Agile Author Overview

Introduction

Agile Author is a framework for developing networked repositories of digital information such as digital libraries and content management systems. Agile Author (AA) represents a unique approach to the storage and retrieval of digital information and is appropriate for a wide range of needs. This document will only highlight the most prominent and commonly used features of AA and will not be able to directly address every potential question or need. But the strength of AA is that it is powerful and flexible enough to be used in projects whose needs can't be easily foreseen or whose needs may change dramatically throughout the life of the project, which includes most projects.

The following are some key aspects of AA:

From the client's perspective, AA is a tool with which to create and update their own digital content in a manner that is both easy and flexible and which automatically creates presentational and navigational components appropriate to the published environment. Clients very much want this focused control of their information without being required to think about the details of the publication of that information in a particular medium, and they have responded enthusiastically to AA as a result .

In its most common use so far, university faculty (and often their graduate students too) use AA to create their own Web based resources, quickly building large, complex sites that feature automatically updated searching and navigation; they do so on their own time, and at their own pace, and with little or no assistance from designers or programmers. The dual effect is that the sites are used heavily both for content production by faculty and consumption by students, yet from a support perspective, we almost never need to assist the client after the initial deployment of AA despite its continued rate of use.

AA's unique approach actually encourages information literacy best practices; authors gently learn these best practices by using the software, and as a result, the ultimate consumers benefit from information that is much more easily digested.

Example applications of AA

Available interfaces

AA is fundamentally user interface agnostic, but to more easily accommodate the most requested features, AA contains reusable components that emphasize network protocols in general and Web-based interface needs in particular.

Data storage

Metadata

Searching

Built-in user management and security

Enterprise features

Future development

You can download Agile Author from the Agile Author project page on SourceForge.net.

Commercial development, hosting and support for Agile Author are available from Agile Enterprise Software, info@agile-software.com.

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