Академический Документы
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Культура Документы
Interdisciplinary Committee on
Organizational Studies (ICOS)
Website Redesign Project
SITE DOCUMENTATION
Written for:
Michael D Cohen, School of Information
Gerald F Davis, Ross School of Business
Paula Kopka, Ross School of Business
Written by:
Jonathan G Cohen
Anindita De
Nik Rozaidi Rashid
Benjamin Worrel
School of Information
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
Winter 2008
ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
Table of Contents
Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... i
Executive Summary................................................................................................................1
Acknowledgments ..................................................................................................................1
PART A: INTRODUCTION...................................................................................................2
What is ICOS? .................................................................................................................... 2
The ICOS Website and the SI631 CMS Project .............................................................. 2
Arrangement of Sections .................................................................................................. 2
The ICOS Website Design ................................................................................................ 3
PART B: CONTENT MANAGER .........................................................................................5
List of Tasks by Frequency............................................................................................... 5
STATIC PAGES.................................................................................................................. 6
B1. How to add a static page..................................................................................7
B2. How to Edit a Static Page.................................................................................8
B3. How to Delete a Static Page.............................................................................8
LECTURES.......................................................................................................................... 9
B4. How To Create A Lecture ................................................................................9
B5. How To Add/Edit The Default Values In The Lecture Content Type .....11
B6. How To Attach A Web Recording to a Lecture ..........................................11
BLOGS............................................................................................................................... 12
B7. How To Write A Blog Post.............................................................................12
B8. How To Find A Member’s Blog Post............................................................12
B9. How To Edit or Moderate A Blog Post ........................................................13
B10. How To Delete A Blog Post ...........................................................................14
COMMENTS .................................................................................................................... 14
B11. How To Enable/Disable Comments For A Specific Blog Post ..................14
B12. How To Write A Comment............................................................................15
B13. How To Edit or Moderate A Comment in a Blog.......................................15
B14. How To Delete A Comment in a Blog..........................................................16
USER PROFILES .............................................................................................................. 16
B15. How To Edit a Member’s Profile Content (Any Role) ...............................17
B16. How to Delete a Profile ..................................................................................18
GROUPS............................................................................................................................ 20
B17. How to Create a Group ..................................................................................20
B18. How to update group information ...............................................................21
B19. How to delete a group....................................................................................22
B20. How to find a group .......................................................................................23
B21. How to Join a Group.......................................................................................23
B22. How to Leave a Group ...................................................................................23
B23. How to Invite Someone to Join a Group......................................................24
B24. How to create a group blog post...................................................................25
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
Executive Summary
The original ICOS website was launched in 1998 and over the past ten years has
served as a hub for their background information. Members and the public could
learn about this 600+ member organization, their research competitions, lecture
schedules, and listen to lecture recordings.
In 2008, ICOS Co-Directors Professor Michael Cohen and Professor Gerald Davis
approached graduate students in a Content Management Systems course with a
request to redevelop their online presence. They envisioned a community platform
where ICOS members could interact with each other, discover content, and
contribute to each other’s research.
The new ICOS presence was developed on the Drupal platform, an open-source
content management system. Its modular architecture provides site administrators
and content managers with an elegant interface for deploying and moderating
content, as well as adding and customizing features. This document therefore
contains operational instructions for the Content Managers and Site Designer:
(i) The Content Manager is responsible for managing the content of the website,
and the day-to-day running of the site, but not for the technical configuration
of the site. Towards this end, he/she will update information, moderate user
behavior, and perform minor administrative tasks.
(ii) The Site Designer is responsible for designing and configuring the site into a
workable and presentable one. Towards this end, he/she will handle the
features and design changes, and manage server-related issues, including the
monitoring of Drupal’s security listserv.
Acknowledgments
The ICOS Redesign Team would like to thank:
SI631 Professors Paul Resnick and Mark Ackerman, as well as
SI631 Classmates
For their support and advice.
ICOS Co-Directors Professors Michael Cohen and Gerald Davis, and
ICOS Coordinator Paula Kopka
For their feedback and guidance.
SI634/635 Instructor Michael Hess
For sharing his technical knowledge.
The ICOS Community
For their time, interest, and outreach.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
PART A: INTRODUCTION
What is ICOS?
The Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies (ICOS) at the University
of Michigan is a network of graduate students and faculty who are interested in
research on organizations. It was established in 1990 to connect researchers across
twelve departments.
ICOS is most widely known by its weekly lecture series, which attracts speakers
from around the world to speak about their research. The talks are recorded and
archived on the ICOS site, which can be freely accessed by anyone. The ICOS
mailing list currently has over 600 subscribers.
ICOS also offers financial support for conferences, awards prizes for outstanding
dissertations related to organizational studies, and provides research grants to
faculty and doctoral students.
The CMS project aims not just to refresh the design of the ICOS website and improve
its information architecture and navigation structure, but also to create an online
meeting place for ICOS members. The Drupal framework provides social computing
tools such as collaborative blogs, social tagging, and content syndication. Its
interface provides an efficient means to manage content for administrators without
requiring technical expertise.
Arrangement of Sections
This document is arranged in four parts. Part A (this part) contains introductory
information about the site. Part B contains instructions for the Content Manager
(who is currently also the ICOS Coordinator) to manage the contents on the site. Part
C contains instructions for the Site Designer to ensure the site is properly
operational. Part D contains supplementary information regarding the background
work on the ICOS site.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
Figure 1:
The ICOS Home
Page
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation
About ICOS A static page that provides the general background information
about what ICOS is.
The ICOS Course A static page containing information for the students enrolled in
the SI702 and BA840 course.
Lectures All the detailed information regarding each ICOS lecture is
contained in this content type.
Research Support This set of static pages contain information about the
Dissertation Poster Session, ICOS Conference Funding, ICOS
Small Grant Competition and the Likert Prize.
Groups A list of all groups within the ICOS Community
People Directory A list of all members of the ICOS Community
Popular Tags The list shows the words that have been most frequently tagged
in the website, with the more frequent ones in bigger font size.
Most Active The activity leader board of the members, intended to
Member encourage participation in the community. Points (not shown)
are collected by creating content, commenting and tagging.
Announcements List of announcement and news items related to ICOS.
Related Events List of external events that may be relevant to ICOS members,
but excludes the ICOS Lecture Series. May be suggested by
members, but subject to approval.
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STATIC PAGES
A static page displays the same content every time it is viewed, as the whole HTML
code is embedded in the page. Adding or editing a static page requires some
knowledge of HTML for proper presentation of content. In the ICOS site, each static
page has a corresponding menu item in the left column. The following are static
pages on the ICOS Site, accessible from the left menu, and may be changed in the
future:
• Activities >> The ICOS Course
• Activities >> Research Support
• Activities >> Research Support >> Dissertation Poster Session
• Activities >> Research Support >> ICOS Conference Funding
• Activities >> Research Support >> ICOS Small Grant Competition
• Activities >> Research Support >> The Likert Prize
• About >> ICOS
• About >> ICOS >> ICOS Affiliated Faculty
• About >> ICOS >> ICOS Executive Committee
• About >> ICOS >> Information for Speakers
• About >> ICOS >> Our Sponsors
• About >> Our Website
• Community >> Other Communities
A sample static
page
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
To create a menu link for this static page, enter the following:
i. Title - The name to display for this menu link.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
ii. Parent item - The new page's location within the site's navigation
hierarchy.
iii. Weight – determines where in the parent menu the item will appear; a
positive weight “sinks” the menu item down the list.
7. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Submit to save changes, or preview
to view how the page will appear to members before saving changes.
4.
5. Make changes. (please see above for an explanation of static page options)
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click Submit to save changes, or preview
to view how the page will appear to members before saving changes.
Note: There is no confirmation step after Submit. Please ensure you have not removed text
that you might like to keep, because it cannot be recovered.
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LECTURES
All information related to lectures are contained in this content type. This includes
the lecture event description (date, time, venue), speaker information (speaker name,
affiliation and homepage), reading materials (abstract / article), and lecture
recording.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
vii. Lecture Title: Enter without the quotation marks. This can also be the
discussion topic of a panel session.
viii. Topics & Interests: (optional) Enter the keywords (i.e. tags) related to
the lecture. This is often taken from the article abstract.
ix. Enter the Speaker(s) home pages as URL - starting with "http://". Click on
"More links" if you need to enter more URLs.
x. Lecture Graphic: This is usually the photograph of the speaker taken
from his/her homepage. Multiple photos need to merged in a graphic
editing software first. To upload, first click "Browse" to find the file, then
click "Upload". (you may have to scroll down for the next step)
xi. Additional notes: This includes "Introduced by" and "Co-sponsored with"
xii. Enter the Abstract provided by the speaker, if any, replacing the default
“No abstract provided” text.
xiii. Reading List: Prepare the files and its citation beforehand. Filetypes
that can be uploaded are PDF, DOC, DOCX and TXT. To upload, click
"Browse" to find the file, then click "Upload". The filename will be
displayed; this should be changed with the citation. To add another
article, click "Browse", "Upload" again and rename.
