information….”
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Changeset
31“The grouping of content changes which can be reviewed and approved as a single unit which will publish at the same time. Sometimes called projects or editions.”
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Channel
64“A distribution outlet for content; a method in which content is consumed. The web itself is a channel. Facebook is another channel. A specific presentation of content is delivered to a channel. Different templates might be applied to content to prepare it for output into different channels. Systems…”
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Code
87“Executable programming code. In the context of content management, the term is often used to differentiate it from content. There are two main types of code in a CMS installation: Code is usually managed in files and stored in a source code management system. Code is subject to the developers’…”
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Composition
91“The specification of content types or content objects by the collection or embedding of other content or types. Both types affect the process of content modeling. Content can be composed via embedding other content objects inside rich text or list or collection attributes. Types can be composed via…”
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Connector
56“A generic term referring to a class of plug-in which connects a CMS to another system. Connector’s to DAM systems are common, as are connectors to ECM systems like SharePoint. These connectors allow content to shared to the CMS and vice-versa. Connectors to marketing automation and CRM platforms are…”
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Content
61“Information which is created by editorial process and intended for consumption by a human audience. These two characteristics differentiate content from other types of data which might be created through more derivative processes , and intended for other types of audiences or usages.”
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Content Element
73“A content object which has no URL addressability, but which is intended for embedding in other content objects, or to be used to compose more complicated content. In many systems, these are referred to as a widgets or blocks. A content element is distinguished from a page. The latter is meant to be…”
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Content File
88“Content stored as a file, rather than as a structured content object. This is usually meant to refer to images, PDFs, and other files which are uploaded to the CMS by editors. These files are often referred to as binary files, though this technically means nothing . Generally, content files are…”
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Content Freeze
42“A period of time during the late stages of a content migration when editors are asked to not make content changes. During this time, a final content import has occurred, but the new implementation has not launched.”
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Content Geography
52“The over-arching or core aggregation method of a given CMS. This is the aggregation structure and method with which editors will traverse and work with the content. Many systems employ a content tree as their core geography. Others might use folders, or simply organize content by type.”
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Content Lifecycle
149“The stages o. a content object progresses through from its creation to its deletion. These stages depend on the role of the observer . For an editor, these stages might look like this:”
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Content Management
89“A wide-ranging term that generally refers to the practice of defining, creating, organizing, securing, reviewing, approving, publishing, and delivering content. Content management is not specific to digital technology – librarianship, for instance, is a form of content management – but is most often…”
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Content Management System
85“A software system which automates the tasks around the management of content. A CMS assists editors in creating, organizing, controlling, securing, and ultimately delivering content. Commonly abbreviated CMS. A CMS is general to managing content, regardless of format or intended purpose. A web…”
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Content Migration
92“The movement of content from an old CMS implementation to a new CMS implementation. Content migrations occur after a new CMS is implemented, and all the content has to been moved from one system to another. This term is sometimes conflated with the more general migration, which is more commonly used…”
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Content Model
135“A conceptual term for the collection of content types, attributes, relationships and datatypes in place to accurate describe a logical domain of content. Content types are modeled in two ways: ‘Content modeling’, as a verb phrase, describes the process of defining the content model. The content…”
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Content Object
50“A single piece of managed content. Often referred to as simply ‘content’. The suffix of ‘object’ is often used specifically to differentiate an object from its defining content type. For example: The ‘2016 Annual Report’ content object is based on the ‘Managed Document’ content type.”
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Content Tree
70“The aggregation of content in a hierarchical tree. Each content object in the tree has a parent , zero or more siblings, and zero or more children. The tree can be used to represent relationships between content objects. A content tree is very commonly the core content geography of a CMS.”
