[support] College Website Migrating to Drupal

[Bill Fitzgerald]

Hello, Jai,

Have you joined the Drupal in Education group over at g.d.o? 
http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education -- lot's of good folks there 
working on similar issues.

Also, we put out a distribution geared toward maintaining a social 
learning space, but it is in need of an overhaul (both to update it to 
D6 and to radically rework the functionality). This will be happening 
over the next few months, but in any case it's more for a 
class/collaborative space than a public-facing web site.

// Shameless plug alert!

I also wrote a book on using Drupal in Education designed for people new 
to Drupal. It's coming out on November 28th, and goes over some module 
selection, and also using CCK, Views, and Organic Groups (among other 
things). For more info on the book, see 
http://www.packtpub.com/drupal-for-education-and-e-learning/book -- from 
this page you can also get to the table of contents for more specifics.
 
// end shameless plug

Cheers,

Bill

Jai wrote:
> Thanks Shai,
>
> I'm taking your suggestion seriously and firstly giving time to the basic
> structure. I am using Druapl 6 here. The most difficult task I am finding
> here is selecting some module of your use out of the great pool of them. I
> visited some case studies provided by some college/universities for their
> drupal implementation and found them quite inspiring.
>
> I liked the idea of distributions in drupal, as the great variety of modules
> available can lead the extensibility of drupal to any point. I was
> wondering, if some work has been done for education distribution also?
>
> -Jai
>
> 2008/11/23 Shai Gluskin <shai at content2zero.com>
>
>   
>> Jai,
>>
>> Good luck -- you are getting great advice here. If taken on quite a
>> big/complex project, especially if you don't have a lot of Drupal
>> experience.
>>
>> Given how complex the project is, I'd recommend developing a plan for
>> functionality roll-out in such a way that you you can launch without the use
>> of Organic Groups. I'm not criticizing OG. Bu it adds significant complexity
>> to the site -- demanding signfificant learning curve for admins and users
>> alike.
>>
>> It would be better, in my opinion, if both you and your users could have
>> more experience with the new site before adding OG. Maybe it is an absolute
>> requirement --- but if not, I think you'll have better luck (and more fun!)
>> adding complexity over time instead of up front.
>>
>> best,
>>
>> Shai
>> Content2zero <http://content2zero.com>
>>     
>
>   


-- 

Bill Fitzgerald
http://funnymonkey.com
FunnyMonkey -- Tools for Teachers
ph. 503 897 7160