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xiv.Recording: This field will be left blank until the lecture recording has
been completed and uploaded to the server (See also: Uploading lecture
recordings).
4. Finally, click "Submit" (ignore the rest of the page)
B5. How To Add/Edit The Default Values In The Lecture Content Type
1. Login (if not already so)
2. In the Right Sidebar, under the Admin heading, find Administer, and click
"Content Management"
3. Click on "Content Types". List of content types will be displayed.
4. Find "Lecture", and click on "edit"
5. Click "Manage Fields" tab. List of fields will be displayed.
6. Semester:
7. To add semester, click "configure". Scroll to near the bottom to find "Allowed
values list". Insert the new semester as the topmost line.
8. To change the default value, click "configure". Find and click on "Default
Value", and choose the required semester.
9. To change the default value for time and venue, follow the Semester way.
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4. Find the relevant lecture to be updated, and click on its Title. The lecture
page will be displayed.
5. Click on the "Edit" tab just below the Title
6. Scroll down near the bottom of the page to locate "Recording"
7. Enter the URL of the lecture recording
8. Click "Submit"
BLOGS
A blog is like an online diary. The ICOS site features blog posting by its members,
either in their own individual blog, or in a group blog, which they must be a member
of. While the members are responsible for the content they post, the Content
Manager has to monitor their posting for inappropriate entries and take the
necessary action.
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4. You will arrive at the member's profile page. Scroll down past their profile
content to “My Posts” to view their blog posts.
Where to find a
member’s blog
posts
5. Click on the title of the post, or “Read more” to view the full blog entry.
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COMMENTS
The new ICOS site features commenting by members on any content in which
commenting is allowed/enabled. Note however that comments are attached to a
particular content, and not exactly a content of its own. What this means is that to
locate a comment, in order to edit or delete, the Content Manager has to know the
location of the encapsulating entry in the site.
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4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Submit" to save your
changes.
3. Add a title in Subject (optional) and type text into the Comment field
(required).
4. Click "Preview comment"
5. Review comment text and click "Post comment" to save.
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3. Click "Delete" again to remove the comment. Once deleted, a comment can
never be recovered.
USER PROFILES
User Profiles: ICOS members with a site account have the option to enrich their
community experience by making information about themselves available to other
community members. Profiles can't be accessed by anyone who isn't logged in to the
ICOS site.
Profile Types: When members register, they identify their role: a U of M Faculty
Member, Student, or Friend of ICOS. Members will have different profile fields
depending on their role. For example, a U of M Faculty Member will have the
option to include "Courses I Teach", while a Student will have the option to include
"Courses I've Taken".
Required information for all profiles: Members can fill in their entire profile when
they register, but it's not mandatory. Required fields for all member roles are: Name,
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
City, and Affiliation. Site members have the option to add or remove profile
information anytime.
A sample profile of
a prominent
personality
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
i. To edit the basic user profile, such as "Name", "City", or "Interests", which
all members have, click “Basic Profile”
ii. To edit the student-specific profile information, which only members who
have been assigned with the Student role have, click “Student Profile”.
iii. To edit faculty-specific profile information, which only faculty will have,
click “Faculty Profile”
5. Make desired changes to their profile.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Submit"
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5. You will arrive at the member's profile edit page. Scroll to the bottom of the
page and click "Delete"
6. Once you confirm the delete action, all of the member's contributed content
as well as their profile information will be removed forever. This action
cannot be undone.
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GROUPS
The ICOS site supports a Group feature, that allows members to establish a sub-
community of their own according to their interest or whatever. While the
functionality is user-driven, the Content Manager have to monitor the group activity
from time-to-time and take appropriate action. At the same time, Content Managers
may be requested to create or manage groups.
4. Enter the Group's title, short description (which will be visible in the group
directory), and long description (background information which will be
visible at the group's page).
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5. Make changes.
6. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Click "Submit" to save changes. (visible to
the public)
7. Click "Preview" to view what your group will look like (not visible to the
public). To edit your previewed group, make changes and click "Preview" to
see what your group will look like or "Submit" to publish.
6. Proceed to the confirmation page. You may opt to redirect group posts to
another group, delete only posts that are not cross-listed, or delete all posts in
the group (even if they are cross-listed). Click "Delete Group" to confirm
your action. (This can not be undone and deleted posts can not be recovered)
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4. In the center content area, under the "Group Actions" heading, please click
"My subscription"
5. In the center content area, please click "Unsubscribe from this group"
6. Proceed to confirm the unsubscribe request.
Note: Unless blocked by a group administrator, you can re-subscribe
anytime.
5. Type the email address(es) of the person you would like to invite. If the
person has an ICOS site account, you may opt to enter their username. If
desired, enter a personal message.
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email, he or she will need to scroll down past the post. If a group member replies to
the email, rather than clicks on the “Post reply” link, she will receive a delivery
status failure notification. The message will not reach anyone. Please see our Wish
List (in the appendix) for another note on this problem.
1. In the email, scroll down past the post text. Click "Post reply" link.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Content Manager
5. In the center content area, click the "Add subscribers" tab in the sub-
navigation menu.
6. Enter the usernames of the individuals you would like to subscribe to the
group. They must have an ICOS site account to be subscribed to a group.
7. Click "submit" and the usernames will be saved as group members.
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HOSTING INFORMATION
Server location: School of Information
Host name: cms.si.umich.edu
SecureFTP Port: 22 (Access using KERBEROS username and password)
Type: Drupal 5 CMS Server
IP address: 141.211.185.182
Site directory: /data/sites/icos.cms.si.umich.edu/
MODULES INSTALLED
Module name Version Purpose
advanced_profile 5.x-1.0- Glue module with bits needed to put
alpha3 together an advanced user profile
auto_nodetitle 5.x-1.1 Allows hiding of the node title field and
automatic title creation.
calendar 5.x-1.7 Adds date calendar themes to views that
can display any type of date field, and
creates default calendar views.
cck 5.x-1.x- Allows administrators to define new
dev content types.
community_tags 5.x-1.0- Allows users to 'tag' other users' content.
beta1 Weighted tag lists or 'tag clouds' are
generated for each piece of content to
show the popularity of tags.
contemplate 5.x-1.9 Create templates to customize output of
teaser and body content.
content_taxonomy 5.x-1.x- Defines a field type for taxonomy terms
dev
date 5.x-1.8 Defines a date/time field type.
edit_my_account n/a Creates a block to be placed on a user's
profile providing links to editing custom
content typesuprofile,student details,
andfaculty details
email 5.x-1.x- Defines an email field type for cck
dev
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THEMES
The ICOS site uses the Bluemarine as the underlying theme, but the CSS file was
heavily customized, as well as a template.php file. These can be found in the
Appendix I.
ROLES
The initial deployment for ICOS includes five identity-based roles:
1. The Site Director has global permissions to create, read, update, and delete
all site content, code, architecture, and modules. He can also reassign the Site
Coordinator role. This is usually for the ICOS Co-Directors.
2. The Site Coordinator has permissions similar to the Site Administrator, but
can not reassign his own role. This is intended for the ICOS Coordinator.
3. Faculty are for University of Michigan professors and professionals.
4. Students are for current ICOS masters and PhD students, as well as alumni.
5. Friends are for ICOS stakeholders around the world that would like to
participate on the ICOS site, but are not U of M student or faculty.
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Faculty, students , and friends have similar access permissions, but “Group
managers” (which role is not defined by the Designer, but automatically assigned
when they create their own Groups) can also administer groups (create, update,
delete) as well as invite new members.
For a detailed chart of role-based access controls, please see the Appendix III.
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:
9. Arguments: Not configured
10. Filters:
xiii. Node: Type -- Is One Of -- Lecture
xiv. Text: Semester -- Is One Of -- Winter 2008 (or the current term) --
Expose. This may be a potential problem in listing if semesters are added
without making it default.
11. Exposed Filter:
xv. Text: Semester (field_semester) -- Label: "Semester".
xvi.Check these boxes: Optional, Filter Settings Default, Force Single (allow
only one value to be selected), Lock Operator
xvii. Sort: Datestamp: Date (field_date) -- Order: Ascending.
12. Click "Save"
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$node->field_time[0]['view'] ."<br>".
$node->field_venue[0]['view']."<br><br>".
$node->field_additional_notes[0]['view'] ?>
Line 1 calls the path of the image as the image source
Line 2 sets the image height to be 150px, and floats it to the right, giving
margin space on the left (10px); nudging it up 20px; setting border
Line 3 prints the speaker's name and bold it
Line 4-7 prints the date, time, venue and additional notes.
5. Under "Body":
xx. Check the "Affect Body Output" -- this is for the node
xxi. Teaser template: The code can be found in the Appendix IV.
6. RSS: Not configured.
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ICOS Website Redesign: Site Documentation: Site Designer
4. You will arrive at the Content Types page. In the center content area, in the
list of content types, please click "User Profile".
