Managing Enterprise Content Glossary

Access control	Secures content and identifies who can read, create, modify, and delete content.
Access permissions	Access authorization permitting authors and editors, reviewers, and users the right to create, edit, view content.
Architectural information	A component of an information model; provides information on how content should be reused (e.g., systematic), guidelines for how you want the content formalized in your DTD or templates (e.g. use semantic tags or not), where content is reused, and how it is reused, e.g., locked (L) or derivative (D).
Attribute	See Metadata.
Audit	See Content Audit and Substantive audit.
Author	A creator of content. Authors identify the building blocks of information and how the blocks will fit together. They also identify opportunities for content reuse and write applicable content elements for reuse.
Authoring forms	HTML forms with individual fields to capture content model elements. The form would be used to write only a controlled chunk of content, like a concept, feature, policy, or procedure.
Authoring tool	A tool which enables authors (content creators) to create content.
Auto-population	Automatic insertion of reusable content into the appropriate locations in the document. See also Systematic reuse.
Base information	A component of an information model; describes the common naming of each element within a container and uses generic tags or “base elements”.
Baseline	A starting point for developing metrics.
Building block approach	Allows you to identify a core of information that is applicable for all information products/users, then build on it to customize information for different uses and users
Bursting	See Segmentation.
Categorization metadata	Organizes content into logical categories (groupings) of content that aid in the retrieval of content. Categorization is utilized by content users to retrieve content.
Change agent	An individual recruited prior to implementation of a change; must be representative of the user population, understand the reasoning behind the change, and help to communicate the excitement, possibilities, and details of the change to others within the organization.
Change management	Managing the process of implementing major changes in IT, business processes, organizational structures, and job assignments to reduce the risks and costs of change, and to optimize its benefits. Change management is focused on the issues of managing the resistance and discomfort experienced by people in an organization when new processes or technology are introduced.
Check in	Act of putting content previously checked out of a content management system back into the content management system. Content is versioned when it is checked back in.
Check out	Act of signing out content from the content management system. When content is checked out, no one else can modify that content; it is locked.
Chunk	An element of information, sized according to principles of cognitive psychology; the ideal size of a chunk (for users to comprehend and retain) is 5 to 9 units of information, e.g., 9 steps instead of 32.
Collaborative authoring	The process of collaborating on content creation to ensure that content elements are consistent and can be reused wherever they’re required. See also Structured writing.
Container element	A content element that contains other elements (sub-elements) within it. There can also be containers within containers. See also element and sub-element.
Content	Content is what authors create (words, phrases, sentences, charts, graphs). Information products are made up of content. See also dynamic content.
Content audit	An accounting of the information in your organization. Requires analyzing representative materials, looking for similar/identical information, as well as information that is distinct but could be similar or identical.
Content life cycle	The various phases that content moves through, such as creation, review, management, and delivery.
Content management	A system or the capability to manage and track the location of, and relationships among, a firm's content at an element level in a repository. High-end content management systems apply workflows, and enable the use and reuse of content and content collections. Content management systems can manage entire binary files (documents), components of files, or XML/SGML data.
Content owner	The person who authors the content.However, they may not own all the content that comes together to create an information product. There may be many authors, all of whom may not be responsible for creating an entire information product. Rather, they may be responsible for creating content about a certain subject that goes into many different information products.
Content reuse	Writing content once and reusing it many times; reusable content is written as objects or elements. See also Reuse and Reusable content.
Content Silo Trap^TM	A situation created by authors working in isolation from other authors within the organization. Walls are erected among content areas and even within content areas, which leads to content being created, and recreated, and recreated, often with changes or differences at each iteration.
Controlled vocabulary	A list of metadata terms in which each concept or subject has a specific term to be used. A controlled vocabulary reconciles all the various possible words that can be used to identify content and differentiates among all the possible meanings that can be attached to content.
Core information	In a building block approach, information that is applicable for all uses. See also Building block approach.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)	Tracking and acting upon everything you need to know about your customers...their buying history, budget, timeline, areas of interest, and their future requirements. Ensuring that customers have exactly the right information at exactly the right time and in exactly the right form.
Customization	The design and creation of content that meets a customer’s specific needs. Customized content is not delivered dynamically (e.g., personalization); it is created by an author for a specific requirement and is static until changed.
Delivery	The automatic assembly, formating, and delivery of content to your user community, whenever and however they need it using a delivery system.
Derivative reuse	Derivative reuse occurs when a reusable element is modified. The resulting element is a “child” of a “parent” element.
