Content Management System 3.0: Emerging Digital Writing Workspaces

Abstract

In recent years, content creators and academics in online creator culture have re-imagined how we take notes using digital spaces like Roam Research, Notion, Obsidian, and Craft Docs. Though developers and users refer to these spaces as project or personal knowledge management systems, these digital spaces are a new kind of Content Management System (CMS), or wiki, at their core. These tools are no longer just about collecting and organizing information but cultivating new connections for ideation and content creation, both personally and collaboratively. This means downplaying or ridding these spaces of the folder interface and actively hyperlinking individual notes to be fluidly rearranged and connected in new ways. New CMS writing spaces like Roam Research, Notion, Obsidian, and Craft Docs have taken this strategy to a new level by incorporating more hypertext tools, like backlinks and knowledge graphs. This not only allows researchers and writers to cultivate new ideas but enhances content generation, helping researchers and writers renew the process of coming up with new ideas and manage the massive amount of information flow in the twenty-first century.

1 Introduction

Understanding the twenty-first-century digital workspace requires some knowledge of content management systems (CMS). As discussed in Heilmann “The Beginnings of Word Processing: A Historical Account”, we have historically managed digital content through the structural metaphor of the office, like books, filing cabinets, and desks. In these environments, publishing clearly delineates the role of writing and publishing tools. Writers worked in their own space, like Microsoft Word, and publishers worked with a whole different set of tools, making both roles distinct. The rise of online content creation and collaboration has made the two spaces increasingly similar, where content can be shared and used across multiple networks. For writers, this means that we no longer work alone but in a community. CMSs are now being collaboratively built as digital workspaces to accommodate more networked conceptions of text and content. Though built on the core idea of a wiki, these CMS platforms are quickly expanding beyond being simply a collaborative writing tool.

The rise of the wiki as a web application made content management a more accessible and collaborative process that emphasized the co-construction of digital content. Writers can all work together to create content and then publish it on the web. There is no need for an editor or a publisher, and content can be updated by any user. While the first wiki tools were designed to support the co-construction of knowledge, new CMS technologies have since focused on knowledge management and the connection of information and ideas.

Most of the research in wiki-technologies has focused on student and professional collaboration in online spaces, emphasizing the social aspects of knowledge creation. Wikis provide a more flexible space where writers can co-author and discuss the creation of content. For example, in a cross-campus study on student use of writing technologies, students mostly understood wikis as a classroom technology for writing papers (Moore et al., 2016). Though the power of wikis lies in the affordances for networked interactions, we often approach these spaces statically, using the traditional page as our working metaphor. But the core of this technology is networked thought. As a collaborative tool, wikis enable multiple authors to connect ideas in generative ways that create new knowledge. The new CMS platforms emerging on the market foreground this core idea.

This chapter will look at a range of CMS digital workspaces that are used to manage digital content. Though these workspaces have evolved from the more traditional wiki environment, the networked nature of these new platforms emphasizes the co-construction of knowledge in the ideation phase of writing, not just in the composing stage. Rhetorical theorists often call this phase invention—or the activity that generates ideas for writing or discourse (Atwill & Lauer, 2002; Lauer, 2003). While these CMS workspaces have grown beyond their original purpose, they remain a useful way of thinking about writing as the activity of making connections and generating new ideas both personally and collaboratively.

This chapter will also discuss how these new platforms are changing the way we manage content and how they change the role of digital workspaces in the writing process. By understanding this context, we can better understand the implications of its use in the twenty-first-century writer’s workspace.

2 Overview

The invention of the internet continues to change the way we think about text, particularly as our systems for content management become more flexible and accessible to writers. Content Management Systems (CMS) are computer programs that allow creators to publish, edit, and change their own web content without code (Burgy, 2020). The history of the CMS really begins with the website, which is itself a content management space. At first, CMS products were static documents, like a book. Both content and code were closed source. But by early 2000s, several open-source CMS alternatives rose with Web 2.0 technologies, allowing users to both create and modify their own content and customize the CMS itself. WordPress is the most well-known CMS product and is still used today in the classroom and academia to easily manage websites, blogs, and portfolios.

Wikis are content management systems centered on collaboration and the organic development of knowledge, allowing users to create and modify web content through a simple interface. This CMS technology allows both readers and writers to change content without any special technical knowledge. Ward Cunningham developed the first wiki in 1994, calling it WikiWikiWeb, which is still accessible online (WikiWikiWeb). Using an Apple programming app called HyperCard, Cunningham designed composing spaces where users could create new links without looking through the page index to see if it already existed (Rothman, 2016). New pages could be more easily generated, edited, and connected. The welcome page describes this first content as the “informal history of programming ideas,” but the community quickly evolved into its own culture and identity. Though we often think of Wikis’ core feature as collaborative writing, wikis defining activity is the organic development of new ideas and content through connectivity.

