Realization of Electronic Textbook By Means Of Drupal Content Management System

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1 Realization of Electronic Textbook By Means Of Drupal Content Management System Ilko Tsonev Iliev Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen Shumen, Bulgaria Svetlana Zhelyazkova Vasileva College - Dobrich Konstantin Preslavsky University of Shumen Dobrich, Bulgaria svetlanaeli@abv.bg Abstract The Content management systems (CMS) automate and facilitate the process of adding and modifying the contents of the Web sites, organization, control and publication of a large number of documents and other content, such as images and multimedia resources. This makes the Content Management Systems attractive for specialists in various fields of human activity who want to publish on the Internet, but have little knowledge in computer programming and web-programming in particular. The article considers some opportunities provided by CMS Drupal for designing and making electronic textbooks. It views an example of electronic textbook on Spreadsheets. Keywords Content management system, electronic textbook, web sites, modules, spreadsheets, tests I. INTRODUCTION Web-based content management systems (CMS) are used for the preservation and publication of documents. The open systems are established, maintained and developed by many developers. Their code is publicly available for reading and editing. This provides greater flexibility, stability, and a variety of additional modules. The possibilities for their functionality are extended. CMS allow creators to be independent of web design companies and be able to update and modify the content of the web sites. Each CMS could be appropriate in some conditions and inappropriate in others. Choosing a CMS should be dictated by the nature and needs of the site for which it is intended. The Content management system Drupal is a mature system with enormous opportunities. It is free, powerful and popular, and is also open. Drupal architecture allows creating various types of web sites, including educational sites. Existing functionality by default can be increased by connecting different extensions - "modules" in the terminology of Drupal. These additions provide a full range of features that make the system very robust and easy to use CMS. All this gives us the right to use CMS Drupal in the field of what is modern teaching activity today and namely creating and realizing e-books and using them in organizing and realizing the e-learning form of education in different degree courses. This paper offers such a form of education for the Spreadsheets practicum. This discipline is studied during the third semester according to the curriculum of "Informatics and Information Technology degree course in College-Dobrich at the University of Shumen. II. FEATURES OF CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS Many authors [1], [2] and others point the following features of the Content management systems: Creation of documents and multimedia materials; Identification of all key users and their roles in the content management; Ability to assign roles and rights of the different users of different types or categories of content; Managing workflow to create content: it is a process of creating cycles of sequential and parallel tasks, which have to be fulfilled in the content management system. For example, if the author of the article content adds something, it is not published until the editor checks it and approves it; Ability to track and manage multiple versions of the same content; Ability to publish content in the data mining and to access it; Automated templates: they are created by the system and can be automatically applied to new or existing content. Their change affects the appearance of all pages of the site; Content, which is edited: immediately after the separation of the content of the visual representation of the site it is generally more susceptible to manipulation and editing. Most CMS include WYSIWYG tools for editing, allowing non-technical staff to create and edit content; This paper is supported by the Project BG051PO00l Building and steady development of PhD students, post-phd and young scientists in the areas of the natural, technical and mathematical sciences. The Project is realized by the financial support of the Operative Program Development of the human resources of the European social found of the European Union. ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 266