Document type definition (DTD)	A DTD is the form of document definition used to support and effectively describe XML file structures, providing the vocabulary and allowable structure of the elements in an XML document. See also XML.
DTD	See Document Type Definition.
Dynamic content	Content that is assembled to meet users’ specific needs, providing them with exactly what they are looking for, when they are looking for it, and in the format they are looking for it in.
Element	A unique, discrete module of information. An element is an information container (e.g., Summary, Procedure); container elements can contain other elements. In a content reuse environment, documents are made up of elements. Elements may be as granular as required to support your reuse strategy, e.g., an element may contain one chunk or portion of one chunk, but it may also contain numerous chunks. See also Granularity and Chunk.
Element metadata	Identifies content at the element level. Element metadata is used by content authors to identify content for reuse, retrieval, and tracking.
Enterprise project co-ordinator	Role of an individual in the organization who oversees many projects and determines the unified content strategy required to address both the needs of all the project owners and the needs of the organization as a whole.
Extensible Markup Language (XML)	XML is a markup language for documents containing structured information. XML is a successor technology to the markup language SGML, that authors use to prepare content in small chunks, or elements. These elements can then be mixed and matched when the content is displayed online. XML is a data format for structured document interchange that is more flexible than HTML. While HTML tags are predefined, XML tags can be defined by the designer of the content type. Thus, XML-defined Web pages can function like database records. A metalanguage, XML contains a set of rules which expand the amount and kinds of information that can be provided about the data held in documents. XML is a subset or restricted form of SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language. A goal of XML is to enable generic SGML to be served, received, and processed on the Web in the way that is now possible with HTML. XML has been designed for ease of implementation and for interoperability with both SGML and HTML.
Extensible Style Language (XSL)	A language used to create style sheets for XML, similar to CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) that are used for HTML. In XML, content and presentation are separate. XML tags do not indicate how they should be displayed. An XML document has to be formatted before it can be read, and the formatting is usually accomplished with style sheets. Style sheets consist of formatting rules for how particular XML tags affect the display of a document on a computer screen or a printed page. In XML, different style sheets can be applied to the same data to hide or display different parts of a document for different users.
Forms	See authoring forms
Generalized Markup Language (GML)	Devloped in 1969 by Charles Goldfarb; focused on the structure of a document, not the formatting, and was the first text processing language to view and formalize the hierarchical nature of information. It was also the first language to define the hierarchy of documents in a Document Type Definition (DTD). GML was implemented in mainframe-based text processing systems.
Generated text	Text that this not supplied by authors but is generated or mandated by the structure. Examples are the numbers in a numbered list, numbers in headings, numbers in numbered tables or figures. Also, labels or keyword that are required for presentation, but are not authored. Examples are “Note”, “Caution”, “Warning”.
GML	See Generalized Markup Language.
Granularity	Granularity refers to the smallest element of information that is reusable. See also Element and Physical granularity.
HTML	See Hypertext Markup Language.
Hyperlink	An electronic path from one object to another.
Hypertext	Any text that contains links to another object—words, phrases or images—that, when clicked by the user, retrieves and displays the linked object.
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)	Created in the early 90s by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics) as a way for scientists to share information. HTML is the best known applicatiaon of SGML for the web.
In-depth analysis	Part of a content audit; involves examining common information found in the top-level analysis further to see how/if it can be reused. See also content audit and top-level analysis.
Information architect	Role of an individual in the organization who analyze and design content. They are responsible for building the information product models, element models, metadata, reuse strategies, and architectural models. They may also be responsible for designing the information retrieval for both authors and users.
Information architecture	The blueprint that describes how content is organized, structured, and reused to make up the various information products in your organization.
Information technologist	Role of an individual in the organization who implements content models in the various tools, including programming and supporting style sheets to meet specifications provided by the information architect.
Information element model	Breaks an information product model down further; describes each element within an information product model. See also Element.
Information model	A formalized framework on which a reuse strategy is based. See also Information product model and Information element model.
Information product	A collection of content that is processed as a unit. Consists of a series of elements in a defined order and structure. Examples include user guides, brochures, press releases, web site content, technical specifications.
Information product model	Defines all the elements that make up an information product, including the content’s elements, attributes and metadata, and the relationship among elements. An information product model provides a formal description of the structure of a document; it may also provide some content information.
Lifespan (of a document)	The time before a document needs to be changed.
Locked reuse	Locked reuse is reusable content that cannot be changed except by an authorized author.