Wikis are now common across many suites of tools, including Learning Management Systems (like Blackboard and Canvas). New project management systems like Microsoft Teams and Slack now allow users to enable wiki pages or install wiki add-ons. Three core features define Wikis and set the tone for new CMS platforms which expand on these affordances to leverage more networked and flexible workspaces, as discussed later in this chapter.

• Collaborative writing. Users post ideas and content, which gets stored in this digital workspace. Then, other users can edit and add to this content, either collaboratively or independently.

• Easy page generation. Wiki users can generate new pages from the pages they are composing, making the addition of content easy.

• Revision history. All the changes and contributions are connected in some way. The wiki software also tracks the history of each page, so users can see who originally posted an idea and when it was modified. This helps users understand the context of each contribution.

In these ways, wikis are very different from the linear flow of Web 1.0 spaces. They are hypertextual, organic, and collaborative, focused on the development of new ideas and content. Wikis are very useful when you need to create or update large amounts of content in an organic way. The wiki software does not require an editor. Instead, multiple users can work on the same wiki page simultaneously and make changes to the content without overwriting each other’s work.

Wiki technology’s original purpose was to crowdsource knowledge. The most famous example is Wikipedia, which started in 2001. Wikipedia opens up knowledge production to the public, allowing writers and readers to easily add and review content. Now Wikipedia is one of the primary resources for initial research into any subject. Though the crowd-sourcing of knowledge has changed the way we think about content, this idea of a wiki has remained static for at least a decade. Professionals use wikis to develop a knowledge base for their business or create help sites for their technology. Writing teachers use wikis in the classroom to help students generate their own knowledge. Academics even use wikis to track the job market.

CMS technologies are moving through the same cycle Heilman notes within our chapter “The Beginnings of Word Processing: A Historical Account” (Heilmann). These new CMS workspaces started out as a fairly simple tool for productivity enthusiasts, but as the developers raise investment capital, the features become more sophisticated and the user base is growing, as are the use cases. Like word processors, wikis did not turn out to be all that revolutionary beyond the co-construction of text or pages, but more of a re-implementation of the known. Now these technologies are taking more of a revolutionary approach to text, intertextuality, and collaboration.

3 Core Idea of the Emerging CMS 3.0 Technology

Emerging CMS platforms like Roam, Craft, and Notion focus the digital workspace around networktivity, while also integrating flexible project management interfaces that encourage a more reflective approach to invention in the writing process, whether it is collaborative or not. Networked environments focus on the multi-directional and fluid relationships with the CMS ecosystem, rather than static unidirectional organization. Instead of just focusing on the development of content, emerging CMS workspaces create space for exploring new ideas through dynamic content, bidirectional links, and customizable interfaces. Much like index cards, they allow scholars and writers to maintain a fluid knowledge base that connects new ideas and generates content faster and deeper by simulating the associative and juxtaposing structures of the mind.

These new CMS spaces expand our ideas about text to what Ted Nelson called a Xanadu, or “docuverse” in 1982. This hyperspace is where all texts are interconnected, including all literature—high and low, formal and informal, scientific and cultural (Nelson, 1982). Vannevar Bush first dreamed up the Memex machine—a digital library like the human mind with “associative indexing… whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another… [so that] numerous items have been thus joined together to form a trail” (Bush, 1945). At an individual or group level, this means all our texts from grocery lists to journals to research notes exist in the same space, because you never know what new connection you might discover. Early wikis never really lived up to this idea, but emerging CMS platforms create new ways for writers to store information and generate ideas.

These new CMS spaces are not just a re-implementation of the wiki, but a more networked way of thinking about hypertext. The core idea of new CMS platforms is not about collaboration or even content generation, but the ability to connect ideas and rearrange them at any time. Unlike a traditional notebook, you don’t have to stop and write down the idea; you can link it to other ideas and ideas that you have already noted. In this way, these new CMS spaces are not just about knowledge or collaboration, but about creating connections. Whereas the original wiki was designed to be a collaborative tool, these wikis are designed to be personal and highly fluid, with the potential for multiple authors to contribute to a single note. Instead of creating static and linear texts represented by pages, new CMS spaces focus on microcontent that can be manipulated in many ways during the invention process. The focus is on bits and pieces of information that can be composed in many ways, rather than the compositions themselves.

