Education Supported by Content Management Systems

1. Education Supported by Content Management Systems Milena Stanković, Milan Rajković, Ivan Petković, Petar Rajković Faculty of Electronic Engineering,Niš

2. The educational Web site challenge • Campus Web sites - on of the biggest challenges that institutions of higher education have been faced with. • They have typically grown from ad hoc sites to essential sources of marketing and academic information and communication. • They have become inevitable part of educational process containing all necessary information, white papers, tutorials, and news regarding exams.

3. The educational Web site challenge • The clear conflict between the expectations of the users and the capacity of webmasters. • The problem is especially critical because of the highly decentralized environment with very limited budget. • The solution: adopting the new technologies

4. CMS (Content Management System) • The content management system (CMS) can be defined as a tool for manage, store, retrieve and publish content. • If the primary goal for the content is to be published on the Web, than the CMS is referred to as the Web CMS • Typically, a CMS consists of two elements: the content management application (CMA) and the content delivery application (CDA).

5. Benefits from using CMS(1) • Streamline and automate content administration- A Web CMS hides the complexities of HTML, thus enabling people who are not familiar with it to administrate content on the site. • Distribute content management and control-Web master of a typical campus Web site should visit tens of pages every day to enter the new information. A CMS can distribute this work to individuals.

6. Benefits from using CMS(2) • Separate content from layout and design– A CMS separates the content from the publication format. separately from its publication format. XML is often used in order for this to be achieved. • Creating reusable content repositories– The content which is entered once can be reused somewhere else on the same site. • Implement central graphic design management – Using templates to achieve constant look-and-feel through the site.

7. Benefits from using CMS(3) • Automate workflow management– The workflow of a Web CMS is determined by the workflow of the institution the CMS is intended for. • Build sophisticated content access and security- The access and security policy are crucial for achieving distributed content management and control. • Allow archiving and version control-Enterprise systems must provide mechanisms for storing and managing revisions of content.

8. Content Management System Centura

9. Centura objectives • Centura has been developed at the FEEN, and the work on in it is still in progress. • Fulfils or is going to fulfill most of the goals and requirements already listed. • Built using PHP and MySQL as an XML based content management system

10. Centura – main parts • back office (content and user management, customization and personalization ) • content converter (transformation of created content in format suitable for presentation) • front end (different services for content presentation, navigation and search)

11. Content Management • manages content • items • binary and other uploaded files • defines structure of the content (modules) • standard modules • binary modules

13. Item editor • managing item content • managing additional item content • version control • Multilanguage control

16. Privileges – rights for module access • The privileges are defined for specific user or group of users on specific module through their accounts. • Every single privilege has its own value that is power of two. • So far we identified privileges of read, write, delete, publish and administrate and assign them values of 1,2,4,8 and 16 respectively. • Set of privileges for concrete user on concrete module is sum of values of single privileges.

18. User management • manipulation with users and their accounts • allows association users in groups • administrators can determine groups; managing user memberships in particular groups, and gives administrative privilege for specific user on specific group • group administrators can assign other users to specific group and also can define other group administrators • all administrators of specific group have equal rights

19. User management (2) • provides creating new users and groups • updating existing accounts • setting and unsetting system administrator’s privilege for specific user • defining user membership in groups

21. Content converter • is connection between front end and back office • defines mapping that convert module structure to menu tree according defined limitations • allows that user from internet can view only content that is located in modules with selected flag “public” • users with defined user account can view content according their user profiles

22. Classes of users • External • guests • registered users • Internal • system administrators • group administrators • group members • others

23. Front end • content presentation services • navigation • search

24. Conclusion • One of the biggest challenges that institutions of higher education have been faced with is the one of their Web site • This problem is further complicated because there are increased expectationsfrom future or current students and faculty staff,about what the web site should provide. • Using an CMS can help to reduce costs, and improve efficiency of Web site maintenance. • In this paper, some of the main benefits from using a Web CMS are presented.