Here are my notes from Session 1 at THATCamp/Bootcamp — and introduction to CMSes. Raf Alvarado’s talk on content modeling of CMSes was really interesting and helpful.
Patrick Murray-John
Intro to CMS
-Principle of modularity. What CMSs do is connect ‘buckets’ of data (header, contents, main content, plugin content, etc.)
-Where they differ isn’t in how they “look”, but how they construct their modularity.
CMS designed for extension.
The job of theme is to filter the buckets onto the page in attractive ways.
umwgeography — a good example for utkhistory.org.
In fact, I like UMW Geogrpahy better than UMW History/American Studies
Raf’s principle: “In general, if you can use WordPress, then you should use WordPress.”
Media
-Digital Media
–Hypermedia
—Websites
—-Database-driven Websties
—-Content Management Systems (CMSes)
Content Model:
data model — database
emergent information architecture
this allows site builders to represent and organize content — eg source material in teh form fo images, text, and metadata
Content is complex — media objects (ef image and detail, book and page), technical metadata, semantic metadata
How much complexity to model?
CMSes content modeling affordances:
Elementary units (pages, nodes)
Connective devices (tags, categories)
* Display methods (widgets, feeds)
Drupal calls pages nodes
Combined, the three produce patterns.
In the hypertext world, the elementary unit is the page and the connective device is the link. No display devices for HTML, just pages.
Emergent structure? happy chaos.
WordPress:
Pages –> Subpages –> [flyout menues, menu widgets]
Posts related to others through tags and categories, as opposed to subpages
Tags –> Tag widgets, list pages
Categories –> Category widget, list pages
Content accessed by browsing, menus, and widgets.
Clay Shirky, “Ontology is Overrated”
WP results in “Dendritic Hypertext” — a dual structure, both hierarchical and rhizomic
Contetn MOdeling in WP
Think of course modeling —
Pages = Syllaubs Items
Posts = Lessons resources
Categories = Course Schedule
Tags = Resource subject and format
Thinking “what are we mapping things to?”
categories have parents and children, they’re hierarchical. Tags don’t.
I need to restructure my categories on parezcoydigo
Omeka has ITEMS
ITEMS
—COLLECTIONS
–DC metadata
–Keywords
–Tags –> Browsable list pages
Content is accessed by Browsing and EXHIBITS
Results = “Axial Hypertext” (term borrowed from Landow, Hypertext)
Allows for sequential hypertext, or sequential content model
You want the reader to go through a sequence — allowing the scholar to construct a sequential argument.
This is done in part by constructing exhibits.
Drupal
NODES
–Menu paths –> Menus, blocks
–Arbitrary fields –> Views
–Node references –> LInked Views, backrefs
–Taxonomies –> List pages, Views
–Outlines –> Books
Content si accessed by Browsing, Views, Books, Panels, and other devices.
Drupal content models are like Relational Models — results in “Rhizomic Hypertext”
Nice slide demonstrating the content models of the three biggies.
Top level cuts:
Specific vs. general content modeling
* WordPress is general
Manual vs. Autamatic site organization
* Omeka is manual
Paradigmatic vs. Syntagmatic affordances
* Drupal is highly paradigmatic
WordPress
* Course sites, personal portfolios, blogs (of course)
Omeka
* Exhibits, simple thematic research collections
Drupal
* Collaborative projects, complex thematic research collections, data meshing
Some Drupal examples:
A House Divided —
implementation, using nodes to organize content.
Civil Rights Movement as Theological Drama — UVA site
Interviews as Actors
Documents
* Scenes, etc.
Associate Professor of Early Latin America Department of History University of Tennessee-Knoxville
parezco y digo 
[…] posted my notes from the three bootcamp sessions I decided to attend, on the most novice track: Intro to CMSes, Intro to Omeka, and Project Management. The hack track offered sessions on HTML5 and CSS3, hacking […]
[…] ngram viewer for the Latin American history classroom. Finally, I posted session notes on CMSs, Intro to Omeka, and Project Management from this year’s THATCamp Prime, as well as a roundup […]