Xenerix, a generic CMS

Xenerix-Oscom4.pdf

The domain of content management is very broad and includes amongst others WEB
content, knowledge, document, and enterprise content management. Generally speaking,
all electronic assets that have a certain value for an organization must be managed. Most
content management systems focus on only a few aspects of content management thereby
implicitly ignoring other aspects. This makes it difficult to accommodate different
approaches for handling content. Consequently, it hampers the introduction of content
management system in an organization, since one particular content management system
does not necessarily cover all organization’s needs.

The Xenerix approach is open-ended and not geared towards a niche in the content
management domain, hence the name Xenerix, to be pronounced as “generics”. The
approach can be characterized as firstly, going back to the basics and secondly, providing
mechanisms rather than policies. The heart of any content management system is formed
by the repository. The Xenerix repository is organized in layers. The core layer consists
of atoms, a collection of small, basic elements (data, metadata, and links) with which any
piece of content can be captured. On top of that layer, more sophisticated layers can be
positioned. We have developed a component model as the second layer. This component
model supports templates from which content fragments can be instantiated. In addition,
it also provides mechanisms for supporting versioning and reuse of content, which are
vital aspects of content management. It does so by introducing the concept of anThe Xenerix approach is open-ended and not geared towards a niche in the content
management domain, hence the name Xenerix, to be pronounced as “generics”. The
approach can be characterized as firstly, going back to the basics and secondly, providing
mechanisms rather than policies. The heart of any content management system is formed
by the repository. The Xenerix repository is organized in layers. The core layer consists
of atoms, a collection of small, basic elements (data, metadata, and links) with which any
piece of content can be captured. On top of that layer, more sophisticated layers can be
positioned. We have developed a component model as the second layer. This component
model supports templates from which content fragments can be instantiated. In addition,
it also provides mechanisms for supporting versioning and reuse of content, which are
vital aspects of content management. It does so by introducing the concept of anoccurrence. An occurrence can be seen as a reference to a particular content fragment.
Occurrences can be glued together to form a constellation of content fragments, that is,
content. A particular content fragment can be referenced from many occurrences. In this
way, content fragments can be reused in different settings. Also, a new version of a
content fragment can be easily incorporated in a constellation.
In an accompanying white paper (http://www.xenerix.org/RADM.pdf), the Xenerix
repository is described in more details. Also we explain how the layers are used to create
a very flexible system based on open standards where each part can be optimized and/or
replaced independent of existing layers.

The Xenerix Consortium is an initiative of Hogeschool Zeeland (University of
Professional Education), in the Netherlands together with ROC Zeeland (Regional
Technical College) and five companies, namely: Sony Music EGAS, Ibuildings,
Nedbase, Colijn-IT and XlexIT.
On this moment the consortium has finished the definition of a fully generic repository
model. We just implemented 4 prototypes of the core, which are now tested. We expect
to release a prelimanry version at the OSCOM-4 conference.
In 2005, version 1.0 of the core will be released as Open Source.

Speakers:
Hans de Bruin, Hogeschool Zeeland, the Netherlands
Gerhard Peper, XlexiT