Content Management in Ruby on Rails

Web development is currently driven by model-view-controller (MVC) frameworks. How has content management adapted to this scenario? This paper reviews content management features in Ruby on Rails framework and its most popular plug-ins. These features are distributed among the different layers of the MVC architecture

Facilitating intuitive-guided learning in a serious game through integration with a learning content management system

Increased global uptake of entertainment gaming has the potential to lead to high expectations of engagement and interactivity from users of technology-enhanced learning environments. Blended approaches to implementing game-based learning as part of distance or technology-enhanced education have led to demonstrations of the benefits they might bring, allowing learners to interact with immersive technologies as part of a broader, structured learning experience. In this article, we explore how the integration of a serious game can be extended to a learning content management system (LCMS) to support a blended and holistic approach, described as an 'intuitive-guided' method. Through a case study within the EU-Funded Adaptive Learning via Intuitive/Interactive, Collaborative and Emotional Systems (ALICE) project, a technical integration of a gaming engine with a proprietary LCMS is demonstrated, building upon earlier work and demonstrating how this approach might be realized. In particular, how this method can support an intuitive-guided approach to learning is considered, whereby the learner is given the potential to explore a non-linear environment whilst scaffolding and blending provide guidance ensuring targeted learning objectives are met. Through an evaluation of the developed prototype with 32 students aged 14-16 across two Italian schools, a varied response from learners is observed, coupled with a positive reception from tutors. The study demonstrates that challenges remain in providing high-fidelity content in a classroom environment, particularly as an increasing gap in technology availability between leisure and school times emerges.

Band manager - Ett Content Management System för musikbranchaktörer

Summit Music Management är ett managementföretag som arbetar med en rad svenska artister. I deras arbetsuppgifter ingår även hantering av artisternas webbplatser, ett arbete som visat sig vara säkerhetskänsligt och svårt att få klart. Målet med projektet har varit att utveckla ett Content Management System för aktörer inom musikbranschen, vars syfte det är att förenkla det dagliga arbetet av dessa webbplatser. Systemet ska innehålla funktionalitet som gör det möjligt att skapa webbplatser åt artisterna samtidigt som det ska gå att underhålla och uppdatera textmaterial såväl som bilder som finns på webbplatserna. Systemet har skapats med tekniker, språk och ramverk som finns tillgängliga under fria licensavtal. Systemets grund är skapat med PHP-ramverket Laravel tillsammans med HTML, CSS och Twitter Bootstrap. Denna del fungerar som gränssnitt för administratörer där användaren kan logga in och skapa webbplatser. De webb-platser som skapas av systemet är skrivna i AngularJS tillsammans med HTML, CSS och Twitter Bootstrap. Mellan dessa delar finns ett REST-api skrivet i Laravel som sköter kommunikationen mellan komponenterna. Systemet arbetar mot en MySQL-databas där all data lagras och hämtas ifrån. Summit Music Management har förutom att leverera text- och bildmaterial, även fungerat somtestpanel för att kunna mäta systemets användbarhet. Testerna visade att systemet kan möta de behov som finns hos Summit Music Management men att det kan komma att behöva vidareutvecklas för att bättre passa en större kundgrupp och för att strama åt säkerhetsaspekterna ytterligare.

A gestão da informação sob a luz do Enterprise Content Management (ECM): um estudo de caso em uma universidade pública

This work involves the organization and content perspectives on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) framework. The case study at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte was based on ECM model to analyse the information management provided by the three main administrative systems: The Integrated Management of Academic Activities (SIGAA), Integrated System of Inheritance, and Contracts Administration (SIPAC) and the Integrated System for Administration and Human Resources (SIGRH). A case study protocol was designed to provide greater reliability to research process. Four propositions were examined in order to reach the specific objectives of identification and evaluation of ECM components from UFRN perspective. The preliminary phase provided the guidelines for the data collection. In total, 75 individuals were interviewed. Interviews with four managers directly involved on systems design were recorded (average duration of 90 minutes). The 70 remaining individuals were approached in random way in UFRN s units, including teachers, administrative-technical employees and students. The results showed the presence of many ECM elements in the management of UFRN administrative information. The technological component with higher presence was "management of web content / collaboration". But initiatives of other components (e.g. email and document management) were found and are in continuous improvement. The assessment made use of eQual 4.0 to examine the effectiveness of applications under three factors: usability, quality of information and offered service. In general, the quality offered by the systems was very good and walk side by side with the obtained benefits of ECM strategy adoption in the context of the whole institution