2 Simplified adding new capabilities: Most CMS have plug-ins or modules that can be installed easily and can extend the existing functionality of the site; Constant updates. Most CMS usually offer such upgrades incorporating new features and support system with the latest web standards. The advantages of implementation and use of CMS according to [1], [2] and [4] are: Costs reduction of maintenance and site development; Well organized process of content creation; Increased creation of new pages and page updating; Better consistency; Site navigation improvement; Improvement of the flexibility of the site; Maintenance of decentralized content creation; Greater reliability of the developed web sites; Reduction of the doubling of information; Greater possibilities for the site development. III. FUNCTIONS OF CMS DRUPAL One of the most popular content management systems is Drupal. CMS Drupal is a free and very effective system for both the administrator and the user of the website. It s flexible and open source. This allows its easy configuration and setup, convenient for own use. Utilizing the programming language PHP and Drupal API can quickly and easily create a template that meets our criteria for own vision of the site. To act on our own in Drupal, there are PHP functions called hooks. When we want the way we want, we implement of the hook function for which kernel checks first in the files installed in its own theme or module. This is how menus are to built with appropriate levels (heirs) so as to be suitable for our template. The separation of the web page into several sections - "regions" in Drupal terminology becomes from a file with an extension.info that specifies the areas in which a further stage the contents of the site will be distributed. CMS Drupal has enough power and flexibility, allowing us to create a topic that is complex enough. The system offers countless ways to deal with problems that arise, but one needs to know how to work with Drupal themes so to choose the proper way. Knowing the principles of working facilitates future maintenance [6]. IV. CREATION OF ELECTRONIC TEXTBOOK IN SPREADSHEETS BY MEANS OF CMS DRUPAL A. The Practicum of Spreadsheets The main tasks of the practicum are: Introduction of basic notions and the opportunities of the contemporary spreadsheets programs to the students; Acquisition of the main concepts and techniques as well as skills and their application in solving spreadsheet tasks; Development and absorption of the knowledge and skills for creating, processing, formatting and printing spreadsheet documents; Acquisition of knowledge and development of skills for acceleration and automation of separate activities during the work with spreadsheets. The discipline is mandatory and supplies the practical preparation of the students from the speciality of Inormatics and Information Technology (IIT). A practical basis for the practicum is the theoretical discipline of Theoretical bases of Informatics, Programming and the practicums of Integrated environments and applications and Wordprocessing. In the curriculum of the speciality the practicum has a continuation of its own in the mandatory discipline of Databases and applications, which is studied in the fifth semester. As an example of the spreadsheets Microsoft Office Excel is studied. It is used for simplification and automation of complex estimates. Each of the topics from the practice seminars is connected to solving a concrete problem by means of spreadsheet data. The topics are divided into two educative modules by 15 seminars each: I. Spreadsheets (SS) basic concepts and activities. MS Excel. II. Spreadsheet data analysis, optimization of the calculations and exchange of data between the applications. In the first module some knowledge is acquired and some skills for data tables calculations with the help of the modern SS on the basis of one of the most powerful representatives MS Excel are developed. The students are convinced in the richness of the opportunities of the contemporary SS for formatting and processing spreadsheet data and calculations automation. At the end of the first module the IT college students should have acquired and be able to use properly such notions as: cell, entering and editing cell contents; data types in the cells (numbers, texts, formulas, etc.); number formats (number with a fixed comma, exponential format (number with float), percent, number with a monetary sign, common fraction, date, time, and other number presentations); sheets of MS Excel workbook and their use; absolute, relative and mixed addressing of the cells in SS; special copying (with transposition, with addition, with subtraction, only formats, only formulas, etc.); data series; formulas and their entering in the cells of SS, built in functions of SS and their introducing into the formulas; zone protection of cells against change; diagram creation and editing, adding, editing and formatting of elements from the diagrams. In the second module the knowledge about SS is deepened, and more complex tasks are solved: spreadsheet data management such as database (sorting and filtration); creating complex (connected) tables of several sheets in MS Excel work ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 267