5. You will arrive at the User Profile content type administration page. In the
center content area, under the sub-navigation tab menu, please click "Add
Field"
6. In the Add Field options page, create a new field as follows:
i. Name: The title. For example: "Favorite Music"
ii. Field Type: The type of information to be stored. One attribute may be
selected
iii. Text field - The member enters content.
iv. Text field with autocomplete - As the member types, they will receive
suggestions for what to store based on pre-existing objects in the
database. For example, if you enter "SI 68" in a field for "Courses I've
Taken" and someone has already saved the course "SI 688 - Human
Behavior", this suggestion will appear to you.
v. Select list - The Site Coordinator populates a list with items. Members
select one or many items from a list of pre-defined attributes.
vi. Check boxes / radio buttons - The Site Coordinator populates a list with
items. Members may only select one item from a list of pre-defined
options.
vii. Single on/off checkbox - The Site Coordinator populates a checkbox with
an attribute. By checking the box or leaving it empty, members indicate
whether the attribute is true or false.
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viii. Image - The member may upload an image file with this field.
ix. File - The Site Coordinator determines acceptable file types, which
members can choose from.
7. To save the new field, please scroll to the bottom of the page and click
"Create Field"
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5. Browse to the element you would like to change, or create a new one.
6. Make desired changes and Save
The customized CSS stylesheet that was included in the version of this site that was
delivered in April 2008 can be found in the Appendix I.
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PART D: APPENDICES
Appendix I: Customized Theme, CSS Stylesheet & PHP Template
The Bluemarine theme is configured as follows:
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float: left; }
left: -10px; .site-name {
padding: 10px; margin: 0.6em 0 0 0;
border: 0; padding: 0;
} font-size: 2em;
#menu { color:green;
display:none;padding: 0.5em }
0.5em 0 0.5em; .site-name a:link, .site-name
text-align: right; a:visited {
vertical-align: middle; color: #fff;
} }
#navlist { .site-name a:hover {
font-size: 1.0em; color: #369;
padding: 0 0.8em 1.2em 0; text-decoration: none;
color: #9cf; }
} .site-slogan {
#navlist a { font-size: 1em;
font-weight: bold; color: #eee;
color: #fff; display: block;
} margin: 0;
#subnavlist { font-style: italic;
padding: 0.5em 1.2em 0.4em 0; font-weight: bold;
font-size: 0.8em; }
color: #9cf; #main {
} /* padding in px not ex
#subnavlist a { because IE messes up 100% width
font-weight: bold; tables
color: #9cf; otherwise */
} padding: 10px;
ul.links li { width: 624px;
border-left: 1px solid #9cf; }
} #mission, .node .content,
ul.links li.first { .comment .content {
border: none; line-height: 1.4em;
} }
#search .form-text, #search #help {
.form-submit { font-size: 0.9em;
border: 1px solid #369; margin-bottom: 1em;
font-size: 1.1em; }
height: 1.5em; .breadcrumb {
vertical-align: middle; margin-bottom: .5em;
} }
#search .form-text { .messages {
width: 8em; background-color: #eee;
padding: 0 0.5em; border: 1px solid #ccc;
} padding: 0.3em;
margin-bottom: 1em;
#mission { }
background-color: #369; .error {
padding: 1.5em 2em; border-color: red;
color: #fff; }
}
#mission a, #mission a:visited #sidebar-left {
{ /* padding in px not ex
color: #9cf; because IE messes up 100% width
font-weight: bold; tables
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/*User Profiles*/
/*Login - Register - Logout*/ #user-profile .panel-pane
h2.title{
#block-menu-104 { background-color: #3F4370;
float:right; position: }
absolute; #user-profile .panel-pane
width:100px; height: 30px; h2.title a:link, #user-profile
right: 0px; top: 30px; .panel-pane
border-bottom: 0px solid #bbb; h2.title a:visited {color:
} #C0D7FF}
#block-menu-104 ul li {
list-style-image: none;
list-style-type: none; /*Upcoming Lecture*/
}
div#frontpage {right:10px}
#block-menu-103 { div#frontpage div div.panel-
float:right; position: row.panel-row-1 {
absolute; width:95%; background-
width: 90px; height:30px; color:#eacf5f; padding:0 10px
right: 100px; top: 30px; 12px 10px;
border-bottom: 0px solid #bbb; }
} #nexticoslecture h2.title{
#block-menu-103 ul li {
list-style-image: none;
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<head>
<title><?php print $head_title ?></title>
<?php print $head ?>
<?php print $styles ?>
<?php print $scripts ?>
<script type="text/javascript"><?php /* Needed to avoid Flash of
Unstyle Content in IE */ ?> </script>
</head>
<body>
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<div id="footer">
<?php print $footer_message ?>
</div>
<?php print $closure ?>
</body>
</html>
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<script type="text/javascript">
var gaJsHost = (("https:" == document.location.protocol) ?
"https://ssl." : "http://www.");
document.write(unescape("%3Cscript src='" + gaJsHost +
"google-analytics.com/ga.js'
type='text/javascript'%3E%3C/script%3E"));
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
var pageTracker = _gat._getTracker("UA-4052697-1");
pageTracker._initData();
pageTracker._trackPageview();
</script>
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<hr style="height:1px">
<hr style="height:1px">
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5. Make sure Appearance is "ExpressShow with TOC" and size is 800x600 for
video (maximum - may be less for old videos) and total dimension of
960x618 (less for older movies). Click "Next"
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8. Click "Finish" and wait about 40 minutes for a 1.5 hour recording to be
rendered into SWF
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1. WYSIWYG editor, or at least rich text, for the following content types:
lectures, blog posts (individual and group), comments.
3. User Points for Tags – Members currently receive user points, which
contribute to the “most active member” list, for contributing blog posts, user
profile content, comments, and comments. However, they do not receive
user points for contributing tags. Perhaps a custom module could connect
Tagadelic and Userpoints to reward members for their tag contributions.
4. When members subscribe to a group, they receive blog posts and comments
in their email inbox (by default). If they reply to the email, they will receive a
delivery status failure notification. Members must click on a “post reply”
link in the email that contains the original blog post. A customized delivery
status notification message for this event would help guide members in the
event of an error.
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65
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 1
Jonathan Cohen
Anindita De
Nik Rozaidi Rashid
Benjamin Worrel
ICOS Activities
In supporting the mission, ICOS organizes the following activities:
Seminar / Lecture Series: ICOS offers a weekly Friday seminar that brings together top
organizational researchers to present their work. An ICOS video library for seminars
between 1994 and 1998 is available through the University’s Film and Video Library,
and is listed on Mirlyn, the University’s Library Catalog System. RealAudio recordings of
lectures began in late Fall 1997, which offers Internet browser playback with
accompanying slides and photographs.
Coursework: The Ross School of Business, School of Social Work and School of
Information offer a 1 to 4 credit course in ICOS. Students who read all papers presented
at the seminar and attend each session receive one credit. All masters students enroll
at this level. Doctoral students who write a paper for review by an affiliated faculty
member of the Business School or School of Information faculty sponsor receive
additional credits. ICOS is offered every Fall and Winter terms.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 2
Workshops: ICOS also provides opportunities for graduate students to deepen their
understanding of scholarly work and careers through periodic workshops on issues
such as thesis topic selection, scholarly writing, journal reviewing, and careers outside
the professorate.
Poster Sessions: Poster sessions for dissertations in progress are held every two years.
Awards and Funding: ICOS awards the biannual Likert Prize for organizational research
stemming from dissertations in the University. Faculty interested in organizing
conferences of benefit to the organizational community may receive up to $5,000 in
support. Up to two conferences, events or workshops a year are typically organized.
Research grants for up to $3,000 and up to two years are available for faculty and
doctoral students to support joint faculty-student work related to their dissertation.
There are also the 15 students enrolled in the course for the Winter 2008 term.
Based on the mailing list, the ICOS community is also made up of students and
researchers from the University and around the world who are interested in
organizational studies.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 3
Communicating ICOS
Besides the seminar series and alumni/research network, ICOS is communicated to its
community through a website (http://si.umich.edu/ICOS/) that was set up in 1998. The
site provides general information about ICOS, including about the faculty and related
courses; the upcoming seminar event, including the speaker’s papers; links to past
recordings of the seminars; and a subscription form to the ICOS mailing list.
Stakeholders:
1. Executive Committee
The Executive Committee is comprised of distinguished University of Michigan
professors from several departments whose research and interests correlate with ICOS.
Six different schools are represented in this interdisciplinary nine member group: the
Ross School of Business, School of Public Health, School of Information, Department of
Sociology, Department of Psychology, Organizational Studies Department, and School
of Social Work. There are also three emeritus members. The Co-Directors are also
members of the Executive Committee.