As argued by Rice (2007), hypertext changed our linear ideas of writing early on in the 1990s, but never situated itself within our conceptions of the composition process. Rice points out that hypertext opens up the writing process to a vast amount of “information, connections, and applications” that counteract the academic focus on curated and concise content. Though Rice uses hypertext to argue for non-digital modes of new media, he highlights an aspect of digital writing that has yet to be accounted for in the invention stage of academic writing where scholars manage notes and information for the generation of new ideas:

For me, these definitions of how information comes together and breaks apart, of how information works with other information in order to transform, displace, or move along ideas, aptly describe the new media experience composing. (p. 307)

Johnson-Eilola and Selber’s (1996) early research argues that hypertext can be either contractive or expansive. If we approach hypertext through print metaphors, hypertext will reinforce more conservative ideas of text, seeking to make information more accurate and accessible. Hypertext can also be seen as a form of thinking that involves constructing and deconstructing information. Traditional workspaces rely mostly on convergence helping us collect, index, and retrieve information quickly. But this convergence does not necessarily help us make new connections or create new ideas–just find old ones. Hypertext allows us to think in a new way. As we are writing, we constantly build new connections, which leads to new ways of thinking about information. In hypertext, you can create new connections by entering new ideas into existing networks.

Understanding writing as the act of combination and juxtaposition is key to understanding these new wikis. In his “Second Brain Manifesto,” Forte (2020) argues for a mindset shift from scarcity to abundance in how we deal with information (also see Pitura, “Digital Note-Taking for Writing”). Ideas should be shared freely, easy to access, and readily connected. Managing information is not about collecting as much as possible, but about organizing and connecting ideas in innovative ways. Programs like Roam, Obsidian, and Notion are built on these new ways of understanding text and knowledge.

4 Functional Specifications

In new CMS spaces, the way to get an idea from one person to another is not through folders or file structures, but through connections. The act of making connections and moving ideas around in this way is the essence of writing. Writing is no longer a thing that happens inside a head, but is rather a process of combining and juxtaposing information or microcontent. These technologies highlight the infomating view of hypertext that foreground the breaking apart and coming together of information, rather than a more fundamental view that sees text as more static. For example, one of the most popular emerging CMSs, Roam, flattens the relationships between text, ideas, and other assets, allowing for easier connections by doing away with any sort of file hierarchy. Whereas most traditional wikis have a static index, Roam allows users to either create (and revise) indexes, use a graph instead, or dispense of the index altogether. These kinds of CMSs offer no “unqualified answers” and lots of choices encouraging users to play with their knowledge and information (Johnson-Eilola & Selber, 1996).

These technologies flatten the relationships between text, ideas, and other assets, allowing for easier connections. For example, pages are made of blocks or microcontent, instead of paragraphs or words, and usually file hierarchies are either downplayed or non-existent in these spaces. These new digital spaces function more like our brains by giving context to our content. True networks and their contexts are constantly changing. If a CMS platform is going to perform like our brain, then it needs to shift and change as we play around with different combinations, associations and juxtapositions. Though each of these new digital workspaces look different and approach writing in their own ways, the linking functionality behind these tools are the core features that help writers and creators redefine the process of inventing new ideas in academic writing.

Though these new CMS workspaces can look vastly different, allowing for diverse use cases, there are four key specifications that make them an infomating tool.

• Bi-directional links. These emerging CMS platforms are built on what is often called “bi-directional links” that allow for wiki pages to be linked both ways. In a traditional wiki, links go only one way. You can easily create a new page, but to return to previous pages, you either have to click the back button or return to a home menu or index, creating a unidirectional branch structure. You can link across these structures, but this must be done manually by cutting and pasting links. Bidirectional links allow authors to link across branches and categories. For example, I might want to link all my notes to a master note on “hypertext.” In most of these platforms, you simply embed the word within two brackets (Figs. 1 and 2).

  Fig. 1

  

  Unidirectional links (Appleton, 2020a). Used with permission

  Fig. 2

  

  Bidirectional links (Appleton, 2020b). Used with permission

• Content blocks. The second unique attribute to these new CMS workspaces is the use of blocks. Instead of using paragraphs as the basic unit of content, most of these digital spaces allow blocks to be any kind of content from a bullet, to-do, paragraph, image, table cell, etc. This allows writers to easily organize and re-organize content in different ways. Entire blocks can also be linked bidirectionally (not just words). Microcontent can be reused in various ways, allowing for the reuse of smaller chunks, rather than simply reusing or copying an entire page.

