Walking the Talk Building a Support Site with Community System Tools
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Transcript of Walking the Talk Building a Support Site with Community System Tools
Walking the Talk Building a Support Site with
Community System Tools
Wayne Britcliffe, Cathy Colless & Wendy Fountain
Durham 2007
Disappointingly very little discernible traffic
Support Site (The First Attempt)
Organisation/Community module created
Great resources and content– Guide finder born etc.
Big launch and promotion– Workshops– Lunch meetings
What was felt to be the main problem?
Authentication– Potential Yorkshare users would actually already
need to know how to login to Yorkshare– If they know how to login they would then need to
find the support module– We need to keep ALL staff enrolled in the module
Other reasons– Limited presentation options for focus on
transient or key support information– Limits our ability to easily “showcase” good
practice examples– Useful content is more “buried”
Considered Website Instead
Pros
No authentication barrier
Complete design control
We already had web space that needed attention
Content easierto index
Cons
Content already in Blackboard
Guilt pangs – we should practice what we preach
Would require “skills” to maintain and also to develop new content
Our Solution – The Second Attempt
Build the support site with the community portal tools…
Key Reasons Can set up with no authentication barrier Can expose content already developed in Yorkshare Easy for any team member to update Uses tools we expect academic staff to use Able to make it the “gate way” into Yorkshare proper
Branding multiple unauthenticated sites
We wanted a site separate from the default student login page…
Existing student login page http://vle.york.ac.uk
New staff support site http://vlesupport.york.ac.uk
Enabling direct access is a pre-requisite
BB offers a choice of two login approaches
Direct access is a two stage login
Any users connecting to server is logged into Blackboard as the user “guest” automatically.
User initiates a second login with personal username and password
Direct access login process – faster than the eye can see
Classic login page – no login has occurred
Enabling direct access triggers a series of automated page redirects that login with the credentials:
– Username: Guest
– Password: Guest
Community System content displayed
User has an active session and a primary institutional role
Institutional Roles
Different users can have different institution roles
This is why the portal tabs and modules look different for different users
Background Stuff
This is what the systemLooks like when a
student member logs in
This is what the systemLooks like when a
staff member logs in
vle.york.ac.uk
vlesupport.york.ac.uk
What makes the two login pages different ?
Tempting to assume that the two addresses point at two different web sites
The two address both point at exactly the same site
The DNS entry for both hostnames is exactly the same
The two pages are different because the user has a different institutional role
Huh! What user ? What Institutional Role ?
The guest user is logged in !
Counter-intuitive to consider user roles before a user is logged
“Guest” is logged
By default a guest user has therole of guest
But the role can be manipulated !
(and has an institutional role)
Manipulating the institutional role (of the Guest User)
Manipulating the primary institutional role of Guest user is the key to branding multiple hostnames
A hostname (url) can be configured to manipulate the institutional role of the guest user logged in
When setting up a new brand, you indicate an institutional role to override the default role of guest user
This is how the user role is manipulated
Step 1 - Register a DNS address
Ask your friendly DNS manager to register the hostname for the new site in the DNS (e.g. vlesupport.york.ac.uk )
Point the DNS entry at Bb server
Step 2 - Create a New Institutional Role
Step 3 - Create a brand to manipulate the role
This controls the brand after login
Not this one !
Step 4 - Associate the Role with a the Brand
Mange Brands - Option 7
This option manipulates the institutional role of the user GUEST for this brand
The DNS entry is pointing to the Blackboard server
Direct access login is enabled to automatically login the user “Guest”
A brand is associated with the newly registered hostname (url)
The brand is configured to override the default primary institutional role of the guest user to with the role vlesupport_guest
Because no tabs or modules have been setup with permissions for the role vlesupport_guest (yet) nothing will be displayed
Done - the brand is live (but no tabs have been created)
Common to the configuration of all the tabs:availability to vlesupport_guest institutional role
Tab Setup
We used 4 type of Tabs:
Module Tabs:
– Double Column
– Single Column
Link Tabs:
– Link to CMS Content
– Link to Course Content
We didn’t use any Tool tabs
Single & Double Column Module Tabs
Classic tab layout
Not much to say here
Column no. cannot change
Link Tabs to Course Content
Obtain link with “Right click” copy shortcut on the link to the content area within the site
The module must allow guest access to the content
Course without Guest access granted
– access denied error
The course must have Guest access enabled at four levels
Yep.. four different places !
