An experimental news production system with flexible role-based access control

The rapid development of information technology has sped up the production of digital news media. An effective news production system plays an important role in improving workflow efficiency of the production via computer support collaborative work. However, most news production systems developed today target for on-line news Web publishing and usually are tailored to a specific organization. In this paper, we have used the University News at National Chengchi University as a target example to design a generic collaborative news production system with flexible access control. We have formally analyzed and modeled the system requirements with the UML language. In addition, we have adopted an augmented role-based access control mechanism to design a news production system that can easily adapt to organizational changes. The implemented system is used a testbed for experimental news production. Preliminary evaluation of the system functions reveals that users can adapt to this system and increase their productivity in the news production process.