Manieren om een CMS te beoordelen

Een goede uiteenzetting is te vinden op http://www.steptwo.com.au/papers/kmc_evaluate/.

Content creation
Content management
Publishing
Presentation
Contract & business

Content creation
This is the functionality required by the authors (content creators) using the CMS.
Without an effective authoring process, use of the CMS will wither and fail within a year of implementation.

Separation of content and presentation
(It is not possible to publish to multiple formats without a strict separation of content and presentation.
Authoring must be style-based, with all formatting applied during publishing. )

Metadata creation
(Capturing metadata (creator, subject, keywords, etc) is critical when managing a large content repository.
This also includes keyword indexes, subject taxonomies and topic maps.)

Ease of use & efficiency
For a CMS to be successful, it must be easy to create and maintain content.

Content management
The core of most CMS solutions is a central repository, supported by a range of tools for manipulating and managing the content.

Version control & archiving
Strict version control is necessary for legal accountability, backup and disaster recovery. A simple but powerful interface must be provided for these features.

Workflow
Decentralised content creation relies heavily on a powerful workflow model, that can be easily customised, and is resilient against organisational change.

Integration with external systems
A CMS is typically only one of a number of systems used to present information on the intranet or website.
An enterprise-wide CMS will only be successful if it can be cleanly integrated with existing business systems.
The mechanisms for achieving this must be fully documented, and based on open or industry standards.

Publishing
The publishing engine takes the content stored in the repository, and generates the final pages. While this may be a dynamic or batch process, the same basic requirements apply.

Support for multiple formats
The CMS must publish to multiple formats, such as: HTML (web), printed, PDF, hand-held (WAP), and more.
It should be possible to add support for additional formats, which will be necessary as new standards evolve.
In order to achieve high-quality in every format, it is critical that the content be separated from presentation at the time of authoring. This allows distinct stylesheets to be used for each output.

Personalisation
Different information is presented based on either user profiles, or metadata in the source content. This is typically required for large "portal" websites.

Presentation
The published pages must meet certain standards if they are to be of value to your users. It is important to specify these requirements if you are asking the vendor to design the appearance and layout of the web pages.

Speed
Page size must be limited to ensure that load times are acceptable for users. Specify the typical user access methods (LAN, modem, cable, etc).

Effective navigation
Users must be provided with consistent, comprehensive and usable navigation aids.

Metadata
All pages must provide sufficient metadata to allow effective indexing and searching. This should conform to a standard such as Dublin Core.

Contract & business
Project management and business requirements must also be satisfied in a CMS project.

Documentation
The CMS must be supported by adequate documentation: for users, administrators and developers.

Skills required
What skills and knowledge will be required within your organisation to customise and maintain the CMS?