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Content Type
82“The specification of a logical type of content – for example, a News Article or a Blog Post. A content type defines the nature of a particular content object – the attributes it contains, how it should be handled for approval and permissions, etc. In some CMS, a content type is called a content…”
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Coupling Model
192“The degree to which the management functionality of the CMS is bound to the delivery functionality of the CMS. A coupled CMS has management and delivery bound into the same software. editors will perform their work on the same running system where visitors consume the content. Both editors and…”
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Datatype
140“A specification for the type of data which can be stored in an attribute. Common datatypes are: A CMS performs validation of data submitted by editors. Data not successfully validating against the datatype of a particular attribute will be rejected and not stored by the CMS. The datatype of a…”
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Delivery
74“The processes employed to transmit content to requesting users. This ranges from technology such as the web server itself, to more wide-ranging concepts such as the optimization of content and the method of publishing content to a deliverable state. In a decoupled CMS it is used to clearly define…”
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Developer
50“The role responsible for installing, configuring, extending, and templating a CMS implementation. Developers are roughly separated into:”
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Digital Asset Management System
69“A CMS intended to manage media assets, such as images, audio, or video. DAM systems specialize in automated processing and renditioning of media into different formats and artifacts. Many DAM systems are used in parallel with a WCMS, and connectors are provided between the systems so that media…”
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Draft
63“Term applied to content which is not yet published. The term usually does not refer to content that was published then expired or unpublished, but only to content that an editor expects to be published in the future. This can either be a label or can be a noun .”
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Ecosystem
88“The community of editors, developers, integrators, documentation, open-source code, training resources, blog posts, forums, consultants, and other users that forms around the usage and extension of a particular CMS. The ecosystem provides peer support, code, plug-ins, and discussion around aspects,…”
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Editor
109“A CMS user responsible for performing editorial process to create, edit, or otherwise manage content. An editor creates, manages, edits, approves, and publishes content. This is considered the core user of a CMS. Most CMS functionality is based around editors. There are several subtypes of editor:”
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Editorial Interface
17“The interface of a CMS which editors use to perform their work.”
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Editorial Process
42“The process by which content is created. The editorial process is iterative and highly subjective. Editorial process is what separates content from simple data or information. Editorial process often consists of shepherding content through the content lifecycle.”
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Enterprise Content Management System
68“A loose term that refers to large-scale systems designed to manage content for an entire organization . An ECM is not usually designed or used to manage a website, but instead manages large volumes of data internal to company operations. In an even looser sense, the adjective ‘enterprise’ is often…”
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Environment
55“The server infrastructure on which a CMS is installed and accessed. The term may be prefaced but a descriptive qualifier to explain the environment’s specific purpose. Common qualifiers: The conceptual process around installing, running, and making server software available for use is known as…”
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Extensibility Model
21“The collection of processes, services, tools, and apis that can be used to extend a CMS.”
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Forklift
62“A type of integration project where an existing CMS is swapped for an new CMS with minimal other changes. The forklift project often strives to be transparent to the visitors of the website, and is only concerned with the underlying CMS platform. So-named because the website is ‘lifted’ up and a new…”
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Form Building
22“The functionality of a CMS which allows the creation of web forms to accept data from visitors.”
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Framework
91“A toolset of code and apis which act as a starting point for a development project. Frameworks intend to resolve some of the basic, rote work of development, such as web request routing, database access, etc. Some popular frameworks and the underlying language they build upon are: MVC is a popular…”
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General Services Agreement
54“A document which describes the legal parameters around a vendor relationship. The GSA is normally global to the life of the relationship, while each project is governed by a separate statement of work. A GSA is sometimes called a Master Services Agreement or a Master Vendor Agreement.”
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Implementation
49“A running instance of a content management system used to power a website. An ‘implementation project’ is the process by which a CMS is configured, extended, and templated to meet the requirements of the desired website. The resulting website is often referred as ‘an implementation.’”
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Import
50“The process of creating content in a CMS programmatically, from code, rather than by editorial process. Content is often imported during a migration. Content might be imported when the data exists in a source outside the CMS. This content is often updated on a scheduled basis.”
