Implementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Ramón Ovelar Beltrán, Oskar Casquero Oyarzabal, Manuel Benito Gómez

Virtual Campus – University of the Basque Country

GIEL – ELIT Research Group

EDEN 09 – Gdansk

A brief introduction

► Definition of a new strategy for Pulsar (http://pulsar.ehu.es), a domain-specific portal devoted to the dissemination of news trends and best practices in the field of e-learning

► Description of the procedure followed for moving from an editorial model to a new approach introducing social features

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Raise awareness of technologies affordances

Build a collection of relevant resources

A gateway to information

about e-learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

All these services are giving shape to new mechanisms for filtering and selecting the

information we consume where

personal networks and community play

an important role

WEB 2.0, API MICROCONTENT,

SYNDICATION,

BARRIERS FOR PARTICIPATION ARE LOWERING

A NEW ATTITUDE:

DIGITAL NATIVES

SOCIAL NETWORKSEMERGE IN THE WEB

ARENA

ONLINE IDENTITY

COMMUNITY: A SOCIAL GATEKEEPER

SOCIAL NETWORKS

BLOGS, WIKIS, BROADBAND…

SOCIAL MEDIA

USER GENERATED CONTENT (UGC)

WEB 2.0 SOCIAL NETWORKS

SOCIAL MEDIA

UGC

TRANSFORMING THEMATIC PORTALS INTO

SOCIAL INFORMATION HUBS

A CLOUD OF WEB SERVICES

TOOLS THAT USERS SHOULD

FIND IN A 2.0 PORTAL

RSS FEEDS AGGREGATION APIs

PROFILES OPEN SOCIAL

TAGSRATINGS COMMENTS

¿MODERATION? LIFESTREAM

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Getting the community into

the process

¿Why users would

contribute?

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Users need to feel it as useful for

themselves, but also that making a

contribution is worth it, because they are effectively helping their colleagues.

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Implementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning EDEN 09 – Gdansk

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

► User-generated content and institutional content will be side by side► Mixed authentication system that can be linked to an institutional authentication

systems (LDAP) but offers non-university users the possibility to participate► Two possibilities for users’ contributions: direct contributions (like a recommended

link with a description) and advanced aggregator. These contributions will be tagged by authors (folksonomy)

► A rating system for content and other popularity rankings ► Affordances for sharing and keeping content in external platforms, by shortcut to

social media sites, mail ► A community board displaying users’ contributions, where different tabs will enable

users to check them by popularity, time of submission, tags…► A profile displaying personal information about users but also their last contributions,

in a set of blocks: internal contributions, external contributions, comments…► A social network enabling to set relations with other users, that will also be

displayed in their profiles. A friends’ feed is created with the contributions of these users and will be displayed in a tab included in users' profile

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

► Selection of an open-course CMS Joomla Wordpress Drupal

► Criteria Features Engagement of the community

► Selected tool: Drupal 5 and a set of community contributed modules Best scores for social features and flexible aggregation

► Contributed Modules used (non-exhaustive list) I18n (translation) Views Content Creation Kit (CCK) LDAP FeedAPI

Buddylist Activity Bio Profile

► Issues and challenges A hard work is needed to foster participation and

to build a community (and to maintain it!!!) ¿Do faculties are ready for such information

management tools? ¿Will we be able to grow organically and adapt

our Pulsar features to our users’ likes and dislikes?

Trackability, indicators and data processing

EDEN 09 – GdanskImplementation of Social Features in a Domain-Specific Portal about e-Learning

Ramón Ovelar – Manuel Benito Oskar Casquero

Virtual Campus – University of the Basque CountryGIEL – ELIT Research Group