Responsibilities to ICOS are threefold: budget oversight, hiring decisions, and internal
consultation on major directives. They're not significantly involved with operational
actions on a day-to-day or even a month-to-month basis, which is typically handled by
the Co-Directors and the ICOS Coordinator. When Co-Directors leave their posts, the
committee convenes to hire their replacements. Another significant contribution to
ICOS is their incubation and discussion of organizational initiatives. For example, the
committee reviews applications for conferences, events, or workshops twice a year and
supports top proposals with as much as $5,000. The committee also convenes once a
year to review research grant proposals that encourage faculty-student work and
awards top entries with as much as $3000.
2. Co-Directors
ICOS employs Co-Directors to carry out day-to-day tasks and long-term initiatives,
Michael Cohen and Jerry Davis. As professors mainly affiliated with the School of
Information and Ross School of Business (respectively), the co-directors lead efforts to
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 4
Michael and Jerry perform three core responsibilities. First, they organize a weekly
seminar which takes the form of panel discussions or presentations. The co-directors
engage and invite relevant thought leaders to share their research with the
organizational studies community. Second, they organize developmental activities such
as career workshops for graduate students, dissertation poster sessions for PhD
students to present their research, and award a $500 Likert prize with travel stipend for
one of those PhD students who have presented at these sessions in the past. Third,
Michael and Jerry are instructors for the cross-departmental (SI / Ross) course
“Interdisciplinary Committee on Organizational Studies Seminar Series”. Accreditation
options range from 1-4 credits and give students a choice in their level of expected
involvement. The course is centered on the weekly seminars and papers presented by
speakers.
Vision
The co-directors envision an environment where students and faculty have many roads
to finding content and each other. To achieve this end, the dual-approach of a
hierarchical organization scheme with a controlled vocabulary set and member-tagging
could benefit search and discovery. The site currently offers access to its archive of
seminar recordings by chronological order. Faculty members are listed in alphabetical
order, and recommended courses for students interested in organization studies are
listed by departments (also in alphabetical order). The organization of all site content is
static and pre-determined by administrators.
The co-directors would also like to provide members with more notification options for
new content and announcements. The site currently offers a snail-mail service and has
an e-mail listserv with over 600 members. Some members complain that contact is too
frequent; others too rare. Michael envisions the introduction of member-customized e-
mail listservs and RSS feeds with one caveat, “Truth of the matter is most faculty don’t
read RSS.”
The ICOS site currently doesn’t offer a blog platform. The co-directors envision a site
blog with several authors contributing research and benefiting from feedback generated
by peripheral discussions. We suspect the value proposition of this content may be
strong enough to serve as an incentive for some faculty members to sample RSS,
perhaps for the first time.
The co-directors would like to give members an option for the annotation of seminar
recordings. This feature isn’t currently available, but could be implemented through a
forum, discussion thread, or within user profiles.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 5
Above all, Michael wants to ensure the redesigned site is “a means, not an end.” The
co-directors want to ensure new processes are easy to maintain and documentation is
clear. The ICOS Coordinator and student administrators should be able to easily
moderate discussions, enable/disable features, and add/remove content, all with the
aim of providing information flows that enhance the ICOS community.
Interests
The co-directors first interest in the project is that ICOS members should be able to
easily find, and/or automatically be notified about, details of upcoming presentations in
the ICOS lecture series, including links to websites of the presenters, topics of their
upcoming talks, and a downloadable paper related to each week's presentation.
Besides that, members should also be able to find existing distribution of seminar audio
recordings. The site currently hosts hundreds of these lectures that span the past
decade. The majority of lectures must be downloaded and viewed with RealPlayer
software, but seminars recorded as of Fall 2007 can be experienced directly in the
browser with Camtasia and RealAudio plugins.
The co-directors second interest in the project is that ICOS sponsors are given visibility.
ICOS sponsors aren’t currently showcased on the Web site. Funding comes
predominantly (if not exclusively) from University of Michigan departments including the
Business School, Psychology, Public Health, Social Work, Education, Rackham, Art and
Architecture, Public Policy, and the School of Information.
The co-directors third interest in the project is to better connect faculty that have
common research interests, students with course offerings, and each group with
suggested readings. Michael envisions a data model that can “bring all of these
different kinds of material in a kind of common map.” Perhaps member profiles could
serve as a backend to this process.
The co-directors believe that a comprehensive redesign will better serve the
organizational studies community by improving the flow of information between
interdisciplinary groups and providing a platform to distribute and discuss available
research. Speakers will benefit from the blog platform, which will allow them to engage
and discuss research with the ICOS community. As an added bonus, potential
speakers may be more likely to commit and participate where they find evidence of an
active community. Researchers at this university or elsewhere will benefit from high-
quality content at the blog and faster routes to discovering seminar recordings that
relate to their interests. Faculty involved with ICOS will have an easier time finding
opportunities for cross-disciplinary collaboration. Students could better connect with
each other and faculty to find interesting coursework. Students applying to relevant
graduate and PhD programs may be more inclined to enroll at the University of
Michigan. The redesigned site will also serve as a platform where ICOS can make their
research available to greater society.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 6
3. ICOS Coordinator
Paula, the ICOS coordinator at present, is responsible for updating the information on
the ICOS website, as well as maintaining the mailing list, and other organizational duties.
The Coordinator meets weekly with the Co-Directors, Michael Cohen and Jerry Davis,
to discuss and carry out the day to day business of ICOS. The position is not currently
a full time position.
As the one responsible for updating the website, the coordinator has a large interest in
the successful design and implementation of a new web ICOS web presence. Currently
updating the information on the website is somewhat arduous, as the html must be
manually edited. The new design should greatly simplify this task in addition to allowing
others to assist in this task more efficiently. Additionally, tasks such as maintaining
mailing lists and event calendars could transition to a user-based task, or at least a
more simplified entry system.
A primary concern of the new system is to not create an environment that requires an
increased technical knowledge. The goal is to improve the capabilities of the web
presence while simplifying the creation/maintenance process. This not only applies to
Paula, but to the ICOS community at large. The web site is meant to be a tool, not a
limitation.
4. Faculty
Faculty members from various schools within the University of Michigan have a
prominent stake in the organization. Some of these faculty members may teach courses
related to organizational studies; others contribute to the organization by shaping ICOS
directives. Some of the faculty members serve as student mentors, while others are
responsible for reviewing papers as well as giving feedback.
Faculty members don’t necessarily attend weekly seminars. Some of them are actively
involved; others have a passive interest in organizational studies. Each semester a few
seminar presentations (roughly 2-3) are made by UM faculty members.
The website lists all faculty affiliations and links to their personal web pages. In this way,
the website helps researchers impart information about their interests and explorations.
It supports a thriving common ground for people with contingent interests to connect
with each other. Thus, the website can serve as a very good means for the faculty to
discover and advance interdisciplinary opportunities. This information is currently
difficult to keep up-to-date, which reduces its value to the community and creates a
burden for the administrator.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 7
5. Students
The ICOS student community includes both Masters and Doctoral students. Those
registered for the seminar course are expected to read all papers presented at the
seminar, attend each session, and, depending on the number of credits taken, write a
paper for review by an affiliated faculty member. Doctoral students in particular gain
from being involved in ICOS through the access it provides to the professional practice
of organizational research, including information resources and thought leaders like
visiting speakers.
Site Trajectory
The ICOS web site hasn’t been redesigned since its inception a decade ago. Over the
past ten years, Web communities have evolved to support features like group blogging,
tagging, and diversified notification avenues like RSS. As we incorporate these new
modes of interaction, ICOS members may feel unsettled by sudden change. To ensure
a smooth transition, new features will need to be incentivized with a clear value
proposition. Further, members and administrators will need to become accustomed to
revised processes for established activities like retrieving schedule information and
listening to seminars.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 8
Our client envisions a site with functionality to improve the quantity and quality of
interdisciplinary communication. However, it may be hard to quantify the
meaningfulness of connections made between students and potential courses of
interest, faculty and researchers outside of the university, and other associations still
unforeseen. ICOS could perhaps consider a measure of how many unique and discrete
visits are made to user-generated pages and monitor the volume of site activity over
time. In fact, the current site does have some Google Analytics tools installed. So these
could provide a basis of comparison. Comparable, or enhanced tools could be enabled
at the new site.
We think many faculty will enjoy the blogging platform because it will give them a means
to share and get feedback on their thoughts and research. Though some may feel
burdened by the responsibility to contribute to the blog with content, current
membership levels could sustain a steady stream of articles without reliance on any
small group of researchers to write them. The ICOS Coordinator or student
administrators will need to learn how to operate the Drupal content system, as well as
be partially responsible for new tasks like moderation and consistently organizing
content into categories.