• Reuse. In addition to the enabling of new connections, these CMS workspaces allow writers to reuse other notes or text. For example, you can link an entire block of text into a new note without re-writing or copying and pasting.

• Search. Though each of these platforms take a different approach to organization, all of them leverage more powerful searches, de-emphasizing hierarchical structures. Users are much more likely to search for the note or text that they want to work on, then dig through a folder hierarchy.

At the moment of writing this chapter, these tools are adding features at a rapid pace, defining themselves as they go. Though not core functionalities, the following four features are common throughout these technologies.

• Knowledge visualization. Most emerging CMS workspaces have or are developing alternative ways to visualizing knowledge. The most popular is the knowledge graph that allows writers to see how key words and ideas are connected, much like a mind map.

• Daily note. Daily notes are becoming a key feature which allows users to easily capture quick thoughts and notes, while also providing connections to specific days and events. For example, bi-directional linking allows you to see what other notes were written that day or what other notes relate to that day’s key words.

• Markdown. These technologies allow writers to use markdown, a stripped-down version of HTML. In general, this makes text version-proof and allows writers to focus on content rather than formatting.

• Sharing and Publishing. Most of these digital workspaces provide several publishing and sharing options, allowing different authorship roles. Notes, texts, and ideas are meant to be shared. Anything in this workspace can be converted to a PDF, MS Word Doc, web page, or even a to-do item in a project management program.

5 Main Products

Though the wiki technology behind CMS platforms has not changed much since 2001, these new digital workspaces are exploding on the market, fueled mostly by content creators and productivity enthusiasts. They all have a slightly different focus and approach to organization, but the common thread is that they are flexible digital workspaces built around connectivity and knowledge management.

Perhaps the most revolutionary is Roam Research, which also looks the most like a traditional wiki. Since its creation in 2017, Roam has developed a user base exceeding 60,000 users and is growing daily (Bru, 2020). Conor White-Sullivan (2020), the co-founder of Roam, wanted to build a knowledge system that allows for both individual and collaborative thinking. Not only can you collaborate with others but also with your “past and future self.” Roam will often bring up new associations with past notes that writers would not have remembered in any other way. For example, I may have written a note about hypertext two years. When I got to create another backlink to a new note about hypertext, the old note will pop up.

First launched in March 2019, Roam was the first space to leverage bi-directional linking and implement the daily note as the core workspace. Roam’s specific approach does away with any default structure, focusing on a powerful search that can find pages or content blocks and a knowledge graph to organize information. Roam opens up with a daily note where users can capture anything, including text, images, links. Each page in Roam looks much like an outliner, where writers can post individual blocks of content that are bulleted on the blank page. When a writer wants to make a connection with a previous note or build a new note, they simply put double brackets around a word or phrase. For example, if I write down a thought or fact about wikis, I can create a new note for wikis that will be connected both ways.

Though you can add shortcuts to specific notes on the left-hand menu bar and switch to a table view of notes, Roam is meant to be organic, allowing users to search and link content while writing without using navigation. Most users simply search for notes they are working on or click a backlink when required to make a specific connection. Though many users use Roam research to “collaborate with themselves,” these knowledge graphs can be shared collaboratively between users. When necessary, users customize their left-hand navigation window by self-selecting shortcuts to specific notes.

Though this initial view of Roam may seem overly simple, developers and users are creating plug-ins that add custom functionalities. For example, users developed a Readwise plugin that imports notes from various reading apps. Roam added the ability to create task boards and link individual blocks. Because apps like Roam Research are so customizable, use cases for these linking technologies are growing.

Notion is the CMS tool that is most distinct from Roam Research. First launched in March 2016, this CMS markets itself as an “all-in-one workspace,” where users can take notes, draft, and manage projects with task lists and calendars. Notion has powerful tables that can be used to reorganize information easily into different views. Instead of dividing the digital office into different apps or spaces, Notion seeks to have all those apps in one functional space, but focuses on connectivity and customization to create flexibility for both users and collaborative groups.

Though these are the two main technologies in this field, several alternatives are moving into the market. Obsidian has many of the same features as Roam, but retains a file structure for organizing files into categories. Obsidian also focuses on keeping user data secure by housing all data on the user’s own hard drive (rather than in the cloud). Craft Docs combines many of the features of other wikis, but focuses on providing more design choices and outward-facing uses. Microsoft is working on a product like Notion called Microsoft Loop, which has not been fully released at the time of this writing.