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Inheritance
55“The specification of a content type by inheriting an existing type , then adding additional attributes. Changes to the base type will be reflected in all inherited types. This is a extension of a common paradigm of object-oriented programming.”
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Integration
180“Either a specific server environment, or the process of combining disparate systems at the code level. As a server environment, integration is meant as a location for where code from multiple developers is combined and tested. Sometimes synonymous with a testing environment, though integration…”
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Internationalization
67“The process of adapting an information product to display in more than one language. A CMS is considered to be ‘internationalized’ if it allows content in more than one language. Note that internationalization just means the CMS supports more than one language. It doesn’t mean that more than one…”
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Job
31“An arbitrary execution of code, either scheduled or on-demand. Often used to perform batch processes on content. Jobs usually execute unimpeded with no user input or interface.”
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Language Code
55“A collection of two or three-digit ISO-639 codes to identify languages. For example, English is ‘en’, German is ‘de’, etc. Languages can also have language variants, which are separated from the root code by a dash. French Canadian, for example, is ‘fr-ca’. See the Wikipedia page on ISO-639.”
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Language Fallback
29“The process of determining what language to serve for a request for a language in which the requested content object has not been localized.”
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Localization
74“The process of enabling the display of information in a particular language. Adding a second language to your content is the process of ‘localizing’ your website ‘into’ that language. Translation is the simple translating of text content. True localization refers to a more holistic modification of…”
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Markup Language
65“A method of formatting text by inserting text annotations. HTML is the most common markup language in current use. Markdown is another popular markup language . Markup languages are not programming languages. They have no built-in constructs for branching logic, looping, or variable substitution.”
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Media
19“A catchall term to refer to non-text content files; images, video, audio, file-based documents, etc.”
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Metadata
164“Literally, ‘data about data’; generally taken to mean data which supports or describes other data. This is a vague term that may have lost some of its meaning over the years. Metadata is often considered to be ‘extra’ or ‘supporting’ data, not the data proper . For example, a checkbox for ‘Show…”
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Node
122“Imprecise term which can refer to: This usage seems to come from the usage of ‘node’ in botany: The part of a plant stem from which one or more leaves emerge, often forming a slight swelling or knob. And the corresponding usage in geometry: A point at which lines or pathways intersect or branch; a…”
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On-Premise
29“Software that is purchased and installed by the customer in a hosting environment they manage. Commonly abbreviated to ‘on-prem.’ The opposite of the SaaS model.”
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Operative Content Object
41“The content object which is being rendered in response to a direct URL request. The operative content object normally determines template selection, and might further determine selection of the surround and affect how it renders.”
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Page
145“A content object which is intended to be accessed directly from a browser. In its most pure form, a page can be distinguished from a more abstract content element by the assignment of a URL. In some systems, a page is simply a container in which content elements are organized. The page might have…”
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Permission
120“The granting of the ability to a specific user, to perform a specific action, on a specific content object. For example, Bob might have the ability to edit the Privacy Policy. Permissions are usually granted in aggregate. For example, the Editors group has all permissions over all content. Or, Alice…”
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Personalization
39“The practice of modifying website content specifically for the current visitor. This is usually achieved by detecting demographic, environmental, and technical information about the visitor and using this to adapt content and design in real-time.”
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Plug-In
49“An extension to a CMS which is packaged for distribution and installation into other instances of the CMS. The ecosystem of a particular CMS often generates plug-ins for their system and maintains a common repository. Often known by other names: Extension, Module, Component, or Add-On.”
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Presentation
53“The general concept and processes around modifying content for display in a particular channel, usually through templating. A template applied to content will result in output which is then delivered. In some cases, it is used as a noun .”
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Preview
39“A viewing of a content object with its designated presentation applied, usually through templating. Some CMS attempt to do this via In-Context Editing where the editorial interface mimics what the published content will look like.”