Tab Linked to HTML file stored in the CMS
Obtain link with “right click” copy shortcut on the link to the item in the Content System
Add Public permissions to the item
Example of a CMS Link Tab
After tabs comes modules
We used only three portal module types:– HTML
– URL
– Channel
Didn’t use any of the gimmicky types
URL and channel tabs used extensively in many tricky ways
Examples of HTML Modules
The simplest type of module
Used for the simple static content on the site
Biggest barrier is the VTBE which has inexcusably bad manners
URL Module Types
Bb server fetches page COPY once an hour
Stores a copy of the page on the Bb server
Can be useful in subverting the VTBE
If URL is a dynamic page (eg php or Coldfusion) the script will run each hour when the page copy occurs
Dynamic content
URL Module - Random Content Rotation
Our module showcase contains leader interviews
Random rotation to keep Home tab changing
Coldfusion application to randomly spotlight one leader profile
Hidden Content Areas in 20+ Showcased Modules
The Coldfusion Script on the CF Web Server
We used Coldfusion (could just as easily be PHP, Perl or other)
CF Script contains SQL that retrieves data from BB database
Script contains a random record selection criteria
SQL selects a random record
select
DBMS_RANDOM.value(0,199), ccdeptimg.main_data ccdeptimg, ccleader.main_data ccleader, substr(ccquote.main_data,10,INSTR(ccquote.main_data,'ANSWER:',1,1)-10) quest, substr(ccquote.main_data,INSTR(ccquote.main_data,'ANSWER:',1,1)+9,300) answ, ccportrait.main_data ccportrait from bb_bb60.course_main cm, bb_bb60.course_contents ccart, bb_bb60.course_contents ccdeptimg, bb_bb60.course_contents ccleader, bb_bb60.course_contents ccquote, bb_bb60.course_contents ccportrait where ccart.crsmain_pk1(+) = cm.pk1 and ccdeptimg.parent_pk1(+) = ccart.pk1 and ccleader.parent_pk1 =
ccart.pk1 and ccquote.parent_pk1 = ccart.pk1 and ccportrait.parent_pk1(+) =
ccart.pk1 and ccart.title = 'Showcase Artifacts' and ccdeptimg.title(+) = 'Spotlight Dept Image' and ccleader.title(+) = 'Leader’ and ccquote.title(+) = 'Spotlight Quotation' and ccportrait.title(+) = 'Spotlight Portrait'
Order by 1
Configure the URL Module
Updates once each hour
Selects a new profile to spotlight randomly
Checkbox will force an immediate update
An example of random rotation
The Coldfusion script selects the first record returned by the SQL and slots the content into an html template
Using the Channel Modules
Campus LX Blogs and Podcasts produce an RSS feed
We setup channels for these feeds– Give the site a more dynamic feel
FAQ’s maintained in Blogs– Easy to maintain the lists
Campus LX Suite Blogs
Created an account to be “owner” of the Blogs– “Latest News” Blog
– FAQ Blogs
The Expo tool allows us toexpose Blogs outside a module
Makes the feed public
BUT does not actually share the Blog
Set Blog Permissions
Share view permissions with vlesupport_guest portal role
Note: This is changing in new version of Expo!
Set Portal Channel and Modules
Create a channel for each Blog
Change the hostname!
Channel sorting problem
Known issue with BB Portal Channels
Programmer forgot the Order By statement
Newest post does not appear at top
Breaking news in the wrong order – useless
Fix available via Global Services (££)
Probably worth the cost to keep news breaking on site
Graphics tricks : The top frame
Logo included in Background graphic
Completely transparent banner image pushes standard icons to centre
Graphics tricks : PortletsAll graphics are stored
in the CMS withPublic Permissions
appliedContent in HTMLModules is wrapped in apadded <DIV> to avoid
the cramped look
Site Usage Stats
Steadily increased for first 2-3 months
750 to over a 1000 distinct visits (sessions) per week
Lots of interest from around the globe on how the community system has been used & positive comments on site design
Questions