Though each of these CMS platforms rely on the same core functionalities, each focuses on its own niche, use cases. See the table below for some of these differences.

6 Research

Research in technical communication has focused on how technical and professional CMS platforms have made text more adaptable through small component management (Batova, 2018). These technical CMS platforms help corporations and software developers manage large amounts of content and documentation. In the technology sector, text is never static, but constantly evolving as software and technology changes. Working with blocks of content allows companies to reuse content and rearrange information for different contexts. These professional CMS platforms are not accessible to the everyday writer.

Emerging CMS platforms take this idea of text to the more general user by combining wiki technology with a small component mindset. For example, Lewis (2016) argues that CMS technologies shape user activity as a kind of a macroscopic genre that is typically invisible to users and writers. These new workspaces are CMS technologies that make these macroscopic genres more visible and allow users and writers to transform how these structures influence their writing and thinking.

Scholars are beginning to examine how new technologies shape writers’ “workflow”. Notably, Lockridge and Van Ittersum (2020) argue that “workflow thinking” is becoming a key feature in digital writing. Writers reflect on how ideas and information “flow” through various app stacks, sets of applications, so as to improve the quality and efficiency of their content generation, just like tech companies have had to re-think the publishing cycle of their user documentation. Very little in-depth research has been done on these new digital workspaces at this point, though scholars in writing have researched traditional wikis since their inception.

In the study of writing, researchers have mostly seen wikis as a technology that emphasizes networked and collaborative writing (Lundin, 2009). New media, like wikis, blur the roles of author and reader, default to collaborative writing, and are constantly changing–- or at least can be subject to change. In short, these spaces foreground the generation of text through networked interaction where the roles of reader and writer blur (Hunter, 2011). But how networked or innovative a wiki depends on the embedded use (Sura, 2015). For example, wikis have been used in L2 writing as a peer review tool, which retains important distinctions between writer and reader (Bradley, 2014; Elabdali & Arnold, 2020). In a political science course, students used wikis to mediate politically charged projects on weather (Carr et al., 2007). Many teachers even use Wikipedia to give students experience in collaboration and information literacy (Vetter et al., 2019).

Yet, most research on wikis has focused on their uses within the context of the writing classroom. Very little research has been done on the scholarly use of newer digital workspaces (Matysek & Tomaszczyk, 2020; Pyne & Stewart, 2022), though researchers have looked at how other kinds of applications play into the research and writing process (Given & Willson, 2018). Emerging CMS platforms are designed for authors to write, work, collaborate, and create new knowledge online. They also foreground how knowledge production is changing. Some of these features are designed around what are known as generative texts. These types of texts generate content through the relationships they form with other texts. They are built through networked interactions between users and writers (Moore et al., 2016). Although this may be true in many cases, most of the innovation in these spaces stems from the networked interactions between users and writers. Users can contribute new content, while the wiki software enforces peer review in real time. Most of the wikis emphasized this peer review process. What has changed is the emphasis is now on generating new knowledge through this networked environment (Lundin, 2009).

New CMS platforms that promote invention over collaboration, foregrounding the ideating phase of writing, making it more visible, but also requiring academic writers to be more mindful of how they are putting together content in new ways. These types of tools use features like tags, bidirectional links, content blocks, and powerful search options to create networked spaces for the creation of new content. These emerging workspaces create these generative text structures through different means, but the end result is the same. They generate content through the relationships they form with other text.

7 Implications

Though each version of this technology varies, the core features allow developers and users to create their own use cases. Also marketed as an all-on-one tool, writers can keep all their notes, writing, and project management in this one space. These platforms are highly versatile and writers can shape and mold these workspaces to different workflows and uses. In fact, they are now being called “no-code” applications, because users can build their own applications without code. For example, writers can create their own custom notes application using databases in Notion … or even design their own app or dashboard. This has implications in several important areas of writing.

7.1 Writing and Thinking

Emerging CMS platforms provide a new kind of thinking space for digital writing that can be networked, shaped, and transformed in different ways depending on contexts. Writers can generate new material through association, juxtaposition, and play simply by manipulating the workspace. For example, users can build their own indexes separate from any file hierarchy or visualize ideas in a graph. Because these are networked environments, writers can also shape the content and relationships they form with other writers and readers.