Should faculty and students find incentives to use the tagging system, blogging
platform, and notifications, this site redesign has the potential to further energize an
already active community. Over the past ten-years, ICOS has benefited from stable
and continuous activity, producing an archive of high-quality artifacts (recorded
seminars) and significant cross-disciplinary awareness. However, any roadblock to
information will hinder its use and discovery. The library of recordings has grown quite
large (well over 200 as of 2008) and much of its valuable content is buried without a
flexible organization scheme. If new site features give easier access to and provide
platforms for sharing information and communication, ICOS members will enjoy even
more valuable interactions with each other and increase both the worth and amount of
their research.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 9
The user personas that have been developed for the ICOS website are:
• Joan, ICOS Administrator
• Dr. Guha Ramana, Co-Director
• Xavier, Doctoral Student
• Liza, Masters Student
• Jane, Organizational Behavior Expert (Invited Speaker)
• Keith, Affiliated Faculty
• David, Industry Executive (Interested Visitor)
Joan, 42, has been married to her husband Mark for twelve years. They have two
children, both in middle school. In their spare time, Joan and her husband enjoy acting
in a local acting troupe, which has started to embarrass their kids quite a bit. Joan works
as an administrator in the Business School at the University of Michigan, where part of
her time is spent as the ICOS Administrator. She has some experience in managing
websites, but would like to be able to do more and has considered taking courses to
receive additional training.
Joan receives the schedule of upcoming ICOS speakers before each semester. She
then adds the dates, speakers, and topics to the online ICOS calendar which is visible
to anyone. Additionally, she creates logins for each of the speakers, so that they create
user pages to display their interests, research topics, publications, etc. This is much
less work than the old system, when she had to repeatedly contact upcoming speakers
for their information.
For each speaker, Joan uses the website to keep track of tasks which still need to be
completed, such as transportation from the airport, accommodation, etc. This
information is stored in a section of the website which is restricted to administrative
personnel. As the speaker’s appearance date came closer, Joan updates the speaker’s
calendar page to show their appointments and uploads a copy of the paper that is being
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 10
presented along with suggested readings. All of this information used to be stored on
the School of Information’s server as well as hard copies in Joan’s office.
After each weekly speaker, Joan updates the website to highlight the upcoming speaker.
A brief, who/what/where message is placed on the main page, with links to the
speaker’s page on the site with further information. Additionally, she updates
attendance information for the session, which is stored in a restricted portion of the site.
When new users register with the site, some need to be granted more than the basic
user access. Joan uses the administrative section of the site to upgrade the accounts of
users that she can verify have a valid reason for greater access. She needs to restrict
access due to concerns over spammers gaining access to the ICOS email list. The
ICOS community didn’t much appreciate receiving spam advertisements for
pharmaceuticals particularly aimed at male users.
Throughout the semester, Joan receives emails from students asking questions about
upcoming speakers or ICOS in general. In addition to using the website to find the
information, she suggests the question sender check the website to answer future
questions. She understands that if people haven’t seen the new website, they could be
wary of looking for information on the ICOS site, as the old design often made things
difficult to find.
Dr. Guha Ramana, 50, has been an active member of ICOS since emigrating from India
to the U.S. in 1993 to pursue an MBA at the University of Michigan. He was attracted to
ICOS because the community gave him an outlet to explore corollaries between new
coursework and his graduate work in Psychology. In 1998, he received a Ph.D. in
Management & Organizations and accepted a tenure-track associate professorship post
at the Ross School of Business. Dr. Ramana was invited to join the ICOS Executive
Committee in 2003. His wife Claire, a Columbia professor who met Dr. Ramana at an
ICOS seminar, encouraged him to seek the Co-Director position when the previous co-
director announced she was taking a sabbatical.
At each seminar, Dr. Ramana records presentations in RealMedia format and later
uploads them to the Web site. He would also like to offer mp3 files, and wishes users
didn’t need to have RealPlayer software or codecs on their systems, but the entire
catalog has been encoded into .ram files since seminar recording began in 1997. He
doesn’t want to confuse people by offering content in two separate file formats.
Unfortunately, Dr. Ramana doesn’t have enough time to convert the recording archive
into mp3 files and plans on asking a research assistant to complete this initiative over
the Fall ‘08 semester. Whereas uploading a lecture currently marks the end of the
archival process, Dr. Ramana hopes that the new website will support ongoing
discussions around lecture content. Further, he thinks speakers would enjoy being able
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 11
to directly link to their presentation recordings from their personal Web pages, so he
wishes each lecture had an idempotent URL instead of access via iFrames.
When reaching out to invite potential speakers, Dr. Ramana occasionally fields
questions about typical audience sizes at seminars. Most invitees are excited at the
prospect of presenting at an ICOS seminar, but want some reassurance that they won’t
be flying to Michigan (many from international origins) to speak to a tiny crowd. The
Registered Students’ page lists 20 students who attend regularly, which is updated each
semester by the ICOS Coordinator. Potential speakers are ultimately unconvinced by a
page that lists over a hundred affiliated faculty, but doesn’t make clear often they attend
seminars. Dr. Ramana suspects this concern wouldn’t be an issue if the site could make
the vibrant ICOS research community more visible. In the new web site design, Dr.
Ramana hopes that a group blogging platform will prompt discussions that expose
community activity to potential speakers and showcase engaged faculty members.
Students actively involved with ICOS often ask Dr. Ramana for course suggestions, but
wonders if students themselves are a better resource. He could ask students to list their
related coursework on the site, but would rather support tailored recommendations.
Over time, he hopes to introduce a recommender system that highlights courses of
interests for a particular student by mining the enrollment data of ICOS student-
members.
Since assuming the role of Co-Director, Dr. Ramana has become overwhelmed by
requests to serve on dissertation committees. He enjoys giving feedback and
participating in the process, but has little time to give each dissertation his full attention.
He hopes the new site will offer “an eHarmony for dissertation committees and
students” – identifying potential colleagues with the same research interests, but who
work in different departments. Dr. Ramana hopes that by redesigning the Web site to
support and recommend meaningful connections, ICOS will help facilitate valuable
collaboration between students and faculty.
Xavier is a 27-year old Ph.D. student in the Ross School of Business. He is in the first
year of his doctoral studies. Xavier is married and used to work at a government agency
for a few years before deciding to further his studies. His research interest is in internal
communication in public sector organizations. He found out about ICOS from his
advisor while doing research planning for one of his course papers on a related topic.
The advisor suggested he attend one of the Friday ICOS seminars to see if the topic
being discussed is of interest to him. He also found about the ICOS website.
After learning about what ICOS is from the website, and reviewing the list of lectures
and topics that will occur in the term, he decided to attend the next seminar. In
preparing himself for the lecture, he went to the ICOS website to download the paper
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 12
that will be presented, as well as some suggested readings that accompany the paper.
He was impressed to find all the readings he needed online in PDF format, although he
noticed that not all readings for the other lectures have links—maybe that means those
readings are not available online for copyright reasons, he thought. He was able to
download all the readings to his computer.
At the seminar, he saw some familiar faces but also many new ones. Using his social
skills at the reception before the seminar, he later found out that the seminar is attended
not just by U of M students and faculty, but also by smart-looking professionals (they
were from The Ford Motor Company). Xavier did manage to ask how they found out
about the seminar. He was told that it was through word-of-mouth and from the ICOS
website. Xavier exchanged business cards with them before parting. His social network
suddenly expanded, and that was even before the seminar started!
During the talk, Xavier did have many questions to ask the speaker but only got to put
up a couple. Afterwards, he did manage to walk up to meet the speaker, but there were
many others competing for the speaker’s attention as well. Knowing that the speaker is
active (relatively) on the ICOS community website, he decided to contact the speaker
via the website later on (which automatically sends out a directed email to the speaker).
Often, he gets a response within a short time, although he understood that it is not a
guarantee. Xavier is worried that over time the community will tone down, but was
surprised at the efforts made by the ICOS Administration to keep discussions alive by
sending notifications that a certain thread has gone quiet after a few weeks.
Meanwhile, Xavier sent out emails to his newly-found acquaintances in the industry to
say hello, and to invite them to participate in the ICOS Community, to which he got
many positives. In one of the exchanges, he did manage to sneak in a favor to get the
executives to participate in his research.
Prior to starting his dissertation, he wanted to find out who can become his co-
supervisor. Previously, it was a tedious process to go through the CV of various
faculties within and outside of the university. But now, the ICOS website offers a single
point where he can review the CVs and research topics of renowned experts. He was
able to find a supervisor whose research topic was compatible with his dissertation.
Throughout the dissertation writing, Xavier used the ICOS website extensively to test
ideas and obtain feedback about certain topics of interest, and he was happy with the
response that he got from the diverse members.
Liza is from New York, 22 years, and fresh out of college. She enrolled at the University
of Michigan’s School of Information Master of Science in Information (MSI) program last
Fall and is currently registered for the ICOS course for 1 credit. She enrolled in the
course due to her interest in how groups work, especially at the organizational level.
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 13
Liza did not want to do an MBA as she was not a business-minded person, but she was
more inclined towards information management. Liza understands that for 3 credits, she
is required to attend weekly seminars, do the readings, and write a term paper.