3 book; creating table forms with one and two variables, Pivot tables; including program code in the work book for automation of common actions; creating number models with spreadsheets (for solving prognostic tasks, for economy tasks); data exporting data tables in documents from other applications; data import in SS from other applications, etc. B. Electronic Textbook on Spreadsheets The electronic textbook in the discipline is developed in a way similar to the described one in [3]. The electronic type of educative materials gives much greater opportunities for acquisition of the educative material in comparison to the traditional ones. The screen of the monitor shows simultaneously much greater number of elements than the textbook. In fig. 1 the home page of the realized site with textbook on "Spreadsheets" is shown. When choosing a menu from the left or the right panel, a new window appears of the type shown in fig. 2. In the left panel (fig. 2) there are selected educational subjects realized as sub-menus. The content of each theme is shown on the right panel. Fig. 1. Home page of the E-textbook on Spreadsheets The presented E-textbook on Spreadsheets has 9 educational themes. These are detailed exercises that are developed according to [9]. After each theme-exercise there are a number of individual tasks for the students. The template used in creating the site was developed specifically for Drupal version 7.x. and it comes up with a proposal for three different views of the pages. It is envisaged that the use of the module Color in administrative part, allows user who has chosen this theme to set the colors. In the given regions there is a possibility for making an own main menu and an auxiliary one that is placed in the left panel of the page. Large enough field allows incorporation of the teaching material and the chosen module Book for it construction makes navigation between pages easy and convenient. Fig. 2. Home page of E-textbook on Spreadsheets with sub-menus for theme choice The module named Book comes with the core proposed by CMS Drupal for an installation and maintenance of the developed site. It is convenient to create content pages that are related in a sequence. This module creates a set of pages bound together in a hierarchical sequence. Content may be divided into chapters, sections, sub-sections, and so on. The module may be used for textbooks, manuals, guides etc. By default, the module is not activated and becomes available after going to Administration >> Modules (Drupal 7) and check the box to activate it. Then in Administration >> Content (Drupal 7) we can start creating the tree of our new book. Before we read a book, its "hard-copy" the first thing we see is its title, author, there may be brief descriptive notes and a photo that suggests the content itself. Exactly the same way (fig. 1) we organize our electronic textbook to remain almost the same feeling when reading. We put on our "cover" everything except a picture of the page. The completion of the Data has to be done in Administration >> Content (Drupal 7). What have been completed in the Title field later will be used when placing the menu in the navigation area. In the field Body we use Full HTML option to format properly these headers. Below the menu Book outline of the drop-down list we assign values "the creation of a new book" and by thus we are ready with the design of the root and the start of the electronic textbook. As a result of these settings the user sees the page shown in fig. 1. Every new successor under this title can have a link only to one successor and this way it leads to the next page. At the bottom of such pages there is a link to the previous and the next page. It is possible to organize the things in such a way as to have a particular successor that has several successors of its own and thus to make it possible to organize a whole chapter from the book in an independent link which opens this particular unit for a quick reading. This is the way the things in this textbook are organized. The Book module has a block for own navigation and exactly this technique is used in developing electronic book. There is a menu for fast access to individual pages of the handbook. This can be seen in fig. 2. ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 268

4 Fig. 3. A page-theme of the E-textbook The theme-page of the exercise for composing and formatting spreadsheet is shown in fig. 4. Fig. 5 shows pagetheme of the E-textbook with Third exercise for budget schedule composing and formatting. A page of the E-textbook with individual task for income tax calculating is shown in fig. 6. The slogan of the textbook could be seen in fig. 1, 3 and 4 at the top left corner of the window. The purpose of all the time presence of the slogan is to motivate the students to learn SS doing all the exercises and to show initiative in solving more tasks for individual work after each exercise. Fig. 5. Page-theme of the E-textbook with Third exercise for budget schedule composing Fig. 6. Page of the E-textbook with individual task for income tax calculating Fig. 4. Page-theme of the E-textbook with a part of the Second exercise for tables formulation and formatting C. Realization Of Tests With CMS Drupal There are two tests designed for the presented textbook: Test1 and Test2. Test1 is easier and it serves for check up of basic knowledge and skills on spreadsheets. Solving Test2 requires deeper knowledge. Besides, there are some tests designed for each student (who has to draw a variant for the task). Test1 and Test2 are realized by the module QUIZ. The initial page of the E-tests on Spreadsheets is shown in fig. 7. ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 269

