o makeourselves a force to reckon with in the content management discourse, arguesAndersen, we need to raise the visibility and accessibility of our scholarship in thisarea,
Although I am sure it already is, I believe that this subject should be its own area of study and classes on CMS should be offered to individuals hoping to obtain higher education degrees.
“process of collecting, manag-ing, and publishing information to whatever medium you need
This makes sense- "Content Management" is simply the process by which information is made available. I believe this is what we will be doing with our service learning projects. Medium can be a multitude of things, including brochures, the internets, visuals, etc.
technical communi-cation requires information and knowledge management
This introduction to this paper explains how content management play a bigger role than first assumed. Technical communication (what this course is about) requires multiple steps being taken before any progress can begin. This includes 'information and knowledge management" both characteristics found in CMSs/
“a platform for managing the creation, review, filing,updating, distribution, and storage of structured and unstructured content”
A perfect example of this is a website. Similar to what I am creating in my digital publishing class with Dr. Pullman.
Content management has a direct bearing on our field because a central issue incontent management is the role (or a lack thereof) of technical communicators inthe process of CMS design and implementation
This is ironic to me as it seem within the "job description" of technical communicators to design and implement the steps necessary to be taken with CMSs.
Changing the way people work is animmensely difficult task, especially if the changes most clearly benefit the organi-zation while doing nothing clearly beneficial for the individual users.
This is why it is so important that technical communicators take place in the CMS process. That way, the transition can be as painless as possible. It is obvious that the benefits outweigh the negatives in these scenarios.
need for us to teach content management in our tech-nical communication courses, it is high time for our field not only to gain a betterunderstanding of CMSs but also to formulate a theoretically sound and pedagogi-cally viable approach to content management
The most effective way to accomplish this task is to ask the individuals who will be using the CMSs what they most want to see when implementing the program.
No longer can writers think in terms of texts or even publications. They haveto start thinking in terms of asset management:
This requires the writers to take their time and examen every step critically before continuing their process. I believe that, by doing this, they are coming up with a more finished product.
glaring lack of involvement in CMS design
I honestly find this very surprising. It seems as if this job is what these technical communicators study for, as I cannot think of another profession better suited for this task. Technical communicators must be in high demand in the current job market.
The very expressioncontent managementexcludes any idea of writingor communicating and focuses on information independently of the people whoproduce or consume it.
This is silly. It makes so much sense to focus on the individuals making use of this information, rather than just the information itself. This way, you can fully satisfy whatever audience your'e trying to reach.
In other words, they teach you how to design and/or use such systemswithout critical examinations of why such systems should be used in the first placeand why they succeed or fail
This seems like a separate area of study all in its own. An individual hoping to be well versed in Content Management Systems needs to have all pieces to the puzzle: the technical aspect of it (the steps and processes) as well as the the real-world application of it. After all, at the end of the day we are still working with people, not solely computers.