Upon attending the first seminar, Liza began to think of the topics for her paper and kept
a personal note of all the deadlines in the term in her online calendar. In coming up with
the topics, she had to do some preliminary research of the literatures on organizational
studies in the financial sector. In the ICOS website, there were a lot of topics and
subtopics listed, and under each subtopic, there was a fairly good reading list, with
reviews by students and faculty. However, the topic she had in mind was not really
covered, so she sought help from the librarian in the Business School.
After getting a list of articles relevant to the preliminary topic she had decided upon, she
uploaded them onto the ICOS website for others to share and review. Indeed, some
readings were already commented, so those comments were pulled from the database
to appear under her list, although not all comments were useful for her topic.
Proceeding with her paper, Liza reviewed the reading list one by one to see if she can
refine or redefine the topic for her paper. At this point, she thought talk discussing this
with other people (students and faculty) would be useful. She logs on to ICOS website
again to go to the community section, and posted a request for help in reviewing her
topic question. She did get some response from other community members—some
from other countries; some even suggested her more relevant articles to read. At the
same time, she was also able to talk to a few fellow students whom she managed to
catch after class, and with the ICOS instructors. She was very happy with the response
and eventually got to refine her questions.
At the same time, she also wanted to subscribe to the news feeds (RSS) on topics
related to organizational studies, but it was tough to locate one. Other topics did have
RSS feeds, but for hers, she had to do it almost from scratch, but she didn’t mind doing
it as she thought it would be useful for others later on.
After receiving feedback from the ICOS Co-Director/Instructor on the topic she has
chosen, she proceeded to write her first draft of the paper. Throughout the research and
writing process, she posted questions and solicited ideas about her topic, and many
members were willing to offer her some input. She was always aware of the code of
conduct and plagiarism, and she was also reminded by others on the online discussion
forum on ICOS. At the end, she managed to complete her paper, and in the process
discovered a treasure trove in terms of materials in organizational studies that exist
within the community’s collective repository.
moved to Europe around 8 years ago after her divorce, in search of a better, peaceful
life. She wanted to forget about her past life and hoped to start a new one afresh in
France, while enjoying an equally exciting and challenging phase in her career. The
INSEAD job offer had seemed perfect and she has been enjoying her high profile
professional life all the same. All the same, she is a die-hard American deep inside, and
she misses everything about her country. She looks forward to official trips that take her
to the USA once in a while.
Jane had always been a Michigan girl. Having been born and brought up in Dexter, she
went on to do her undergraduate as well as graduate studies at the University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor. Recently, her book titled “Working Identity: Unconventional
Strategies for Reinventing Your Career” has been published, and in the first week of its
release it has proved to be quite a success within related domains. Her publishers have
requested her to make a trip to a few cities in the USA to promote this book. It is around
this time that she has heard from Dr. Mike Sonors an old college friend of hers. Dr.
Sonors is now a professor at the Ross School of Business, University of Michigan, Ann
Arbor. In his email Dr. Sonors introduced her to ICOS, an organization within the
University with the goal of enhancing the Michigan's strength as a world center for
interdisciplinary research and scholarship on organizations. Jane has been cordially
invited by the ICOS Co-Directors to give a talk on her newly published book.
Jane is quite excited at the prospect of delivering a talk at her alma mater. She quickly
opens up the link to the ICOS site provided to her in the email, eager to find out what
ICOS is really about. The site opens up to a rather contemporary looking page, with a
paragraph describing the intrinsic goal of the organization. The front page also has
details about a featured speaker of the coming week. She checks out the speaker’s
profile and is quite impressed to learn that this organization woos scholars and
researchers of high standing. Next, Jane wants to find out a bit more about the people
involved in this organization. She looks for an appropriate link on the header bar of the
page, and clicks on the “About Us” link.
Having navigated through the site for some time, Jane now has a decent idea about the
organization. However, she is still not sure if she will be able to fit in this invitation in her
schedule. She recalls Dr. Sonors had written about some feature on the website that
can show her a schedule of speakers for the coming 6 months, so that she may be able
to decide when she can make it to the lecture. Nevertheless, this entails a significant
process change.
Jane goes back to her inbox, and realizes that she has received another mail from the
organization’s coordinator. In this mail, she found a link to an already set up account for
herself on the ICOS site. She followed the link and logged in with the account login
information she was provided with in the second email. Here, she found a schedule that
showed her the days in the next 6 months, when slots for lectures were available. Jane
checked up with her personal schedule and found that she could have two options for
scheduling this lecture at ICOS during her 10 day trip to the USA. For one of the
optional days, she noticed that Dr P.C. Kanha was scheduled to deliver his speech right
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 15
before the slot she had in mind. Nevertheless, this also entails a significant process
change, and due to the timing, may be unlikely..
Dr. Kanha has been one of Jane’s favorite authors on Social Psychology. She had
always dreamt of meeting him someday and be able to exchange some thoughts and
ideas. Jane was now quite sure about which day she would choose for her lecture.
Excited, she clicked on the slot right after Dr. Kanha’s. She followed the step by step
instructions to confirm her visit, uploaded her photograph of herself to be displayed on
the ICOS website, and was rather glad to hit on the “Submit” button at the end of it. She
soon got a confirmation email for her visit. The thought of going back to her old school
after years, while being able to meet with one of her idols brought a smile to her face.
Dr. Keith Simons, 55, is a Distinguished University Professor of Law and Sociology at
the University of Michigan Ann Arbor. He leads a happily married life with Susan and
has two teenage daughters. He is a family man, who likes to lead a modest, comfortable
life with his near and dear ones. Till about four years ago, the Simons family lived in
Cambridge, MA, where Susan was a professor of Biology at MIT, and Keith taught at
the Department of Sociology. A few years ago Susan received a lucrative offer from the
Department of Microbiology and Immunology at U of M, to further expand her ongoing
research on “Enterococcal plasmids”. Being a supportive husband, Keith encouraged
his wife to take up this wonderful job opportunity and thus the family moved to Ann
Arbor. Keith was able to get associated with the Law School and the LSA (The College
of Literature, Science, and the Arts) and has been a faculty at the U of M since then. He
has been actively involved with ICOS as a Faculty member. He is also a professor of
the OS (Organizational Studies) Program, offered to undergrad students by the LSA.
It is that time of the year when the LSA receives applications from undergrad students
for the OS Program. Dr. Simons is one of the key persons on the selection committee.
Since last year around this time, Dr. Simons has been observed that the number of
applications received for this program is not up to their expectations (never happened,
but likely still). The deadline for this year is soon approaching; however the number of
applications received by now clearly indicates a dearth of awareness for this program.
Simons feels that the ICOS website can be effectively be used to spread the word about
the OS Program across, since a significant number of undergraduates interested in
Organizational studies and related subjects may visit the ICOS site and/or attend the
ICOS seminars.
Dr. Simons goes to the ICOS website and logs in with his username and password. He
looks for the “Edit my profile” button on the left menu bar and clicks on the same. Next,
he finds a lot many types of functionality which he can use to edit his details, upload
files, post links etc. Dr. Simons decides to include a prominent link to the OS Program
SI 631 W/08 ICOS Web Project 16
on his profile. On his profile page, he also decides to highlight the fact he is a teaching
faculty of the OS Program at the LSA.
Having saved the changes he made to his profile, Keith finds himself surfing the website
with no particular goal in mind. He peruses through some of the other faculty profiles
listed above and below his profile on the site. During the course of this aimless surfing,
Dr. Simons comes upon the profile of one Dr. Louis Berger, a faculty at the Department
of Psychology. A small tag next to Dr. Berger’s profile link says “new”, that intuitively
tells the user that he is a new faculty member of ICOS. Keith follows the link inquisitively,
and learns that Dr. Berger is currently working on a research that deals with
“victimization in organizations, focusing in particular on how those experiences intersect
with gender”. This subject instantly engages Keith in deep thought. He realizes that he
had often mused on those lines, but had never really given his thoughts any concrete
form. Dr. Simons then decides to introduce himself to Dr. Berger at the next ICOS
seminar and have a chat with him about mutual interests.
David, 34, lives and works in nearby Detroit, where he is a Human Resources Executive
in one of the major automotive companies. He enjoys living in the Detroit area, as he’s a
big music fan, and all the major tours stop in Detroit. While David is unmarried, he’s
been thinking about asking out a woman he met at the last concert he went to. Even
though working in HR isn’t the most exciting job, he enjoys it and hopes it leads to
further advancement in the future.
While having lunch together, one of David’s fellow HR managers tells him about a paper
he just read dealing with a new way of organizing work groups within a company
structure. Curious, David looks up the author, whose website states that the author will
be presenting at an upcoming ICOS lecture. This leads David to the ICOS website,
where he notes the scheduled date for the author’s appearance, and the topic of his
presentation. After reading a bit of the attached paper, he decides it could be interesting
to see the presentation.
While visiting the site, David is interested to see what the past topics have been.
Looking through the archives, several of the paper titles catch his eye. After reading
some of the comments made by other users, he makes a note to come back and peruse
the papers and download the recordings of the presentations. Some of them looked
quite interesting, but he doesn’t have time to read them right now.
