I've finally got RC1 up an running except for 1 small bug when the session times out.
I want to start work on the discussion board tool. I've started looking at open source packages that might be a good place to start. So far I've looked at
1)Nemesis
2)Yabb (which is written in Perl)
3) Webforum
Interestingly, the last 2 do not use database backends.
My vision for the discussion boards is to eventually go way beyond the current threaded board to support specific types of academic and learning discourse. For example, boards can be used for critique of papers, debates, discussion of case studies, and brainstorming. They can also be used to support small group work.
Instructors have specific needs:
1) Ability to quickly see summaries of activity by student, by date and by topic
2) Ability to assign student moderators to specific forums
3) Create archives for semester to semester maintenance
4) Create FAQs from discussion board postings
Does anyone have a codebase that they would recommend starting from? This sort of thing has been done in the past and I hate reinventing the wheel.
J
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In 2.1 there is an XML based discussion board that uses Cocoon, no database and not much else. If you get 2.1 its self contained in the discuss folder which is mounted via a Cocoon servlet in web.xml.
The reason we havent updated 2.5 with this yet is that the 2.1 version has some shorcommings.
1. messages are stored in a flat directory structure
2. Moderation workflow is not active
3. Its a bit messy and we would like to tidy it up.
The Discussion servlet takes a DTL for discussion and proesses it into HTML.
The Dicussion DTL has a market in it marking where the Discussion "portlet" should be placed.
The Discussion servlet splits the final html on this marker and places all html before the marker in a request attribute (header) and all after in a request attribute (footer).
The Discussion servlet also a number of other attributes into the request object.
It then creates a ResourceDispatcher to the /discuss url and appends any path info
It then forwards the request, response and session objects via this resource dispatcher.
Cocoon then takes over and performs the Discussion operation (view,newthread,reply,censor etc etc etc). Finally is takes the header and footer and and merges them with the discussion tool output.
The output is returned to the page giving an "integrated" feel.
If you want to port the 2.1 version to 2.5, you can use take the discuss tree, Discussion Servlet and sections from web.xml and move them to 2.5.
After a brief look at your spec, I think that the tool will do everything you want. There is annother sourceforge project which is concerned with this tool , letstalkxml ( xml based messaging with configurable workflow )
Ian
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Just to amplify on LetsTalk. This was inspired by observing the Open University in the UK run a course on e-Moderation for teaching using standard bulletin board functionality and trying the 'rotisserie' project from harvard ( ) and taking the view that a generalised application would have a configurable workflow to control the channeling and publishing of messages. This is what we are trying to build. Conventional discussing just becomes a simple use case in this scenario.
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Also be warned, we did an EJB based version of Yazd (Jive) which is also in CVS. It works fine, but is heavy weight and we found that we couldnt extend it in the way we wanted, so we abandond it. The CVS needs some restructuring to make it clear where to look. (annother thing to do :) )
Ian
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We have now updated the 2.5 CVS with LetsTalkXML discussion board, there are 2 things to wathcout for. The default admin user has the affilication "Staff" not "staff" which causes problems with the moderation workflow, I would suggest that you edit the database to change the afilliation to "staff". All other staff get "staff" by default.
Also make certain that the discuss/messages directory can be written to by the tomcat user, otherwise you will get an redirect loop when creating the first message on an instance.
We will endevour to get this and other fixes out in a RC soon.
Ian
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If you were looking through the web interface, it can take 24 hours to get there. I just looked and they appear to be there. I've also been applying all your fixes to CVS so it should be less painfull to take an update. :)
Ian
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Great. I downloaded the files, copied the discuss directory into the top level of my site. I can see all of the files in the directory view and can get doc/login.xml to display a form, but it keeps returning to that form.
I installed cocoon (although I also noticed the jar file). And I changed the admin affiliation. I also made sure the message folder was accessible to catalina. Am I missing something?
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There are changes to web.xml, jar files, cocoon.xconf logkit.xconf and a number of other areas (eg Discussion.java). I'm not certain that copying the discuss directory will work.
Ian
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This goes direct into the Cocoon application, you should get a view of the threads in the course with the ability to start a new one.
