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Integrity of Content |
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Encouraging and controlling content |
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The migration from a traditional, hierarchical site method to one employing the devolved approach often stimulates concerns about editorial control and integrity. This issue was addressed early on in the development of Portal Constructor and the methods used reflect the real life experience of running and controlling this type of site.
Multi Levels of Authorisation
Portal Constructor uses four levels of editorial authorisation.
A level 1 is basically anybody who goes through a very simple registration routine and can then contribute text to any Weblet that is marked to accept public contributions. This means that any member of the public can log on and "have their say". Contributions made this way are not automatically published, rather they are emailed to the 'owner(s)' of the particular Weblet who can then accept, modify or reject the contribution. This approach prevents unsuitable material from being published whilst retaining public feedback.
A level 2 user is authorised to load, modify and generally manage content within a Weblet, but although a level 2 can preview the results there is no authority to actually publish. This is often useful if say a school teacher wishes to have the members of class produce content for a school's Weblet but wants to check everything before it can be viewed by the public. In the meantime the class can preview their material to see its final appearance.
A level 3 is a Weblet owner. At this level the Weblet and its content can, like a level 2, be totally managed but with the significant difference that changes can actually be published. It is a this level that editorial responsibility is taken for all content within a Weblet, or a group of Weblets if owned by the same owner(s). Owners can only see the behind the scenes details of their own Weblets.
Level 4 is the site administrator. At this level the entire site and all its contents can be viewed and managed. A level 4 can authorise or remove Weblets and their owners. The navigation can be managed including adding or deleting buttons and their sub levels. Statistics for the whole site can also be seen at level 4.
Devolution of Responsibility to People Who Know
A significant part of maintaining editorial integrity doesn't come directly from the software, more from the underlying method. By devolving editorial responsibility to people who actually own it there is a much better chance of the information being correct at the time of acquisition. For example a building control department would spot errors about procedure more readily than a Webmaster who is faced with handling a whole range of different subjects.
Embargo Date
Although certain content may not be valid until a future embargo date it is often easier to produce material, in bulk, ahead of time and have the software automatically publish it on the due date. For example all the information about the Christmas activities in a city centre could be worked on and produce ahead of time but only published on the embargo date.
Reminders
Content integrity can be lost for no other reason than the material has become out of date. For example details of city centre parking during the Christmas Holidays has little integrity in the following June. When submitting articles a reminder can be set that results in either an email being sent automatically to the author reminding them to review the material or the deletion of the article.
Auto Delete
The auto delete function can be used with the embargo date to create a series of articles that are automatically updated by date. Seasonal price changes for amenities would be an typical application.
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