Transcript Leveraging Manila for Learning

Leveraging Manila for
Learning
The Swiss Army Knife of Web
Development for Faculty, Staff
& Students
Presenters

Sean Baker, Web Manager, Computing
Services
– [email protected]

Carol Burritt, Web Specialist, Computing
Services
– [email protected]
Monroe Community College, Rochester NY
The MCC Web Crew

Web Manager - Sean
– team leadership, development, programming, design, Web
infrastructure, R&D, reporting, planning, not shrugging

Web Specialist - Carol
– design, development, programming,
faculty/staff training for Manila

Web Specialist - Bob
– design, development, programming,
primary Lotus Notes developer

Web Specialist (pt) – Dawn
– design, development, programming,
primary liaison to academic departments
The MCC Web Toolkit

Servers
– Apache, IIS, Domino, Frontier, MySQL, Oracle, SQL

Development
– HTML, DHTML, PHP, ASP, Perl, Java, XML, JavaScript,
Lotus Notes, CSS….

Applications
– HTML/Text Editors, DreamWeaver, Lotus Notes &
Notes Designer, Contribute, FrontPage, Flash,
Photoshop, Manila, Contribute
Types of Content
general information
 news
 Web Services for students and employees
 sitelets for individual academic, student
service and administrative areas
 sitelets for college community groups and
special projects
 individual faculty sites

Manila is…
A browser-based tool that allows
authorized users to manage their website,
publish information, edit content, post
images and more with any browser from
any location.
 A tool that allows for access and
functionality limitation through built in
membership and editorial roles features.

Manila is…
A tool with built in collaboration
capabilities through online discussion,
direct email and RSS feeds.
 A tool that provides one touch content
editing control through the “Edit This
Page” button.
 A tool that automatically archives Web site
content and makes it accessible through
links on generated calendars.

Manila is not….
a course management system
 a content management system on the
scale that an institution the size of MCC
requires
 the MCC Intranet
 our primary Web development tool

Where does Manila fit in?

Manila has become the web development
tool for:
– Individual faculty web sites
– Organizational sites for faculty, staff and
student groups
 Faculty Senate
 Student Government
 Faculty Association
 student clubs
Where does Manila fit in?

Manila has become the web development
tool for:
– Sites that meet the needs of special projects
for:
 Group communication and collaboration
 Information dissemination
 Document archiving
 Event promotion
Benefits of Manila for Users

Maintaining a Manila site does not require
knowledge of html coding, or web design
tools such as DreamWeaver or FrontPage
Benefits of Manila for Users

Graphic elements such as digital
photographs and properly formatted
artwork can be saved within the site
structure, and added to web pages.
Benefits of Manila for Users

Many digital file types can be loaded into a
Manila site space, to be accessed by web
site visitors. In Manila, these elements are
called Gems.
– .pdf, Flash, Excel, Word, PowerPoint, audio,
video, zip, and more
Benefits of Manila for Users

Capability for
threaded
discussion is
built into every
Manila site
Benefits of Manila for Users


Participation in
the discussion
is limited to site
members
Email
notification can
be sent to
discussion
participants
whenever new
content is
posted
Benefits of Manila for Users
Through the built in feature of
membership and editorial roles,
functionality and access can be easily
controlled at many levels of a Manila site.
 Roles:

 managing editor
 content editor
 contributing editor
 member
 visitor
Benefits of Manila for Users

Access can be
controlled by role,
group inclusion or
time, right down to
a page level
Benefits of Manila for Users

ability to change the look of the site by
applying a different theme
Byan Bell, Weblogger.com
Benefits of Manila for Users
Once a Manila site is set up, the user can
focus on the content, not the design.
 content that is available in other formats,
such as Word documents can be
incorporated into a Manila site in a
number of ways
 resources can be made available to
anyone with internet access, on a 24/7
basis

Benefits of Manila for Users
Communication tools
Benefits for the Web Team
allows us to promote the use of Web sites
by many individuals and groups, for a
variety of purposes
 many users become comfortable with the
tool with a minimum of instruction
 the Frontier server license includes
frequent automatic upgrades, that provide
useful enhancements and improvements
to the tool

Benefits for the Web Team

Key administrative
functions such as site
creation and upkeep
usage logs, server
maintenance and
upgrades are web
based.
Benefits for the Web Team
both Frontier and Manila are fairly well
documented, making management and
user training easier
 uses technologies that will most likely be
around for the foreseeable future, such as
XML, RSS, CSS
 licensing cost is very attractive

Benefits of Manila

Scalability
"The coolest thing about Manila is that it's as simple or
as deep as you want it to be. Few other Web products
scale well in both directions -- you either wind up with
easy-to-use homepage-building tools that can't handle
dynamic sites, or you have complicated, expensive
content-management platforms that aren't helpful for
beginners or small sites. Manila lets anyone set up an
interactive Weblog quickly and easily, without any
client-side software, but that site can grow into a
sophisticated, high-traffic site on the same platform.”
Kevin Werbach,
Managing Editor of Release 1.0