Mandatory elements	Elements are specified in an information model as either mandatory or optional; mandatory elements are those that must be included for an information product to be considered complete. See also Optional elements.
Markup language	A mechanism to identify structures in a document. See also Hypertext Markup Language, Standard Generalized Markup Language, and Extensible Markup Language.
Metadata	Data that describes other data. Metadata is often referred to as an attribute. Metadata is the encoded knowledge of your organization. Metadata are descriptive terms attached to an object (element) that allow for additional information about the element and accurate indexing and querying of the element. XML elements are indexed by metadata that is described in the DTD or in the XML document itself, enabling other applications to interact with it.
Metadata crosswalk	Maps the structure and semantics of one set of metadata to the structure and semantics of another set of metadata. Usually a table is used to map one set of metadata to the other.
Metric	Measurement of a particular characteristic of a task (e.g., duration, effort, quality, cost, value delivered, customer satisfaction).
Modular content	See reusable content.
Modular stylesheet	Stylesheets that are built in layers so that layers that are common across multiple stylesheets can be shared.
Module	A collection of functions or data implementing one idea or concept.
Nested reuse	Nested reuse is content that has a number of reusable elements contained within a single element.
Opportunistic reuse	Reuse occurs when the author makes a conscious decision to find an element, retrieve the element, and reuse it.
Opportunity cost	The amount of money lost if an opportunity is not achieved (e.g., time-to-market). Opportunity cost is usually calculated based on the potential amount of money lost for each day an opportunity is delayed.
Optional elements	Elements are specified in an information model as either mandatory or optional; optional elements are those that authors can choose from, based on the information’s context. See also Mandatory elements.
PDF	See Portable Document Format.
Persona	A profile of a typical user represented with a description of a “real” individual.
Personalization	Delivery of personalized content (content which specifically meets the content users needs). Uses dynamic content to automatically assemble appropriate content. Learns from content user actions and requests, and predicts their content requirements.
Physical granularity	The physical chunk of information stored in the CMS, as opposed to the size of a reusable element (granularity).
Players	Everyone involved in the content life cycle, e.g., users, authors, reviewers, publication staff, Information Technology staff.
Portable Document Format (PDF)	A cross platform file format developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. PDF documents are created using Adobe Acrobat software and the PostScript language.
Portal	Special web page that organizes access to all online resources about a topic, providing a one-stop shop of sorts.
PostScript	A page description language from Adobe Systems, Inc. PostScript translates the text and graphic images that appear on the computer screen into instructions for the printer. PostScript must be used with a printer that can interpret it.
Process	Part of workflow; the flow of tasks, as performed by the various players, showing the interactions and interdependencies among players. See also Workflow and Task.
Production information	A component of an information model; guides the information technologist in creating the stylesheets or templates.
Publishing	The process of rendering, or outputting, files from the content management system, into the required output format (e.g., PDF, HTML).
Return on investment (ROI)	The anticipated savings that can result after the cost of implementing a unified content strategy is subtracted.ROI is used to help determine if the adoption of new technology, systems, and processes will be worthwhile.
Reusable content	Self-contained components of content that can be used in combination with other components.
Reusable learning object	An element of reusable content intended for learning materials.
Reuse	Content reuse is the practice of using existing components of content to develop new “documents”; the process of “linking to an element or reusable content. See also Reusable content.
Reuse map	Identifies which elements are reusable, where they are reusable, and how they should be reused, e.g., identically, derivatively.
Rich Text Format (RTF)	A way of formatting text designed by Microsoft, and intended as a universal standard for exchanging documents between different programs. Special symbols indicate such characteristics as bold, italic, the formatting of paragraphs, etc. Microsoft Word files can be saved in Rich Text Format.
RLO	See Reusable Learning Object.
Roles	Part of workflow; the people who do the tasks, identified by their role. See also Workflow and Task.
RTF	See Rich Text Format.
Schema	A defined structure for a document or or type of document. Sometimes used synonymously with Document Type Definition (DTD).
SCORM	See Shareable Content Object Reference Model.
Segmentation	The process of breaking content into element parts before storing the content in a content management system.
Semantic information	A component of an information model; uniquely identifies the content of that element, making it easy for authors to identify exactly what content they should include. Semantic information also enables the identification and reuse of specific content.
SGML	See Standard Generalized Markup Language
Shareable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM)	A model for sharing learning ojbects; developed by the ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) network to provide a standard for reusing learning objects.
Single-sourcing	Activity of identifying all information requirements for a particular document set up front, then developing them from a single source.Single sourcing can include multi-channel publishing (publishing to multiple outputs) as well as to multiple information products (e.g., brochure, manual, learning product).
