tekArtist

As McGill University’s web system architect, a substantial amount of my professional energy is was invested in overseeing the development teams and custom software/DB ecosystems behind our Web Publishing Software platform.

Here is an extract from the related help section:

The McGill WPS is a content management system. This system provides a framework within which all content for McGill’s web presence can be securely stored, shared and managed by a wide group of users.

This framework is developed and managed by the Web Service Group (WSG) and the proprietary publishing system they have developed provides for a consistent, professional look and feel in the layout of pages while still allowing local site managers and editors freedom to manage content as they see fit.

To give credit where credit is due, I shall lay no claim to being more than a lucky member of a great team.

CMS features

• First and foremost, the system is powered by the hundreds of McGill staff members who maintain the content and data it provides to the communities it exists to serve.
• Instance concept to host multiple self-contained, yet integrated, sites on the same code base (McGill, MUHC, etc.).
• Multiple page states (anonymous, signed in, edit v. live, test v. production, EN v. FR, etc.).
• Bilingual content management (English and French).
• Instance, site and page level templating engine.
• Web-based content editing.
• Variable number of editable page areas.
• Version controlled content.
• HTML Tidy content validation.
• Custom XML tags for web editors to embed dynamic content in their pages (enterprise data, feeds, interactive widgets, multimedia content, mashups, etc.).
• Local and remote application embedding frameworks.
• Asset hosting and management tools.
• Content targeting and restriction options.
• etc.

System and information architecture

In addition to the CMS components, the same code base also provides an advanced enterprise platform to the McGill web and software development communities:

• Primarily Open Source architecture (RHEL, Apache, PHP, PostgreSQL, etc.).
• Also integrates with proprietary solution when required or more appropriate.
• Clustered environment for high availability and performance.
• All text and binary objects are stored in a fully transactional database and are automatically logged, replicated, cached and backed-up.
• High-performance, distributed memory object caching system (memcached).
• Internationalization support (gettext).
• Granular ACL and security.
• Integrated web sign-in services and tools (against MS AD, Sungard HE Banner, etc.) for WPS-based and other McGill web sites.
• Central news, events and announcement publishing tools and feeds.
• Enterprise data and platform integration (courseware, ERP systems, directory services, etc.)
• Institution-wide, multi-domain, extended Google Search Appliance integration (horizontal and vertical search using collections, keymatches, feeds and metadata, OneBox modules, etc.)
• Local API and development environment for trusted developers.
• Remote API and development environment for semi-trusted developers.
• RIA and AJAX client/server framework (MooTools, custom).
• Independently replicated production and development environments.
• Centralized software version control.
• Decentralized development communities.
• Development-community-powered wiki and documentation.
• Strong emphasis on universal accessibility (physical and technological) through open standards adoption and compliance.
• Complies with or exceeds internal privacy, security and data retention policies.
• etc.