1. Content Management Systems
Dept of Psychology
Content Management Systems

2. 2 Audiences = 2 Systems Staff Portal Student Portal Academic staff
Researchers
Postgraduates
Admin Staff
Support Staff
Student Portal
1st – 4th year
Teaching assistants
University teachers
Academic Authors
Systems Admin

3. Staff Portal Requirements
Personal
Web Pages
Research + Publications information
/Calendar/To-Do
Lecture Notes
Personal File Access/Drop Boxes
Central
Bookable Resources
Meetings and Minutes
Help – FAQs, links etc
Student Info
More ….

4. Staff Portal – Custom Build
Audit existing databases
Staff database
Assets Database
Minutes and Meetings
Student Info
More …
Migrate to Central DB (Mysql)
Upload data and iron out gremlins
Temporary connections using ODBC
Web pages and management tools developed (php usually)
Databases linked to reduce redundancy and provide new functionality
Admin staff involved as much as possible, Academics follow
Existing systems hooked into new data
Hardcopy automatically generated - pdflib

5. Staff Portal - Screens

6. Student Portal Requirements
Student needs
Course content
Personalisation + personal development plan
Messaging, communities
Admin needs
Sensible user management
Multiple levels of admin
Easily customised
Solutions evaluated
PHP-nuke
Post-nuke
Moodle
Typo3
Others

7. Student Portal Pre-built (Mostly)
Content
Tutorial Notes
MOTD + Alerts
Downloadable Data files and Forms
Related Web Links
Personalisation
Customised home page
Personal Theme
Nick name, ICQ, AIM etc…
Journal – Personal Development Plan
Messaging, Communities
Bulletin Board/Forums
Personal/Private Messages
Client (disabled)
Subject testing
Peer Assisted Learning (PAL)

8. Student Portal - Screens

9. Disadvantages Both Staff Student
Lots of separate and complex technologies
Staff
Slow development
Limited number of fully functioning modules available at the outset
Requires everyone to join in
Student
Initial bugs
Netscape layout poor
Security very weak – required local custom solutions
SQL injections
Automated attacks etc
Less capable with directory services
Too many very similar tools
Untested on a large scale
Needs to be maintained by someone technical

10. Advantages Both Systems Use same basic technologies apache/php/mysql
Links between databases very useful
E.g. student registration -> creates portal account + student marks database + tutorial timetables -> extracted to create UG NetWare groups -> errors feed back into original data
ODBC to extract data for reports and analysis
Purely web based and server side
Light on server and client
Free

11. Advantages Staff Student
No unused facilities, does exactly what we want
Management tools all look/behave the same
Can use lots of technologies. IMAP, ICalendar, FTP, LDAP, SQL, flash, pdf
Source for all dept info
DP and FOI easier with centralised data
Student
Very flexible and functional
Easy to maintain upgrades, add-ons
Attractive to students
Very active development community
Scripting and HTML skills handy but not essential
Content managed by authors or wrappers for existing pages
Stable – 4th year since initial install

12. Future Staff Student E-Groupware PostNuke Mambo
Others -