Smart template	A template that not only prompts the author for the type of information required, but also automatically inserts reusable content.
Standard	A rule, principle, or measure established as a model or example by authority, custom, or general consent. In the computer industry, standards are rules that encourage open systems and provide the basis for portability, interoperability, and manageability.
Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML)	“A language for document representation that formalizes markup and frees it of system and processing dependencies” (ISO 8879 4.305). SGML is the parent language for XML and HTML.
Static content	Information created in a specific way for a specific purpose and that remains the same until the author deliberately changes it.
Structural templates	Templates that clearly define the structural composition of output products. They can include hierarchical elements like chapters, sections, and subsections, as well as provide generic or required text.
Structure	Organized framework of information.
Structured content	Content in which the organizational hierarchy of information has been identified in a systematic, consistent manner.
Structured writing	The practice of writing content following structured writing guidelines, so that information can be effectively reused and still fit the “style” of each document. Authors write to the content models, using document definitions to guide them in creating elements consistently. Following a method of structured writing means that all contributors to a document have a standard template (or outline) to follow when providing, writing, and editing information. This approach also assists readers in finding similar types of information and in interpreting it consistently.
Stylesheet	Structured, controlled content needs to be formatted before it can be read, and the formatting is usually accomplished with style sheets. Style sheets consist of formatting rules for how particular semantic tags affect the display of a document on a computer screen or a printed page. See also XSL stylesheet and modular stylesheet.
Sub-element	A smaller component of information contained within an element. See also Element and Container element.
Swimlane diagrams	Show processes in “lanes” (like the lanes you swim laps in) to depict tasks that occur concurrently, illustrating who does what, and when. Used to design workflow. See also Workflow.
Systematic reuse	Systematic reuse is planned reuse. Reuse is planned before authoring begins. Systematic reuse uses dynamic content functionality to dynamically assemble content to meet content authors’ needs.
Tag	A code within a data structure that identifies content elements, or otherwise provides information about the data themselves. Content is either labeled with a single tag or delimited by starting and ending tags. In HTML, tags serve various functions such as controlling the styling of text and placement of graphic elements and providing links to interactive programs and scripts. In XML and SGML, tags are limited to defining content and semantic structure.
Tagged PDF	PDF files that are enhanced with the addition of metadata. The metadata is interpreted by Adobe Acrobat Readers to repaginate the display of content based on the device on which the content is being displayed (e.g., Palm OS® devices, the web, or print).
Task	A unit of work within a workflow. Workflows are composed of multiple tasks which can be executed serially, in parallel, or on a conditional basis. Examples of tasks include creation/editing of a variety of content types, approval of a set of modified content, automatic link checking of content, automatic email reminders, and publishing. See also Workflow.
Taxonomy	A hierarchical representation of your metadata in which every element within the structure can exist in only one location within the structure; no ambiguity of placement, no cross references. The top level is the category, and each subsequent level provides a refinement (detail) of the top level term.
Template	A collection of boilerplate text, tags, and structure rules, used as a guide or pattern for a document. May also provide examples of well written content (best practices).
Time-to-market	The time it takes an organization to get its product from conception, through implementation and delivery to the customer.
TOC	Table of Contents
Top-level analysis	Part of a content audit; involves scanning representative information products to find common information. See also In-depth analysis and Content audit.
Unified Content Strategy	A repeatable method of identifying all content requirements up front, creating consistently structured content for reuse, managing that content in a definitive source, and assembling content on demand to meet your customers’ needs.
Valid	In the context of XML, valid refers to information elements in a document that are allowable, based on the structure defined by the DTD.
Variable	Values that can be assigned names and used by referencing the name. Variables are an excellent mechanism for using small elements of content (like product names or versions) that are used in large numbers of places and which are subject to frequent or last minute change.
Version control	Each time content is changed and checked back into a content management system, a copy of the content is saved and its identifier (version number) is incremented to indicate its difference from the previous copy.
Workflow	A set of interdependent tasks that occur in a specific sequence. Examples of workflow include automated routing of content for authoring, review, approval and publishing, from one department or individual to another, or to the system itself for the execution of automated tasks. Components of workflow are roles, responsibilites (tasks), and processes.
XML	See Extensible Markup Language.
XSL	See Extensible Style Language.
XSL stylesheet	A stylesheet written using the eXtensible Stylesheet Language, an XML markup language that can define tranformations from one markup language to another, as well as standard formatting (fonts, colours, margins, etc.).