If you get nothing there, I would look in web.xml and set the logging on the Cocoon servlet from WARN to DEBUG, and all the WARN levels in logkit.xconf (in WEB-INF) to DEBUG, then restart the web app, try the same URL and see if you get any output in WEB-INF/logs or the normal coursework or tomcat logs.
If you get complaints about org.apache.xml classes, its likely that you have the wrong xml jars. These need to be placed into common/endorsed/lib , looking at a working instance we have xerces 2.4.0, version 2 of the xmlaplis and xalan 2.5.1. It is highly likely that other versions will also work. I know I just did and install on JDK 1.4.1 and Tomcat 4.1.27 where Cocoon complained about the defaults but accepted the above.
If you see something there, then the problem is with the DiscussionServlet and the disucssion/index.dtl, the If there is a problem with the servlet, it will report something in the log. If the DTL doesnt have some tags in it ( HEADERSTART, HEADEREND, FOOTERSTART, FOOTEREND etc ) if will fail to format correctly.
HTH.
I can send you pdf's of a working system if you need to see what to expect, send me an email on the coursework-help mail list.
Ian
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One question about the system you might choose (and forgive my ignorance.) Will discussion postings still be searchable if the system isn't database-based? Our goal someday is to be able to pull out new-posting figures to a portal and I want to understand all the different ways that may be possible.
Thanks,
Bill Jones
Augsburg College
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Since the board uses a protocol to store the data, you could store it to a xmldb, just by changing the file: to dbxml: in the transforms that safe the messages. Then you could search with XPath. We are also considering integrating lucyne to do search.
Ian
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I've finally got RC1 up an running except for 1 small bug when the session times out.
I want to start work on the discussion board tool. I've started looking at open source packages that might be a good place to start. So far I've looked at
1)Nemesis
2)Yabb (which is written in Perl)
3) Webforum
Interestingly, the last 2 do not use database backends.
My vision for the discussion boards is to eventually go way beyond the current threaded board to support specific types of academic and learning discourse. For example, boards can be used for critique of papers, debates, discussion of case studies, and brainstorming. They can also be used to support small group work.
Instructors have specific needs:
1) Ability to quickly see summaries of activity by student, by date and by topic
2) Ability to assign student moderators to specific forums
3) Create archives for semester to semester maintenance
4) Create FAQs from discussion board postings
Does anyone have a codebase that they would recommend starting from? This sort of thing has been done in the past and I hate reinventing the wheel.
J
In 2.1 there is an XML based discussion board that uses Cocoon, no database and not much else. If you get 2.1 its self contained in the discuss folder which is mounted via a Cocoon servlet in web.xml.
The reason we havent updated 2.5 with this yet is that the 2.1 version has some shorcommings.
1. messages are stored in a flat directory structure
2. Moderation workflow is not active
3. Its a bit messy and we would like to tidy it up.
------------------------------
FYI
Implementation.
----------------
The Discussion servlet takes a DTL for discussion and proesses it into HTML.
The Dicussion DTL has a market in it marking where the Discussion "portlet" should be placed.
The Discussion servlet splits the final html on this marker and places all html before the marker in a request attribute (header) and all after in a request attribute (footer).
The Discussion servlet also a number of other attributes into the request object.
It then creates a ResourceDispatcher to the /discuss url and appends any path info
It then forwards the request, response and session objects via this resource dispatcher.
Cocoon then takes over and performs the Discussion operation (view,newthread,reply,censor etc etc etc). Finally is takes the header and footer and and merges them with the discussion tool output.
The output is returned to the page giving an "integrated" feel.
If you want to port the 2.1 version to 2.5, you can use take the discuss tree, Discussion Servlet and sections from web.xml and move them to 2.5.
After a brief look at your spec, I think that the tool will do everything you want. There is annother sourceforge project which is concerned with this tool , letstalkxml ( xml based messaging with configurable workflow )
Ian
Just to amplify on LetsTalk. This was inspired by observing the Open University in the UK run a course on e-Moderation for teaching using standard bulletin board functionality and trying the 'rotisserie' project from harvard ( ) and taking the view that a generalised application would have a configurable workflow to control the channeling and publishing of messages. This is what we are trying to build. Conventional discussing just becomes a simple use case in this scenario.