A gestão da informação sob a luz do Enterprise Content Management (ECM): um estudo de caso em uma universidade pública

This work involves the organization and content perspectives on Enterprise Content Management (ECM) framework. The case study at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte was based on ECM model to analyse the information management provided by the three main administrative systems: The Integrated Management of Academic Activities (SIGAA), Integrated System of Inheritance, and Contracts Administration (SIPAC) and the Integrated System for Administration and Human Resources (SIGRH). A case study protocol was designed to provide greater reliability to research process. Four propositions were examined in order to reach the specific objectives of identification and evaluation of ECM components from UFRN perspective. The preliminary phase provided the guidelines for the data collection. In total, 75 individuals were interviewed. Interviews with four managers directly involved on systems design were recorded (average duration of 90 minutes). The 70 remaining individuals were approached in random way in UFRN s units, including teachers, administrative-technical employees and students. The results showed the presence of many ECM elements in the management of UFRN administrative information. The technological component with higher presence was "management of web content / collaboration". But initiatives of other components (e.g. email and document management) were found and are in continuous improvement. The assessment made use of eQual 4.0 to examine the effectiveness of applications under three factors: usability, quality of information and offered service. In general, the quality offered by the systems was very good and walk side by side with the obtained benefits of ECM strategy adoption in the context of the whole institution

Identifying an appropriate content management system to develop clinical practice guidelines: a perspective

Clinical Practice Guidelines are widely used to inform and improve the quality and consistency of clinical practice. Developing and publishing Clinical Practice Guidelines is a complex task involving multiple components. Electronic Content Management Systems are increasingly employed to make this task more manageable. The Content Management System market offers a variety of options for publishing content on the Internet. However, there are limited products that comprehensively address the requirements of publishing Clinical Practice Guidelines. The authors are involved in publishing guidelines for remote clinical practitioners in Australia and present their perspective about identifying an appropriate Content Management System. Several elements essential to addressing their unique editing needs are defined in this article. Unfortunately, customisation is very expensive and laborious: few Content Management System providers can comprehensively meet the needs of Clinical Practice Guidelines publishing. Being pragmatic about the level of functionality a product can offer to support publication is essential.

Mapping IT innovation in Facilities Management

Over the past decade there has been significant growth in the facilities management (FM) sector resulting in a diverse and highly competitive marketplace. This marketplace engages contractors, in-house teams, suppliers, consultants and professional institutions. Many of these organisations have had to innovate to differentiate themselves from competitors. The subject of this paper is facilities management innovation. More specifically, it examines the introduction of information technology (IT) to support such innovations. Our understanding of how such innovations are brought about is scant. The intention of this paper is to examine the motivations and factors which have brought about ‘information system’ innovations in the sector based on an examination of a small but diverse collection of case studies. The study specifically considers the route by which the selected innovations came about and the way in which the innovation has diffused throughout the rest of the organisation. The IT innovations identified in case studies include whole life cost modelling, a content management solution, open book partnering, management information portal (fmNet), RFID technology, and capacity and capability planning. Taken together they characterise a sector that is using IT to codify and standardise information such that useful knowledge becomes widely dispersed.

A peer-to-peer approach to content dissemination and search in collaborative networks

There are three key driving forces behind the development of Internet Content Management Systems (CMS) - a desire to manage the explosion of content, a desire to provide structure and meaning to content in order to make it accessible, and a desire to work collaboratively to manipulate content in some meaningful way. Yet the traditional CMS has been unable to meet the latter of these requirements, often failing to provide sufficient tools for collaboration in a distributed context. Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems are networks in which every node is an equal participant (whether transmitting data, exchanging content, or invoking services) and there is an absence of any centralised administrative or coordinating authorities. P2P systems are inherently more scalable than equivalent client-server implementations as they tend to use resources at the edge of the network much more effectively. This paper details the rationale and design of a P2P middleware for collaborative content management.

e-learning services provision and management

With the rapid development of information technology, learners demand effective personalised learning support, which imposes a new learning paradigm in learning content management. Standards as well as best practice in industry and research community have taken place to address the paradigm shift. With respect to this trend, it is recognised that finding learning content which meet personal learning requirements remains challenging. This paper describes a model of e-learning services provision which integrates the best practice in e-learning and Web services technology so that learning content management is capable of supporting applications of learning services.

