Feature
- the bookmarking module
From
Jonathon Ide - education.au
developer
Bookmarking
is a pervasive feature of the internet generally and you only
have to look at del.ici.ous
to see how sharing what you think is interesting becomes
a powerful way of communicating with others.
When
education.au asked me to develop a
bookmarking module in Drupal
for the Carrick Exchange, I was inclined to look at what had already
been done and find a ready-to-run module for Drupal. Not surprisingly,
many modules existed but none of them really came close to what
was wanted for the site.
For
example, key requirements were to:
-
capture tags assigned to content as it was bookmarked
- present
these tags in the form of clouds
The
clouds display a weighting which reflects the number of times
different items - and in the case of the Exchange, the same item
- have been tagged with the same word or phrase. The more popular
a tag is with users, the larger the font size of the tag as it
displays on the site.
Granularity:
Tagadelic + Saveit
This
feature has been implemented in the Exchange by extending the
classic Drupal 'Tagadelic' module and integrating it with the
Exchange-specific 'Saveit' bookmarking module. So now, if two
people bookmark the same content, it is possible to view the tags
they both used for the item in a cloud that is dynamically created
just for that item.
This
fine level of granularity is just one of the powerful features
of the Exchange's bookmarking capability.
Popularity
of items
In
a similar vein, the Exchange's bookmarking module allows the user
to see how popular items are - this is important for assessing
effectiveness of a given item and the popularity of its content.
It provides valuable feedback to the item author or contributor.
Sharing
information
Bookmarking
is really so much more than 'URLs': it's about sharing information
through comment, rating and tags. An item bookmarked by multiple
users in the Exchange provides a way for one user to see who else
has taken the trouble to bookmark the item - immediately there
is a shared bond between hitherto unknown users - the Exchange
site enables and facilitates this link - and then allows one user
to view the other user's profile including all their tags - thus
allowing contact and discussion if required.
Who
knows where that may lead?
I
don't think it is an exaggeration to say that bookmarking empowers
communication, sharing of content, and linking of individuals
with common interests. In an academic environment in particular,
this has great potential and is one of the real, delivered promises
of 'Web 2.0' style sites.
Differentiating
external and internal content
Another
key feature is the differentiation of external and internal content
- the former being associated with an item at an external URL
while the latter refers to local content within the Exchange.
External content is submitted to the Exchange by a user - whereupon
it can be saved and bookmarked as normal.
This
feature has been modelled as two new node types in Drupal - which
has great advantages for processing and display of information.
Although
more of an 'implementation' feature, from an architectural point
of view, it has made things easier to develop and leverages the
power of Drupal's Module and Node oriented approach.
Feature
list
A
summary of the features of the Saveit Module and its co-worker
Modules: Tagadelic, Contribute and Tagadmin:
- Free
and fixed-tagging tag clouds eg 'Popular Tags' - per item cloud
- Number
of users that have saved a given item - item rating
- See
users who have bookmarked an item - link to their profiles:
connecting people and resources, and people with people
- Switch
on or off the ability to bookmark all Node types within Drupal
- save icon in front of node items that are selected for bookmarking
- Allows
for bookmarking of both internal repository content (contributed
Exchange resources) and external URLs (external web site pages)
- MyExchange
integrated to include MyTags specific to a user
- Quick
link to groups that the bookmarked items have been submitted
to
- Quick
link tags assigned to each item
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What
is a node?
In
Drupal,
a node is the main building block of the system - each node
is made up of a content type. Each can have unlimited comments
added. Each has a node ID, title, body, creation date, author
and other properties |
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Snippets
from the development front
Federated
search
A
federated search enables a user to search multiple sources of
content from different locations in a single search. In its first
release, the Carrick Exchange will provide a federated search
of the following repositories of teaching and learning resources:
- MERLOT
- Intute
- edna
Higher Education
- Carrick
Institute
- Biology
Assessment site
- Physiotherapy
Assessment site
Theming
in Drupal
From
Miles Tillinger education.au developer
On
the whole, my rapid introduction to advanced Drupal theming concepts
has been relatively painless. Below are some of the good and challenging
aspects I had to deal with during development of the Carrick Exchange
theme.
Good
- Wealth
of CSS hooks, allowing for unique theming of specific elements
- Ability
to intercept and override CSS, templates and core functions
- Extensive
community knowledge base helped to solve a number of issues
- Complete
control over all rendered XHTML and CSS. Nothing is beyond the
influence of the theme.
Challenging
-
Dealing with non-compliant 3rd party module code
- Core
Drupal concepts around site structure were sometimes difficult
to alter to suit the purpose of this particular project
- Basic
resource requirements for a theme are quite large, so does not
lend itself well to a highly decorative site design
- Careful
consideration of configuration is required to ensure an advanced
theme will cater for all content types and administration screens
Products:
Camtasia
The
Exchange Tour will provide users with an introduction to the site's
main features. To build the tour functionality, education.au
has selected 'Camtasia'.
It enables easy video creation of screen flows, and provides a
range of options for editing and publishing. It enables the addition
of audio to the tour and also the ability to produce podcasts
of audio only. It produces video in a number of different formats
and you can also turn an initial video into multiple file formats.
A clickable table of contents within the tour is easily created.
Because
of its simplicity, the selection of Camtasia would make it possible
to develop a number of tours to meet specific user needs and to
provide demonstrations of key functionality without additional
investment in software or complicated development processes.
Consultation with the higher education sector
Carrick
Exchange Metadata Framework
education.au
is close to completing the development of the metadata framework
for the Carrick Exchange. This process has involved undertaking
an environmental scan of the metadata world and activity relevant
to the information and services that the Carrick Exchange will
be providing. A Reference Group has been constituted largely comprised
of representatives from other major national projects - such as
ARROW,
RUBRIC,
APSR and
People
Australia. The consultation will help ensure interoperability
of information across national projects and support and enable
the exchange of data.
Seven
metadata sub-schemas have been developed for the Carrick Exchange
using Dublin Core metadata elements - these are for agents, resources,
collaborative services, events, collections, Web2.0 technologies
and administration.
More
information: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/pid/515
Contact:
Jenny Millea,
Program Manager, Higher education
Carrick Exchange Rights Management Investigation
The
first meeting of the Carrick Exchange Rights Management Investigation
Reference Group was held in Sydney on 20 August 2007. Representatives
from about half Australia's universities attended after having
reviewed a document that outlined the main issues and activities
being undertaken around rights management in Australia that were
relevant to the higher education sector and the mission of the
Carrick Exchange project. Many issues were raised by participants:
these included cultural issues related to sharing, difficulties
in identifying who owns rights, issues related to embedded 3rd
party content within resources, and the need for incentives to
be provided to encourage sharing of resources.
More
information: http://www.educationau.edu.au/jahia/Jahia/home/DRM
Contact:
Jenny Millea,
Program Manager, Higher education
A Short Exchange - information sessions
education.au
is conducting free information sessions about the Carrick Exchange
technical development during October. Sessions will run for 1.5
hours. Venues and times TBA.
Brisbane
8 October 2007
Canberra:
16 October 2007
Sydney: 23 October 2007
The
sessions will include:
- An
overview of the Carrick Exchange project
- The
Metadata Investigation
- The
Rights Management Investigation
- The
Technical Architecture
Register
your interest.
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