Sorry, the url for 'rotisserie' was http://h2o.law.harvard.edu/index.jsp
Do you have a link to the letsTalk project. I can't seem to find it on sourceforge.
Thanks for the pointers.
yes, but, there isnt much there other than the CVS at the moment. We've been concentrating on getting it into a workable standalone version.
its at http://sourceforge.net/projects/lets-talk
Also be warned, we did an EJB based version of Yazd (Jive) which is also in CVS. It works fine, but is heavy weight and we found that we couldnt extend it in the way we wanted, so we abandond it. The CVS needs some restructuring to make it clear where to look. (annother thing to do :) )
Ian
We have now updated the 2.5 CVS with LetsTalkXML discussion board, there are 2 things to wathcout for. The default admin user has the affilication "Staff" not "staff" which causes problems with the moderation workflow, I would suggest that you edit the database to change the afilliation to "staff". All other staff get "staff" by default.
Also make certain that the discuss/messages directory can be written to by the tomcat user, otherwise you will get an redirect loop when creating the first message on an instance.
We will endevour to get this and other fixes out in a RC soon.
Ian
Ian,
I saw the shell directories in web/discuss but didn't see actual files. Am I missing something or have the files not been added yet?
If you were looking through the web interface, it can take 24 hours to get there. I just looked and they appear to be there. I've also been applying all your fixes to CVS so it should be less painfull to take an update. :)
Ian
Great. I downloaded the files, copied the discuss directory into the top level of my site. I can see all of the files in the directory view and can get doc/login.xml to display a form, but it keeps returning to that form.
I installed cocoon (although I also noticed the jar file). And I changed the admin affiliation. I also made sure the message folder was accessible to catalina. Am I missing something?
Did you do
cvs update
ant
There are changes to web.xml, jar files, cocoon.xconf logkit.xconf and a number of other areas (eg Discussion.java). I'm not certain that copying the discuss directory will work.
Ian
Still no joy. I did a complete update, but the discussion admin and user views are still the same.
Am I missing something?
What do you get if you try an access http://server/coursework/discuss/threads
This goes direct into the Cocoon application, you should get a view of the threads in the course with the ability to start a new one.
If you get nothing there, I would look in web.xml and set the logging on the Cocoon servlet from WARN to DEBUG, and all the WARN levels in logkit.xconf (in WEB-INF) to DEBUG, then restart the web app, try the same URL and see if you get any output in WEB-INF/logs or the normal coursework or tomcat logs.
If you get complaints about org.apache.xml classes, its likely that you have the wrong xml jars. These need to be placed into common/endorsed/lib , looking at a working instance we have xerces 2.4.0, version 2 of the xmlaplis and xalan 2.5.1. It is highly likely that other versions will also work. I know I just did and install on JDK 1.4.1 and Tomcat 4.1.27 where Cocoon complained about the defaults but accepted the above.
If you see something there, then the problem is with the DiscussionServlet and the disucssion/index.dtl, the If there is a problem with the servlet, it will report something in the log. If the DTL doesnt have some tags in it ( HEADERSTART, HEADEREND, FOOTERSTART, FOOTEREND etc ) if will fail to format correctly.
HTH.
I can send you pdf's of a working system if you need to see what to expect, send me an email on the coursework-help mail list.
Ian
I'm an idiot. I forgot to update build.xml with the right path when I updated from CVS. I've got it working now.
Thanks for all of your help. This looks great.
One question about the system you might choose (and forgive my ignorance.) Will discussion postings still be searchable if the system isn't database-based? Our goal someday is to be able to pull out new-posting figures to a portal and I want to understand all the different ways that may be possible.
Thanks,
Bill Jones
Augsburg College
Since the board uses a protocol to store the data, you could store it to a xmldb, just by changing the file: to dbxml: in the transforms that safe the messages. Then you could search with XPath. We are also considering integrating lucyne to do search.
Ian