Semantic Publishing and CMS Design: Architectural Models and the Need for Standards

Intelligent, on-demand assembly of content "chunks" into smart
structures is one of the most exciting promises of the Semantic Web. And
it's not just about websites: this transition will have incredible
impact on the way we interact and produce everything from cookbooks to
field-service manuals for airliners.

While many CMS systems today do on-demand assembly, nearly all are
developed to support a specific domain and its associated data model and
semantic behaviors. This bespoke approach not only increases
implementation cost and risk, but also creates a difficult environment
for the development and propagation of OSS-based solutions.

By examining several common use cases and the architectural solutions
applied to them, this solution will demonstrate that greater
standardization is not only desireable but possible, and outline a
baseline set of requirements for a new standard capable of describing
dynamic publication construction.

Colin Kingsbury is CTO of empolis North America, and the architect of
content and knowledge management solutions for companies including
Hewlett-Packard and GE Medical Systems. He is the chief architect of
SigmaLink: DDA, the industry's first Topic Map-based CMS, and a member of
the empolis Global Technology Board.