About the Cerritos College Content Management System (CMS)

What is the CMS?

Wikipedia defines CMS as follows:

A Web Content Management System (WCM, WCMS or Web CMS) is content management system (CMS) software, implemented as a Web application, for creating and managing HTML content. It is used to manage and control a large, dynamic collection of Web material (HTML documents and their associated images). A WCMS facilitates content creation, content control, editing, and essential Web maintenance functions. 
(See the full definition: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_content_management_system)

The Cerritos College CMS makes maintaining web pages simple.  All web authoring is done on campus or at home using a standard web browser such as Internet Explorer or Firefox and without the need for other applications such as Microsoft FrontPage/Expression/SharePoint or Adobe Dreamweaver.  The CMS is free to use for Cerritos College employees whether on campus or away from home.

Web administration has developed a web-based Content Management System with the following goals and benefits:

• Promote, improve and enforce compliance with accessibility standards:
  • Automated and manual page checks for accessibility before they become visible to the public
  • Pages can be reserved for content approval before becoming visible to the public
• Provide tools for non-technical web authors to manage and create accessible web pages:
  • Feature a WYSIWIG editor
  • No HTML or scripting knowledge necessary
  • Accessibility report tool available for web authors
  • Reusable components - photo gallery, department calendar, etc...
• Promote branding standards
  • Separate content from design using CSS styles
  • Templates provide consistent layout and allows web sites to be portable and easy to update
• Manage web sites/content
• Eliminate use of software such as FrontPage/Expression/SharePoint/Dreamweaver
• Provide web administrators a graphical interface for the administration of the CMS

The CMS is available to other colleges and institutions at no cost. Cerritos College is seeking development partners with the goal of sustaining this tool which is vital to upholding web accessibility and other web standards and practices at Cerritos College and any who use it. Please contact the web administrator if you would like to join our community.