Content Management Systems (CMS) are online programs that allows users to submit and organize various content types online. Typically a CMS will support comments from users, allow blogs to be created, allow photos, video and/or audio files to be posted. Additionally, content in a CMS online can be searched by users. As the web becomes more diverse and media rich, CMS has become a way to effectively manage websites online. Many sites you see today are either built entirely on a blogging software foundation or a CMS.

CMS are typically open source, free software packages that can be installed. There are commercial varieties but they tend to be very expensive. The only drawback to a CMS is that they require some considerable back end work to get up and running. And because they are fairly complex, troubleshooting can be challenging. However, the open source community has embraced CMS and so one typically finds answers to problems on forums for the particular CMS system in question. These forums are contributed to 24/7 by users and developers from around the world. Most CMS use the scripting language PHP, the database program mySQL and possibly languages like Pearl to connect, organize and distribute content into the CMS and then back out to users dynamically as they search for content.

If you are thinking of using a CMS, consult with your web hosting service or your institutions IT department. Sometimes these systems are already installed and you won't have to worry about the back-end scripting to get it up and running.

These are several popular CMS packages that can be installed on a server and configured for use.

PHP-Nuke- Huge following worldwide. It has a very active developer community and has lots of resources available online
Mambo - Popular CMS that has a more user-friendly graphic user interface to help manage it.
Drupal - A popular CMS but typically requires a fair amount of scripting to get up and running. Its power lies in its modular design and there are many modules available that can do very specific things. For instance, a developer is making a set of geoCMS modules allowing for geo-referenced contact to be uploaded and organized.