FIT2055 Web content management - Summer semester, 2013

This unit covers principles and practice of the emergent field of web content management. It focuses on developing organisation systems for websites or intranets that are responsive to business imperatives and user needs, and that facilitate effective retrieval of information. Particular emphasis is given to developing practical skills in these areas and to applying a range of popular tools, techniques, software commonly used for web content management.

Contact Hours

2 hrs lectures/wk, 2 hrs laboratories/wk

Workload requirements

Students will be expected to spend a total of 24 hours per week during semester on this unit as follows:

Lectures: 4 hours of lectures
Tutorial/Lab Sessions: 4 hours of laboratories, which may require advance preparation
A minimum of 16 hours of personal study in order to satisfy the reading and assignment expectations.

Unit Relationships

Prohibitions

FIT2080

Chief Examiner

Campus Lecturer

Tutors

Academic Overview

Learning Outcomes

• the principles and practice of the emergent field of web content management;
• the relative roles and responsibilities of webmasters and other professionals in a web or intranet development project;
• user information needs and information seeking behaviours within the web environment.
• information retrieval principles (eg precision, recall, relevance, specificity) and their application in the web environment;
• issues and challenges in organising information for effective retrieval on web sites and intranets;
• organisation systems, schemes and structures for web/ intranet content management, and how these organisation systems are represented in the key components of web information architecture;
• the application of information design and usability principles to labelling, navigation and search functions on a web site or intranet;
• commonalities and differences in information architectures in public web, intranet and extranet environments;
• phases and processes in planning and implementing a web content management project or program;
• tools, techniques, and software that are commonly used for web content management.

• the range of specialist expertise amongst professionals involved in a web site/ intranet development project, and the importance of effective communication and collaboration amongst these groups;
• the centrality of the user in defining an information architecture for a web site or intranet and the difficulties users experience in finding relevant information on the web;
• that business imperatives and user requirements are the key drivers of web content management, but that reconciling the two may be no easy task;
• that findability is a critical factor in determining web usability, and the role effective organisation systems play in this process;
• that effective organisation systems tend to be largely invisible to web or intranet users.
• their own growing confidence in their information retrieval skills.

• conducting a business requirements analysis and a user needs analysis, in connection with developing an information architecture for a web site or intranet;
• developing an effective information architecture for a web site or intranet, taking into consideration unique business and user information requirements, and information retrieval, information design and usability principles and guidelines;
• constructing a taxonomy; applying facet analysis to thesaurus construction; and designing a metadata schema for a web site or intranet;
• planning, designing, documenting, testing and evaluating labelling, navigation and search systems for a web site or intranet;
• utilising a range of tools and techniques (eg blueprints, wireframes, card sorting, affinity diagrams, content maps, personas), and software in the process of developing the information architecture for a web site or intranet;
• undertaking usability/findability testing of users using prototypes and a range of evaluation techniques and interpreting findings;
• evaluating information architectures, and software products for web content management.

Unit Schedule

*Unit Schedule details will be maintained and communicated to you via your learning system.

Assessment Summary

Examination (3 hours): 50%; In-semester assessment: 50%

Teaching Approach

Assessment Requirements

Assessment Policy

Faculty Policy - Unit Assessment Hurdles (http://intranet.monash.edu.au/infotech/resources/staff/edgov/policies/assessment-examinations/assessment-hurdles.html)

Academic Integrity - Please see the Demystifying Citing and Referencing tutorial at http://lib.monash.edu/tutorials/citing/

Assessment Tasks

Participation

• Assessment task 1

  Title:

  Assignment 1 - Web Content Management Practical

  Description:

  This assignment involves demonstrating an understanding of CMS roles and workflow. Students will complete the assignment as individuals or in pairs.

  Weighting:

  10%

  Criteria for assessment:

  Demonstrating knowledge and capability of:

  1. Assigning user privileges (role: Administrator)
  2. Creating a document template (role: Information Architect)
  3. Adding content (role: Author)
  4. Approving and publishing (role: Editor)

  Demonstrations will be done in a lab tutorial session. Individual contribution to group work will be assessed by interview at that time.

  Due date:

  9 December 2013, Week 2; CMS Demonstrations in the lab session

• Assessment task 2

  Title:

  Assignment 2 - Content Inventory and Taxonomy

  Description:

  This assignment involves doing two key activities in the development of an Information Architecture. Students will complete the assignment as individuals or in pairs.

  Weighting:

  15%

  Criteria for assessment:

  1. Are all of the assignment specifications addressed by the student?
  2. Are the key concepts understood?
  3. Are all the relevant sources of knowledge used and understood?
  4. Are there elements that are special or original, i.e., is there more than just the basic requirements?

  The "Project approach" section of the submission (detailed in the assignment specification that will be distributed) will be used to assess individual contribution to group work.

  Due date:

  20 December 2013, Week 3

• Assessment task 3

  Title:

  Assignment 3 - Website Review

  Description:

  This assignment involves a critical evaluation of website usability and search capabilities using appropriate guidelines and standards.

  Weighting:

  10%

  Criteria for assessment:

  1. Are all of the assignment specifications addressed by the student?
  2. Are the key concepts understood?
  3. Are all the relevant sources of knowledge used and understood?
  4. Are there elements that are special or original, i.e., is there more than just the basic requirements?
  5. Have up-to-date sources of information, guidelines and standards been used, and acknowledged fully and correctly?

  Due date:

  13 January 2014, Week 5

• Assessment task 4

  Title:

  Assignment 4 - Project Plan

  Description:

  This assignment is to formulate a preliminary, informal plan for a web content management implementation project that emphasises tasks to be achieved, people to be involved in each task, the sequence of tasks, and quality criteria.

  Weighting:

  15%

  Criteria for assessment:

  1. Granularity and completeness of the task list
  2. Concurrency of tasks
  3. Identification of appropriate people and skills for each task
  4. Statement of goals or acceptance criteria for each task

  Due date:

  24 January 2014, Week 6

Examinations

• Examination 1

  Weighting:

  50%

  Length:

  3 hours

  Type (open/closed book):

  Closed book

  Electronic devices allowed in the exam:

  None

Learning resources

Feedback to you

• Informal feedback on progress in labs/tutes
• Graded assignments with comments
• Interviews

Extensions and penalties

Returning assignments

Assignment submission

Online submission

If Electronic Submission has been approved for your unit, please submit your work via the learning system for this unit, which you can access via links in the my.monash portal.

Required Resources

Access to the unit website.
Access to the computer labs or computing resources in the standard configuration.

Students will use the following software during the course of this unit. This software will be provided in the labs and is freely available from the following web sites:

• Hippo CMS - http://www.onehippo.com/en/resources/downloads (download the Community Edition)
• Joomla CMS - http://www.joomla.org/download.html
• Pencil - http:/pencil.evolus.vn/
• FreeMind - http://www.edrawsoft.com/freemind.php
• SessionTester -http://sessiontester.openqa.org/download.html
• StickySorter -http://www.downloadcrew.com/article/23100-stickysorter =or=
  http://www.microsoft.com/portugal/educacao/suiteaprendizagem/stickySorter.html (click Instalar)

Other Information

Policies

Graduate Attributes Policy

Student services

Monash University Library

Disability Liaison Unit

Your feedback to Us

Previous Student Evaluations of this Unit

This unit has been revised to make it more intellectually stimulating and increase its practical value.  To broaden the practical experience of the students, we have adopted additional software for lab practicals and assignments. Overall, the unit now has a much better concrete implementation of the abstract principles covered in the lectures and study guides, which will strengthen the link between theory and practice.