5 questions related to the test. A dialogue window of a form for creating and adding questions is shown on fig. 9. Fig. 8. Page with a test question included in Test2 during the solving of the test Fig. 7. The initial page of the electronic tests on Spreadsheets QUIZ is a very strong and well developed module for questionnaires, such as examination, sociological research and many other possibilities. Quiz is not present in the package with the core of Drupal 7 and has to be downloaded and installed separately. After adding, it becomes very powerful tool for conducting off-site/distance examination. The first thing we need to do is to set our questionnaire according to our estimation. We could make thison Administration >> Content >> Add content >> Quiz (Drupal 7). In the open standard format we configure the settings for our test. It is imperative that the Title field focuses on issues in the test. Body part is where with a few words we describe what is to be tested. Following are the various settings specifying how to create our test. For example, the menu Take options has bookmarks: - Allowing (or not allowing) an untimely leaving of the test; - Having the opportunity to skip questions; -Go back; and more. We are able to test with preliminary selected questions or those selected at random from all registered in the database issues. The system can show immediately if the student s answer is correct or not or we can leave it to be checked by the teacher. The menu Result comments is very interesting. It gives us the opportunity to present the percentage of tests and evaluations and comment on the received ones. Pass / fail options menu gives us a threshold above which we give an excellent mark. The retention test now enables us to go to Administration >> Content by clicking the edit of our quiz. In the new form we open menu manage questions and add The creation of the question is entered by selecting the type of the question as shown on fig. 10. It is necessary to administer and tune according to our estimation. For example, if we create Multiple choice question, a form that invites us to begin to formulate questions which will ask opens. Title field Title here is optional, but filling it we get help for distinguishing it from other issues in the administration. The field will not be visible in solving the test. Later we get option for the possible number of answers. Multiple answers checkbox allows multiple correct answers to the question formulated. Further we have the opportunity to choose the number of correct answers. The question prepared in this way is demonstrated on fig. 8. Fig. 9. Adding a question ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 270

6 Fig. 10. Dialogue box for setting the type of the question As all the questions of both tests have 4 answers to choose from, the option Multiple choice question and the additional option Radiobuttons are used. After the test has been solved it is summarized as statistics from the test solving. In fig.11 there is a window with the statistics from the solving of the trial test that appears on the screen. After solving the test the student can check if he/she has given the right answer to each of the questions. In fig. 12 there is a window that shows a completed test with the answers (the correct answers are in green, and the wrong answers are in red). Fig. 12. A page with completed test with the answers The addition of new modules expands the opportunities of this list. Each of these options groups the contents in a certain way and order and makes the pages interactive and dynamic which makes the learner more interested. Fig. 11. A page with statistics from the solving of the test For the realization of the demonstrated site we have to use the module Views as well. It is not part of the standard installation of CMS Drupal 7 and has to be further installed. This is the most used module in Drupal. The views are lists and views of our entire site. This module gives us opportunities to create pages that go beyond the standard configuration of the site. Everything that will be displayed later by our view is divided into parts and we must decide whether to add or ignore any of them. The presentation of the contents in this standard installation of the Views module includes a choice between: - Chart; - Grid; - HTML List; - Jump menu; - Table; - Unformatted list. CONCLUSION More and more people engaged in teaching choose Drupal for creating educational web sites. An example of it is a site for German language learners [8]. The site has a comfortable navigation and blocks for subscription. The author uses the opportunities for their own sending as well. The education which is realized by the described way offers students the opportunity to keep pace with information technology, and helps them to develop innovative thinking. The research and the analysis of the results allow us to set the target of preparing and producing electronic textbooks and other courses on information technology, for example word processing, databases and computer graphics in the curriculum of subjects in our future work. At the site of nasam.be the publication of trial development of electronic textbooks on Informatics and Information technology and on the no-informatics subjects will continue. After successful testing these electronic textbooks will be included in the professional pages of professors who develop them. The work will continue in the field of web-tests development, statistics gathering and a posteriory analysis of the tests. We have developed Visual Basic for Application module for a posteriory analysis of normative didactic tests and now we hope to manage to integrate it together with the electronic tests for full automation of teacher s work. ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 271

7 REFERENCES [1] A review of open source content management systems [2] Drupalbg.org/node/26. [3] E. Nikolova, S. Vasileva and I. Iliev CMS Options For Creating Electronic Textbooks For Agronomical Subjects, unpublished. [4] How to choose a web CMS - CMS- Resources/How-to-choose-a-web-CMS.html [5] Developing themes, [6] Web content management system, [7] Let s make Views in Drupal 7. [8] Deuche language day by day, [9] O. Guseva and N. Mironova, Excel practicum, Finansy and Statstica, Moscow, O. Гусева and Н. Миронова, Практикум по Excel, Финансы и статистика. Москва, ISBN: /13/$ IEEE 272