Forum .LRN Q&A: Curriculum Status Report 2

We're two weeks into the Curriculum project and it's time for another weekly status update.

The work that's been done:

The test demo is set up, and logged-in users have been given admin permission - so now you can all try out the course design part of the package as well. It has been integrated with the Workflow package; the job of creating, editing, and publishing the curriculums is now organized as an inflow process where each such action is carried out by people who have been entrusted to perform the job. No roles have been assigned for the Curriculum instance workflow on the demo site, though - anyone who is logged in is able to perform any workflow task. So do that.

We've now looked over the various aspects of subsite awareness; we decided to treat all URLs outside of the curriculum's subsite as external, even those that are found on the own server (and thereby could have been tracked by the registered filter). This means all these foreign pages will be reached via a clickthrough function and opened in a frame (!). Yes, Carl's suggestion about using frames turned out to be a good one (the boss is always right, of course). Frankly, we were very skeptical of frames, thinking that once within their grasp they're impossible to escape. They aren't. (We won't be framed 😉

To try out the subsite awareness, make sure to visit Another Subsite with a curriculum instance on the demo site. Note: so far only server-external pages will be displayed with frames - subsite-external URLs are not yet recognized as being such, and therefore those pages are currently not having frames - and hence are not being provided with the bar of the curriculum you are following. We'll write the check for subsite-external URLs soon. When testing the demo, don't be afraid to play around with both user and admin pages - make curriculums and take them. And try out different parameters.

Problems encountered:

We were planning on using the grid function of the templating system to have the elements displayed only n numbers per row. This prevents the horizontal curriculum bar from growing to wide when there are many elements. It didn't work, however - it seems you cannot use grid within a multiple... As has been suggested by Michael Feldstein and others, a vertical curriculum bar or menu, for display on either side of the screen, will be provided as a parameterized option to the horizontal bar. Coming up soon.

Outlook for the future:

I figure we've reached a point where we have the basic features in place and "just" need to test them out and spiff them up. This is a job that will be much improved by user feedback. If you guys could help us out detecting weird behavior and getting irritated about Netscape 1.0b incompatibility and stuff, we'd appreciate it. We will incorporate your feedback and generally spend our time:

• Writing dotLRN portlets and applets.
• Analyzing and perfecting queries and caching of data.
• Improving the usability and beauty of the interface.
• Writing user documentation.
• Treating gastric ulcers.

The third week of the Curriculum project has passed, and we're nearing our goal.

The work that's been done:

Our energy has been focused primarily on integrating the Curriculum package with the .LRN environment and on writing user documentation. Ola has written an applet and a portlet, and (despite a bit of resistance) Curriculum is now working fine in .LRN as well. Currently the .LRN HEAD has some noquote-related bugs, however, so it doesn't look as pretty as it will. The integration work was made much easier by our consequent usage of includable lib files (just a tip).

I'm writing the documentation using this structure: Abstract, The Big Picture, User's Guide (Student's Guide + Teacher's Guide), (Site Wide) Administrator's Guide, Developer's Guide, and Future Developments. We were thinking that a help link on the Curriculum index page could lead to the Student's Guide, and a similar one on the Curriculum admin page to the Teacher's Guide.

We've also spent some time fixing little misbehaviors in the user interface. The permission checks weren't quite right in the universal add-view-edit ("ave") script, but now any type of user wanting to make any type of use of this multipurpose ad_form should be served with the right page (and not get a "Security Violation" accusation thrown in her face). Frame behavior, link titles, and other potentially irritating details have been looked over in the process. Carl's Google-style frame functionality and the vertical curriculum bar have been added as well.

The general-purpose bar widget for the toolkit that is on Carl's wish list (and ours) will have to remain on it for the time being. Our budget is limited, and the work must be focused on fulfilling the contracted obligations (which include, apart from Curriculum itself, a fix of File Storage). However, it's hard to picture the next Curriculum version with automatic and conditional sequencing of branched curriculums not having Wolfram's progress percentage meter, so we're definitely interested in implementing it at some point.

Problems encountered:

There was an OpenACS/.LRN incompatibility issue detected when we were trying to set up our subsite-aware package in .LRN; we were expecting a Curriculum instance to exist in an acs-subsite package type, but the .LRN counterpart is called dotlrn. This is a shame, since it means dual platform modules like Curriculum will have to bother about what environment they exist in. The TAB (Don) offered a recommendation of an acceptable solution, and we're working on getting it to work. The problem is to perform a site node check for dotlrn or acs-subsite that won't go bananas when there is no dotlrn package type present.

Outlook for the future:

We're reaching project closing time - time to tie up the bag around the features we have. It's still not too late for you all to give us your valuable input, but please test the package now rather than later. The remainder of the project will be spent:

• Creating a check for whether or not a URL is subsite-external.
• Implementing the many and complex aspects of Workflow.
• Writing and DocBook-formatting user documentation.
• Fixing a patch for virtual URLs in FS/CR.

I added some feedback to the bug tracker. Might have a few minor additions from our group over the next week.

I could not find the "How the users are doing" part from the old version of curriculum? What is the plan on that (being able to see who has or has not completed what and send out bulk mail based on this info is an important part of this package)?

The Curriculum module is completed. Our special thanks go to Carl and the Medical Faculty of Heidelberg for making this happen. Thanks also to Don and the TAB/Core Team for your great assistance. And thanks to all of you community members out there who've been taking an interest in the Curriculum development. It's been a pleasure working with you all.

Curriculum offers teachers a course design tool for setting up online course elements (URLs) in curriculums, and it offers students a navigation and tracking tool for participating in these curriculums. The project has involved:

• Making visited learning elements get checked in the navigation/progress bar - including making external URLs, displayed in frames, get checked via click-through.
• Designing simple but functional user interfaces on admin and index pages, using the Workflow module for managing the administrative/publishing process.
• Providing portlets and applets for .LRN.
• Establishing .LRN as well as OpenACS subsite awareness, accepting one Curriculum instance per subsite (or class).
• Enabling the handling of multiple curriculum sequences per instance/subsite.
• Writing documentation for this first version of Curriculum.

In addition to this work on Curriculum, we've facilitated relative linking of files (AKA virtual URLs) in the File Storage module, making it possible to set up a file structure in an FS folder exactly like the one on your local hard drive and retain the interlinking between the files. This has also involved some changes in the Content Repository, which now templates the text files in the File Storage. If you want to try this out on an existing checkout of HEAD, update (from HEAD) at least the CR and FS packages and make sure to upgrade the CR package first.

The Curriculum package will be officially released with OpenACS 5.0/.LRN 2.0, but until then you'll find it fully functional on HEAD. This code will be reflected in the Curriculum demo, which we'll keep running. As package owners, we'll continue to handle your reported bugs and requests, even though the project per se has come to a close, so please keep your feedback coming.

Again, thanks everybody! Hope you'll enjoy the new features.