As he is about to leave the site, David spots an RSS feed logo on the site, and decides
it might be a good idea to be kept informed of upcoming speakers. After adding the feed
address to Google Reader, David marks his calendar with the date of the upcoming
presentation by the author he was interested in hearing.
Team-ICOS
Jonathan Cohen
Anindita De
Nik Rozaidi Rashid
Benjamin Worrel
CONTENT TYPES................................................................................................................................1
TAXONOMY ......................................................................................................................................3
SITE NAVIGATION .............................................................................................................................4
CONTENT TYPES
The site will include the following content types. All content types include a brief description
and are further divided into sub content types as listed below. Additional fields are specified
below.
USER PROFILE
• Name
• Email
• Photograph
• Affiliations
• Interests / Research (tags)
• Expertise (tags)
• Courses taken (tags)
• ICOS Subgroups
• Mailing lists associated with (linked to mailing list)
• Personal blog (linked to blog)
BLOGS
• Blog author (link to user profile)
• Blog URL
• Blog classification – group, student, faculty
• Blog entry date
• Blog entry title & description
• Blog tags / category
LECTURE
• Start Date
• End Date
• Title of Lecture
• Venue
• Lecture Promo Description
• Name of Speaker
• Speaker’s Photo
• Speaker’s Homepage
• Speaker’s Affiliation
• Background reading papers
• Screencast Recording
• Tags
SPONSORS
• Name of sponsor school
• Description of sponsor school
• Courses offered (related to ICOS)
• Course description
• Faculty members
• Link to faculty profile
COURSES
• Name of School
• Course title
• Course code
• Course description
• Course tags
• Faculty / Resource persons (link to user profile)
• List of relevant reading materials
From our interviews and research, we envision the need for four vocabularies:
topics/interests, courses & departments, and qualitative ratings.
The topics/interests vocabulary would allow user controlled, free tagging. While we plan to
let users create any tags they wish, content managers may pre load the vocabulary with a
set of terms likely to be used by the site users. This will allow ICOS to reinforce the intended
use of this particular vocabulary, which is to tie together numerous content types together
by topic. Users will be able to tag their own profiles, lecture recordings, blog posts, linked
courses, etc with the topical tags. This will allow other members to quickly and efficiently
find related content or other users with similar interests.
A courses vocabulary is intended to relate the site content to courses affiliated with or
related to ICOS. Throughout the University there are numerous courses that have content
which could be of interest to the ICOS community. Students in particular have interest in
finding useful courses. In addition to tagging their own user profiles with courses that they
have taken, users will be able to tag content on the site with course names. Student will
then be able to find which courses they should look into based on a recording of an ICOS
lecture or a user’s listed interests. To help with consistency of tagging, we intend to provide
examples of a standardized format, such as using the department/course number (e.g. SI
631).
While these vocabularies give site users a great deal of freedom in tagging content, we
believe that the user community is invested enough to be responsible taggers. If for some
reason this wasn’t the case, some form of moderation could be implemented. Implementing
an auto-complete aid while entering tags would increase consistency when entering tags by
reducing different versions of tags (singular/plural, capitalizations, etc). Additionally, we
intend to place a tag cloud in a sidebar beneath the main navigation menu. Not only will this
highlight commonly used tags, but also it will allow users to find content by topic rather
than a traditional hierarchical tree.
This document provides a look inside our development process. It does not represent a final
configuration. Some, but not all of the design strategies and features will be available in the
iteration we deliver at the end of this semester.
The paper prototype home page in this document is designed with the goal of fast access to
a rich history of 200+ lecture recordings, upcoming events, member information, and
making vibrant community activity visible. The home page also hopes to foster exploration,
discovery, and serendipitous connections between members. Member content is
prominently displayed to encourage collaboration, participation, and the sharing of ideas.
• Pretty Rotating Image – Displays a random community highlight from a library of image
files. The image changes on each page load or refresh.
• Navigation – Links are grouped into three categories: Administrative, Content, and
Resources.
o Administrative – Home directs to this landing page, About/Contact includes
information from the current page “ICOS Abbreviated”, and Schedule/Syllabus
includes current course information, the event calendar, and access to past ICOS
seminar syllabi.
o Content – Seminar Recordings directs to the existing archive of past ICOS
seminars, Blog Directory directs to a list of group and individual blogs, and
People Directory directs to a list of member profiles and filter options (faculty,
student, speaker, guest, etc.)
o Resources – Find Related Courses directs to a tag cloud of course titles. By
clicking on a course title such as SI 631, visitors will see a list of other courses
that members enrolled in who took that course. Sponsors directs to a page of
affiliated departments. Seminars of Interest directs to content adapted from the
original ICOS page of the same title. Mailing List directs to a page that offers
notification options.
• Spotlight Recording – Displays a link to download a random seminar recording from the
archive. With over 200 recordings and growing, this feature should help people become
more aware of the wealth of content ICOS has to offer and a decade’s worth of history.
• Most Recent Recording – Displays a link to download the most recent seminar recording
uploaded to the archive. This feature should help people quickly find a recent seminar
recording, as well as help acclimate newcomers and prospective speakers.
• Tag Cloud (Popular Tags) – Displays recent tags across all content: blog articles, related
courses, seminar recordings, etc. Clicking on a tag directs to a list of related items, which
should help visitors discover content. Frequent tags are represented with larger font
sizes.
• All Blog Posts – Aggregates posts from all group and individual blogs to give visitors and
members a quick view into the pulse of the community.
• Top Contributors – Displays a list of members who participated the most during a recent
timeframe. This may help give members an incentive to tag seminar recordings and
related courses, as well as create blog posts and other content.
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• Groups
community Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
Submit
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• Groups
• People Directory
• Blogs
Popular Tags
blogs community
communication
computers research
information
Popular Tags
blogs community
communication
computers research
information
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• Groups Status
• People Directory • Blocked Upcoming Events
• Blogs • Active
Lecture on Online
Communities (Friday,
Groups STEP 7
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
• ICOS Student
• Researcher Approve Tuesday (Feb 15)
blogs community • Speaker Dissertation defense
communication
• Unaffiliated member
computers research
• ICOS Administrator
information
Update
Update
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
Post comment
Tag searching:
Researcher tries to locate people; look for
courses with similar tags
Student looking for recommended courses;
• Groups
Lecture on Drupal CMS Lecture on Regulating Online
• People Directory (Friday, Feb 1, 2008) Behavior (Friday, Jan 8, 2007)
Upcoming Events
• Blogs
Lecture on Online
See discussion
Communities (Friday,
See recording
Popular Tags Feb 8, 2008)
1) Site Director- i.e., super-admin, can create and remove Site Coordinator privileges.
4) Contributors (Group Managers) – Same as contributors – but these roles manage groups.
Please see the next page for tables that list Read and Create/Update/Delete privileges by
intended action. Note: These controls represent the intended default state for initial
deployment at the end of the Winter 2008 semester.
Following the tables are draft workflow charts for adding, categorizing, and removing each
content type.
Lecture Recordings, Schedule / Calendar, Sponsors, Syllabus, Blog (Individual and Group),
Comments, Profiles, Tags, Related Events, About / Contact, Groups (Content), Groups (Admin),
Groups (Mail), RSS Subscriptions, Access Control (User), Access Control (Site Coordinator), Static
Pages, Announcements, People Directory
SI 631 Deliverable 4
Coordinator and
Co-Directors
collaborate to write
About text
Coordinator
browses to site
admin node
Coordinator
browses to
content
management
Coordinator
browses to
content
Coordinator
browses to
About
Coordinator
Coordinator
updates
updates ICOS
contact
description
information
Coordinator
saves updated
content.
Access Control
ICOS - Workflow
Co-Director Coordinator
browses to browses to
Administer -> User Administer ->
Management -> User Management
Access Control -> Access Control
Co-Director changes
Coordinator changes
user permissions
user permissions
from and to
from and to Member
Coordinator,
and Faculty
Member, Faculty
Co-Director or
Coordinator
saves new
access controls.
Announcements
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator or
Admin browses to
Create Content
Click
“Announcement”
Add text,
expiration date
Save content
To update,
browse to
announcement,
click “edit” tab.
Save or delete
content
Blog Post
ICOS - Workflow
Author
browses to
My Content
Author creates
a new blog
post
Author writes
content.
Content Coordinator
appears receives alert
without
approval
Content Coordinator
updates deletes blog
without post
approval
Comment
ICOS - Workflow
Author Author
Author
browses to a browses to a
browses to a
lecture speaker’s
blog post
recording paper.
Author creates
a new
comment
Author writes
comment
Comment
appears Coordinator
without receives alert
approval
Comment
Coordinator
updates
deletes
without
comment
approval
Groups (Admin)
ICOS - Workflow
Member
navigates to
My Account
Member
navigates to
Groups
Member
creates a
Group
Group appears
Group remains
on public
restricted to
directory
invited
without
members
approval
Coordinator
receives alert
about group
creation
Groups (Content)
ICOS - Workflow
Member
navigates to
My Groups
Member
navigates to
desired Group
Author writes
content.