High level segmentation of instructional videos based on content density

Automatically partitioning instructional videos into topic sections is a challenging problem in e-learning environments for efficient content management and cataloging. This paper addresses this problem by proposing a novel density function to delineate sections underscored by changes in topics in instructional and training videos. The content density function draws guidance from the observation that topic boundaries coincide with the ebb and flow of the 'density' of content shown in these videos. Based on this function, we propose two methods for high-level segmentation by determining topic boundaries. We study the performance of the two methods on eight training videos, and our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness and robustness of the two proposed high-level segmentation algorithms for learning media.

On the extraction of thematic and dramatic functions of content in educational videos

In this paper, we propose novel computational models for the extraction of high level expressive constructs related to, namely thematic and dramatic functions of the content shown in educational and training videos. Drawing on the existing knowledge of film theory, and media production rules and conventions used by the filmmakers. we hypothesize key aesthetic elements contributing to convey these functions of the content. Computational models to extract them are then formulated and their performance evaluated on a set of ten educational and training videos is presented.

Distributed Repositories for Educational Content

In Part 1 of this article we discussed the need for information quality and the systematic management of learning materials and learning arrangements. Digital repositories, often called Learning Object Repositories (LOR), were introduced as a promising answer to this challenge. We also derived technological and pedagogical requirements for LORs from a concretization of information quality criteria for e-learning technology. This second part presents technical solutions that particularly address the demands of open education movements, which aspire to a global reuse and sharing culture. From this viewpoint, we develop core requirements for scalable network architectures for educational content management. We then present edu-sharing, an advanced example of a network of homogeneous repositories for learning resources, and discuss related technology. We conclude with an outlook in terms of emerging developments towards open and networked system architectures in e-learning.

Dynamic Social and Media Content Syndication for Second Screen

Social networking apps, sites and technologies offer a wide range of opportunities for businesses and developers to exploit the vast amount of information and user-generated content produced through social networking. In addition, the notion of second screen TV usage appears more influential than ever, with viewers continuously seeking further information and deeper engagement while watching their favourite movies or TV shows. In this work, the authors present SAM, an innovative platform that combines social media, content syndication and targets second screen usage to enhance media content provisioning, renovate the interaction with end-users and enrich their experience. SAM incorporates modern technologies and novel features in the areas of content management, dynamic social media, social mining, semantic annotation and multi-device representation to facilitate an advanced business environment for broadcasters, content and metadata providers, and editors to better exploit their assets and increase their revenues.

Strategic and operational risk in an international collaboration agency: a knowledge management solution

The International Cooperation Agency (identified in this article as IDEA) working in Colombia is one of the most important in Colombian society with programs that support gender rights, human rights, justice and peace, scholarships, aboriginal population, youth, afro descendants population, economic development in communities, and environmental development. The identified problem is based on the diversified offer of services, collaboration and social intervention which requires diverse groups of people with multiple agendas, ways to support their mandates, disciplines, and professional competences. Knowledge creation and the growth and sustainability of the organization can be in danger because of a silo culture and the resulting reduced leverage of the separate group capabilities. Organizational memory is generally formed by the tacit knowledge of the organization members, given the value of accumulated experience that this kind of social work implies. Its loss is therefore a strategic and operational risk when most problem interventions rely on direct work in the socio-economic field and living real experiences with communities. The knowledge management solution presented in this article starts first, with the identification of the people and groups concerned and the creation of a knowledge map as a means to strengthen the ties between organizational members; second, by introducing a content management system designed to support the documentation process and knowledge sharing process; and third, introducing a methodology for the adaptation of a Balanced Scorecard based on the knowledge management processes. These three main steps lead to a knowledge management “solution” that has been implemented in the organization, comprising three components: a knowledge management system, training support and promotion of cultural change.