In these spaces, some aspects of our cognitive processes become visible through links and graphs. Because most of these digital workspaces allow users to shape and transform the space, cultivating these CMS workspaces becomes a form of thinking itself, often preceding the ideation phase of invention. As a result, our thinking can become much more visible by making it tangible. Instead of just thinking about our ideas, we can actually see the process of how our ideas came to be.

Writers can use this visibility of their own thinking to help them discover and explore new ideas, not just to confirm existing ones. For example, we might see a link from the keyword “time” to a concept like “crisis management.” We then have an opportunity to play with that link in various ways. Perhaps we see a line of association going off in another direction: “Time Crisis = time management.” From there, we might generate a whole new cluster of ideas. In the end, these kinds of CMSs can be extremely powerful tools for cultivating and accelerating both individual and group conceptual thinking.

Many writers now use the Zettelkasten method, or something like it, to collect more permanent notes that can be used to generate new connection and ideas over and over (Ahrens, 2022) (also see Pitura, “Digital Note-Taking for Writing”). For example, writers can bring up a topic or keyword and follow trails of connection on one screen or window and start piecing those notes together in a draft in another window or screen. Instead of just searching our minds in the invention phase, writers play around with items on the screen. These writing tools also offer more flexibility and choice in how we manage our writing projects. Instead of linear processes and milestones, we have more room for discovery and play during the research and writing process.

CMS platforms also support formulation at another level. When writers work in these spaces to network their thinking, they begin to see the process as organic. Formulation is not a goal; it is a byproduct of the process of discovery. As a result, these workspaces cultivate mindsets that affirm the best ideas and texts are not the ones that are fully formed but rather those that are most accessible to us as we move toward them.

7.2 Collaborative Processes

Networked writing environments also afford other kinds of writing workflows, especially when working collaboratively. One writer can take the lead and generate content, while another follows along and adds observations, comments, or questions. Writers can write in parallel, taking turns “pinging” each other with quick observations and questions. Writers can work together in series, drafting in real time as new content is generated. Writers can use these platforms to network the generation of content, not just the storage.

All emerging CMS platforms have collaborative capability. Notion specifically markets itself as team-based wiki, as well as a personal knowledge base. These wikis allow writers to share spaces, but also customize author settings depending on the use case. CMS tools not only help writers think together or develop a single document, but actually produce a system of content.

Though these wikis can be used much like Google docs, these spaces provide various degrees of access for feedback and co-authoring, including interactive comments and discussion spaces. Authors can tag each other in the text. Often, there are analytics that help collaborators see all the activity going on in the space.

New CMS workspaces can be used to help students develop more collaborative approaches to research and invention by allowing them to work together on a knowledge base, while also developing content in real time. Also, because these wikis can easily be shaped in customized ways and shared, they make a great portfolio or knowledge base. Teachers have also used these spaces to organize course material.

7.3 Conclusion and Recommendations

Emerging CMS workspaces expand and deepen the invention process, allowing writers to not only make new connections and generate material, but also helping them reflect on their invention process. Writers can cultivate these CMS for specific research writing tasks, and the visibility of the thinking process can give researchers more opportunity to observe how writers come up with ideas.

These platforms are great for complicating students’ idea of the writing process, helping them explore what it truly means to research and develop content, either as individuals or classes. Too often students think of research as a simple seek and find. Online writers are even known to show their thinking process. These platforms can provide rich data for students to explore how writers come up with ideas. Students can also create dynamic portfolios or publish course content.

At this point, these tools are too new to have any significant research. Though they have made their way into the classroom, scholars could research how they are being used. Further research can also be done on the connection between creator culture, the writing process, and how that can change the way we think about writing in academia.

This is a growing market that is diversifying at a fast rate. Though new features are certainly on the horizon, the core functionalities and how they re-work our conception of text are what will fuel those new features.

Tool	Description	Reference links
Craft Docs	Craft Docs is a simple CMS intended to help with quick, organized note-taking in a variety of formats and uses. Functions include convenient links between notes, fast pasting of formatted text, and easy sharing. Free with premium options	https://www.craft.do/
Notion	Notion is a modern project management tool that includes files, tasks, calendars, and advanced databases. Users can link different calendars to each other, create advanced dashboards, and collaborate with other coworkers. Free with premium options	http://notion.so
Obsidian	Obsidian is a secure and private CMS that focuses on note-taking and drafting. Data is not stored on a remote server, and includes links between notes as well as sophisticated folder organization. Free with premium options	http://obsidian.md
Roam	Roam focuses on personal knowledge and task management, allowing for advanced bidirectional links, customizable plug-ins, and multiple users. Pay-for-service	http://roamresearch.com