Content Coordinator
appears receives alert
without
approval
Content Coordinator
updates deletes
without group blog
approval post or
comment.
Groups - Invites
ICOS - Workflow
Group creator
Coordinator
browses to
browses to
group admin
groups node
node
Group creator
Coordinator
updates an
creates a new
existing mailing
mailing list
list
Coordinator or
Coordinator or
Group Creator
Group Creator
invites
adds members
members
Member
receives mail
alert
Member participates
or unsubscribes
Lecture Recording
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator
receives a
recording file from
the Co-Director
Coordinator
browses to
Create Content
Coordinator
creates a new
lecture content
item
Coordinator
uploads the
recording file to
the site.
Coordinator
publishes the
recording to the
site.
Coordinator links
recording to the
event node.
People Directory
ICOS - Workflow
Member,
Coordinator,
Administrator
browses to
People Directory
Member,
Coordinator,
Administrator
may opt to
browse by role.
Member,
Coordinator,
Administrator
may opt to sort
by name,
username, city,
or affiliation.
Member,
Coordinator,
Administrator
may browse to
profile.
Profile Management
ICOS - Workflow
Logged-in
member browses
to Account
Management
Logged-in
member
browses to Edit
Profile
Coordinator
deletes
Member photo or
publishes text
content
Content
appears Coordinator applies his/her
without subjective criteria to judge if
approval photo or text is profane; if he/she
judges as inappropriate:
Coordinator
Faculty member
updates courses
browses to edit
in “Related
profile
Courses”
Faculty member
adds course to
“Related courses
I’m teaching”
Content
appears
without
Coordinator
approval
Coordinator
removes
outdated
courses at his/
her discretion
RSS Subscription
ICOS - Workflow
Member clicks
syndicate content
icon for specific
item of interest
Browser
parses feed
information
Browser loads
subscription URL
into user’s RSS
reader
Member confirms
subscription
Schedule / Calendar
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator
receives speaker
confirmation
Coordinator
browses to
Create Content
Coordinator
browses to
Event
Coordinator
submits new
event
Seminars / Events of Interest
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator receives
notice regarding non-
ICOS seminar or event
of interest
Coordinator requests
approval from Co-
Directors to add new
content to seminar/
event interest block.
Coordinator
receives
approval
Coordinator
browses to
Create
Content
Coordinator
browses to
Seminar of
Interest
Coordinator adds
information to seminar/
event interest block
Coordinator receives
Coordinator publishes
updated event/
information
seminar information
Coordinator changes
relevant listing
Speaker Availability
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator
receives email
with speaker’s
available times
Coordinator
browses to site
admin node (by
module)
Faculty reserve
Coordinator
meeting times
adds speaker’s
by checking
available times
desired slot
Coordinator
mails interested Previously
faculty available slot is
automatically
Coordinator removed to
receives prevent potential
automatic email conflict
Faculty receive alert
mail
Interested
faculty browse
to ICOS site
and log in
Faculty browse
to Speaker Coordinator
Availability notifies speaker
menu item
Sponsor Information
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator
receives mail from
a sponsor contact
with
organizational
information
Coordinator
browses to
Create
Content
Coordinator Coordinator
enters uploads
information organization
into fields images
Coordinator
publishes
sponsor
content
Static Page
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator or
Admin browses to
Create Content
Click “Page”
Saves content
To update,
browse to page,
click “edit” tab
Save or delete
content
Syllabus
ICOS - Workflow
Coordinator
receives new
syllabus from
Co-Directors
Coordinator
browses to
Create
Content
Coordinator
creates a new
syllabus page
Coordinator
enters syllabus
information
Coordinator
publishes new
syllabus
Coordinator
browses to
Administer ->
Site Building ->
URL Aliases
Coordinator
changes paths to
current syllabus
(e.g., /fall08 to /
winter09
Coordinator
adds path to
previous
syllabus in
archive
Taxonomy
ICOS - Workflow
Member tags
content
Member
browses to My
Account Member mails
Coordinator
with alert
Member
browses to My
Tags Coordinator applies his/her
subjective criteria to judge if tag
is profane; if he/she judges as
inappropriate:
Member
updates or
deletes tag.
Coordinator
deletes tag
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
This document lists the various Drupal modules that our team has installed on the new ICOS website. A
set of basic core modules that have enabled on our site have been listed under the title “ Core Modules”
or “Core-optional”. The modules that were downloaded separately from the Drupal site and enabled on
our ICOS site have been labeled as the “Non- Core”. These were installed on the site by the site
administrators to achieve various kinds of functionality to the site.
We have presented the modules used in terms of the overarching functions they contribute towards.
Below is a list of the same.
Categorization of content
• Taxonomy (Core-optional): The taxonomy module allows one to classify content into categories
and subcategories; it allows multiple lists of categories for classification (controlled
vocabularies) and offers the possibility of creating thesauri (controlled vocabularies that indicate
the relationship of terms), taxonomies (controlled vocabularies where relationships are
indicated hierarchically), and free vocabularies where terms, or tags, are defined during content
creation.
For example on the site, we have defined “Courses” as a vocabulary term, with its type as
“Faculty Details” and “Student Details”. The purpose of the vocabulary term “Courses” is to list
courses related to ICOS. Thus on the nodes of type “Faculty Details” and “Student Details” this
vocabulary term will be offered.
1
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
• Content Taxonomy options (Non-core): This module defines an option widget type for
content_taxonomy for selects, radios/checkboxes.
For example, let us suppose we have created an email field with the name “Email”. To ensure
that a user enters only an email into the field in an email format, we choose fieldwidget type
as Email textfield and choose the following options to mould the email textfield. Here the
size of texfield has been set to 60 characters.
2
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
The example below shows a registration instance, which asks the user his choice of
membership type ie Faculty, Student or Friend. If the user chooses “Faculty” as his
membership type he will be guided to a registration page for a faculty that will ask
him(among other things) to fill into the “Courses I teach” textfield. Whereas, if the user
chooses to have a Student account, he will be asked to fill up a “Courses I have taken”
textfield.
• Logintoboggan (Non-core): This module offers several modifications of the Drupal login
system in an external module by offering the following features and usability improvements,
like allowing users to login using either their username OR their e-mail address etc.
3
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
The layout of a user profile shown below is the result of using the Panels module
For example, with the help of this module we defined the size of the pictures that will be
displayed in the view of user profile and next lectures, such that irrespective of the size of the
picture that the user uploads, the picture ultimately displayed will be of uniform size and
dimensions.
• Automatic Node Title (Non-core): This module allows hiding of the node title field and
automatic title creation. To prevent empty node title fields it sets the title to the content
type name or to a configurable string.
4
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
Create/customize Profiles
• Advanced Profile (Non-core):: The Advanced Profile module uses Panels 2 to display
customized user information on the user view tab. The information is taken from
nodeprofile, the core profile module.
• Node Profile (Non-core): This module builds user profiles as nodes, which opens the
opportunity to use the Content Construction Kit (CCK). So it's possible to make use of the
field types, which are available for CCK.
For example in the screenshot below we can see that for the profile of a user with username
mpatrick, a new node has been created. Thus, at the end of the URL the users’s username is
added and this makes a separate node for his profile.
We made use of this module to be able to upload images of speakers, as well be allow users to
upload their pictures in their profiles
5
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
• Comments (Core-optional): This module allows users to comment on and discuss published
content
• Tagadelic (Non-core): has been discussed earlier under Define categorization of content
6
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
• Faceted search (Non-core): The Faceted Search module provides a search API and a search
interface for allowing users to browse content in such a way that they can rapidly get
acquainted with the scope and nature of the content, and never feel lost in the data. More than
a search interface, this is an information navigation and discovery tool.
The main reason for us using this module was to enable search within the CCK fields as well,
something that the Search module was not being able to do.
7
SI631 Deliverable 5 ICOS
Groups management
• Organic groups (Non-core): This module enables users to create and manage their own 'groups'.
On the ICOS website we have implemented “groups” in such a way that members may be able to
create groups constituting other members with a common interest. These groups can then be
given different mailing addresses, subscribers may be allowed to post blogs on these groups etc.
• Organic groups mandatory group (Non-core): This module makes one group mandatory for new
users and/or requires new users to pick a group.
On the ICOS site, we have made the ICOS main group as the mandatory group that every
registered member automatically subscribes to.
Other modules:
• Menu (Core-optional): Allows administrators to customize the site
navigation menu
Beside are two menus on the site, which have been placed in the left
sidebar
• Pathauto (non-core): Provides a mechanism for modules to automatically generate aliases for
the content they manage.
• Views (Non-core): The views module creates customized views of node lists. This tool is
essentially a smart query builder that, given enough information, can build the proper query,
execute it, and display the results.