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Professional Services
80“Value-add services provided by a CMS vendor or integrator. Most vendors offer integration services for their own CMS, and each vendor invariably has an ecosystem of companies offering services around a particular CMS. Some vendors use the term solution to refer to the combination of their software…”
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Publication
56“The act of making content available to the intended audience as part of the editorial process. Content is created, edited, collaborated on, reviewed, approved, and finally published. Content can also be unpublished, which is a vague term meaning the content is removed from public view, either…”
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Reification
97“The act of making something a thing; to make an abstract concept concrete. In terms of content management, reification happens during content modeling when the logical idea of some content is converted into the actual content types, attributes, and datatypes required to translate the logical idea of…”
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Relationship
211“A explicit or implicit link between two content objects. It can take the form of one or more of the following: Designing relationships is the core of a relational +. Explicit relationships are formed through the usage of an external data structure, for instance a menu or list. The link for the two…”
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Rendition
55“Often used in DAM systems to describe different media formats automatically derived from a source media item. For example, an image file might be automatically processed into five different renditions at different sizes. Note that these are not versions – they’re actually all renditions of the same…”
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Repository
55“A term which means, generically, ‘storage location.’ In the context of content management it means one of two things: The raw term ‘repository’ can mean either, depending on context. Often abbreviated as repo.”
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Rich Text
59“Text which allows inline formatting, such as bold or italics. Note that this does not necessarily mean WYSIWYG. WYSIWYG is an editorial interface , while rich text is a format. markup languages such as Markdown, Textile, and even HTML itself are rich text, but can be editing with non-WYSIWYG tools.”
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Role
100“Either a designation on which security information can be applied, or an organizational term meaning a collection of responsibilities. In the former sense, security roles interact with user groups to allow the assignment of permissions. In the latter sense, the role of administrator might be…”
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RSS
118“A data format for the syndication of content. RSS feeds are XML files, available from your website, which describe published content, usually in reverse order of publication. Other software can download an RSS feed , examine it for new content, then notify a user or perform some other programmatic…”
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Scheduling
41“The unattended publishing or removal of content at a scheduled point in the future. The automatic removal of content is normally called expiration. Content changes might be grouped into changesets and scheduled to publish as a unit.”
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Search
60“The processes and functionality around retrieving content in response to a user query. Search can be parametric, which means searching for content based on specific, defined parameters . Other searches might be so-called full-text, where search is based on indexed and optimized versions of the…”
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Source Code Management
114“Developer software designed to manage different versions of programming code. Common SCM systems are Git, Subversion, and Team Foundation Server. An SCM system allows developers to check code in and out, save multiple versions of files, view changes made between versions of files, and create private…”
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Staging
83“A pre-production environment for either code or content to be reviewed prior to being published to the production environment. Decoupled CMS often have a separate staging environment to which content is deployed, on which editors can preview. Coupled CMS generally uses a ‘virtual staging’ model…”
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Stakeholder
56“A role which does not interact directly with the CMS but is primarily concerned with the results the CMS is intended to bring about. The CEO, for instance, may never use the CMS, but is expecting the CMS to either increase revenue, reduce costs, or both. Stakeholders are often involvedin purchasing…”
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Statement of Work
34“A document describing a unit of work, usually in terms of scope, payment, and schedule. An SOW is normally provided by integration firms prior to beginning an implementation.”
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Subscription
90“A pricing model where a customer pays an ongoing fee for services. Most commercial CMS is priced with a one-time fee for the actual license, and annual subscription for extra services – commonly test and staging server licenses, support, and upgrades. Some subscription fees include the license…”
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Subscription Model
87“The model of offering services by subscription. Two common subscription models are platform-as-a-service and software-as-a-service . Both PaaS and SaaS are normally multi-tenant services. This is the opposite of on-premise software.”
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Surround
47“The outer template that surrounds the template of the operative content object. It usually has some awareness and access to the operative content object and can use that information to affect its own rendering. Occasionally a surround can be nested in another surround.”
