RESOURCES TOOL

Small Changes… Big Impact “Resources” is a robust and powerful Sakai tool capable of managing large amounts of information in an easy and effective manner. However, it lacks pedagogical and user friendly presentation capabilities which  instructors need to present their content in an engaging and meaningful way. 

Currently Resources content is presented in a series of folders - see Image 1. Students need to browse through these folders to access course content with little clue, other than the folder’s title, about what the content is, what it refers to and how it relates to other content. Although Information icons allow students to access descriptions of items, descriptions remain hidden until students click the Information icon, when a pop-up window with the description appears. Descriptions show in plain text and only one description can be displayed at a time which makes this functionality inefficient.

This paper is a call for the addition of three* pieces of functionality to the Resources tool that will enable instructors to easily show page views of their already existing Resources content and to enhance these page views with rich media and links to other Sakai tools.

Page views with rich media will allow instructors to present their content in a more engaging and user-friendly format, which will translate into a quicker and more meaningful access to course content, opening the door for immediate student engagement. Students will no longer need to browse through Resources folders without context, or roll over Information icons to see plain text item descriptions. In addition, the ability to link to other Sakai tools such as Test and Quizzes, Assignments and Forums from within Resources will allow instructors to redirect students in an effective and efficient manner to a location where they can start putting into practice their new knowledge. This flexibility will greatly improve the usability of the Resources tool.

NO CAPABILITY TO LINK TO OTHER TOOLS

ITEMS’ DESCRIPTION FIELDS LACK WYSIWYG EDITOR

STUDENTS ACCESS CONTENT BY BROWSING FOLDERS

Aurora R. Collado

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New Functionality Requirements Three pieces of functionality are required in order to enable instructors to easily create page views with rich media and links to other Sakai tools. These are the ability to:

1) Easily create links from the course menu to Resources folders and other items.

2) Use a Rich Text Editor to easily add rich media and advanced formatting to the content in description fields of Resources items.

3) Link to other Sakai tools from Resources using the “Add Web Link” option.

Image 1: “Egypt's Golden Empire” folder view in Resources.

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Egypt's Golden Empire

Image 2: Page view of the Resources folder “Egypt's Golden Empire”

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Suggested Changes

1) Enable the creation of links from the course menu to Resources folders and other items.*

Using the “Web Content Tool”, it is currently possible to create a direct link from the course menu to a Resources folder of your choice. When that link is clicked Sakai automatically generates a page view (webpage) with the content of that folder. This page view includes any formatted text and embedded rich media entered into folder description fields, as well as web links or links to documents contained within the folder along with their corresponding items' descriptions.

Using direct links to Resources folders is an easy way to have the system generate page views which allow students to see the content of those folders in a webpage format. This greatly improves the student experience and ability to engage and comprehend the content or locate further work to be completed with other Sakai tools.

Image 3: Page view of the Resources folder “Lesson 1:Hieroglyphs and Communication”

Although it is currently possible to create these type of links using the “Web Content” tool, it takes too many steps, which can be confusing and challenging for many users as well as time consuming. Adding functionality within the Resources tool to allow users to easily create links from the course menu to folders or other types of items in Resources will greatly improve users’ ability to generate page views with Resources content.

*Since the first version of this document was written, this functionality has been developed by Oxford University and is now available in Sakai 10.

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2) Enable a Rich Text Editor to easily add rich media and advanced formatting to the content in description fields of Resources items.

Each of the items contained in the Resources tool has a description field. However, the description content remains hidden until the student clicks the information icon, when a pop-up window with the description appears. In addition, only one description can be displayed at a time and the information displays in plain text which makes this functionality impractical. See image 4 (below).

Currently folder description fields can render HTML on page views. However, it is not indicated on the interface, so this capability goes unnoticed. In addition, because of the lack of a Rich Text Editor, only those who can write HTML can take advantage of this capability to format text or embed rich media. Description fields of Resources items other than folders lack the capability to render HTML altogether.

Image 4: Resources folder view with information icons and item description.

Image 5: Page view of the Resources folder shown in image 4. This page view includes a video and a lesson introduction included in the description field of the folder “Lesson 1: Hieroglyphs and Communication”.

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addition

Mockup 1: CK editor addition in Resources item description

3) Enable linking to other Sakai tools from Resources using the “Add Web Links” option.

The “Add Web Links” functionality within Resources allows users to create web links. However, it is not possible to create internal links to activities located in other Sakai tools such as Assignments, Forums, etc.. If added, this capability would allow for a seamless transition between theory and practice. It would also eliminate the need to provide redundant directions and instructions that are time consuming and a source of confusion and late or failed submissions.

Adding a Rich Text Editor to the description field of Resources items is a technically small change that would allow all users to easily add advanced formatting capabilities and rich media to their item descriptions, dramatically increasing the usability of the Resources tool.

Image 6: Page view of the Resources folder “ Lecture 2: Tombs and the Afterlife”.

link to forum

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addition

Mockup 2: Link to other tools through “Add Web Links”

Because the capability to create links to other Sakai tools from the Rich Text Editor is now available in Sakai 10, it would be easy to add that same capability to the “Add Web Links” option, which will give instructors the flexibility to easily place these links where necessary among their already existing Resources content.

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