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System Integrator
49“An organization which provides services to install, configure, extend, and template a CMS. While some vendors provide integration services for their own software, an SI is an organization external to the vendor that provides these services. Most integrators specialize in one or more CMS.”
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Template
130“A mixture of presentational markup and other templating code used to prepare content objects for delivery. Multiple templates can be applied to the same object to produce different presentations. A template is normally stored as a file in a source code management system and managed as code. There…”
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Templating Language
119“The functionality and logic constructs available to templates to form a presentation from a content object. Templating code is generally designed as a less functional version of the native language a CMS is built in for purposes of security, simplicity, and stability. Common templating languages…”
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Tenancy
84“The relationship of organizational entity to a software installation. Variations on the term indicate whether or not more than one unrelated entity will interact with the same software. Most CMS are single-tenant, which means a single implementation is designed for use by one organization, either…”
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Unstructured Content
119“Content which lacks internal structure in relation to its intended purpose. All content is structured to some degree, since every CMS has some internal content model. However, to be called ‘unstructured’ usually means that content lacks many datatyped attributes that an editor might otherwise expect…”
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URL Addressability
53“The ability of a content object to be the direct target of an inbound URL request. Content objects that represent pages will necessarily be URL addressable and will usually form the operative content object during templating. content elements that are intended for embedding are usually not usually…”
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Use Case
266“Literally ‘a case for usage’; a description of a usage scenario. Narrowly, a use case can be used as a requirement, which is a specific, defined feature that needs to be present in a piece of software. Mary needs to able to create a blog post and schedule it for publication in the future. More…”
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User Generated Content
60“Content generated by non-editors, usually from the public side of the website. UGC includes comments, reviews, ratings, etc. UGC may or may not be stored in the CMS as core content. Some UGC is stored in separate sub-systems, and a developing trend has UGC stored by other services entirely .”
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User Group
60“A group of user accounts, organized to allow aggregate assignment of permissions. Individual permissions are often assigned to user groups, rather than individual users to ease management. Some systems further abstract permissions to roles. Permissions are assigned to roles, while users are assigned…”
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Velocity
54“The rate of editorial change for a single content object. Velocity is often discussed in terms of all objects of a specific type. News releases, for instance, usually have a high velocity, whereas the Privacy Policy likely does not. Content velocity plays heavily into the planning of a content…”
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Vendor
69“An organization which produces a CMS as on-premise software or via SaaS model. Generically, the term is used by organizations to refer to any other organization which provides services. In the CMS industry, the term is generally accepted to mean organizations that build CMS products. implementations…”
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Version Control
104“The process by which more than one editor is able to work on the same content at the same time without disrupting other editors. Version control might incorporate any or all of the following: Version control and versioning are often confused and used interchangeably.”
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Versioning
131“The process by which changes to content are saved as a new copy of the content, instead over over-writing the existing state of the content. A single instance of a content object at a moment in time is referred to as a version. The collected versions of a single content object are the version…”
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Web Service
72“A URL to which data can be sent or retrieved to remotely communicate or control server-based software. Web services are apis than work over HTTP, so they can be invoked by remote systems. Commonly protocol formats are REST and SOAP. For a CMS, a web service might allow remote system to add new…”
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Wireframe
34“A simplified drawing of a user interface with minimal design embellishment. Wireframes are used during technical planning to determine what content elements need to exist and how they should interact.”
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Workflow
95“An framework to move content through a defined set or map of specific steps, activities, or tasks. The content can only be ‘in’ one such state for a particular workflow at a time. When that state resolves, content will ‘move’ to another state, and continue until the workflow ends. What constitutes a…”
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WYSIWYG
42“Acronym for ‘What You See Is What You Get.’ A form of rich text editing where the editor can see text formatting as it is applied, rather than having to mentally extrapolate how markup will visually affect text.”
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XLIFF
43“Acronym for XML Localization Interchange File Format . A translation exchange format in which content needing translation can be exported into a file. Translations of the content are added to that same file, which is then re-imported.”