hoelterhof.net

Some years ago we started developing the Drupal Conference module at the University Duisburg-Essen. This effort grow out of the need to organise a moodle conference. The module was first designed to work with Drupal 4.7. At this time, the only module offering the ability to create customized node types was Flexinode -- today there is Content Construction Kit. Also the Workflow module wasn't there. So this version of Drupal is long ago and things have changed. Of course there is still a need for a simple and tailored module to organise conferences with Drupal. But I would like to encourage opening ones mind that Drupal today offers modules which can be used to construct a similar functionality. Especially if one has requirements not served by the Conference module this can show that Drupal is a very flexible content management system that easily can be customized to different needs. Of course this effort requires more knowledge of Drupal in detail -- or can be a reason to learn it.

I would like to introduce some modules and explain a possible configuration of them to design a Drupal system for organising an academic conference with submissions and a review process:

• Content Construction Kit: This frequently used framework offers the ability to create node types with custom fields. I would propose creating a node type "submission" with a text field for an abstract and a file upload field to submit an article.
• Workflow: With this module node types can be embedded in a process covering a workflow to be done with the nodes of this type. For every state of a workflow one can define user roles with permissions for changing the state to the next state. A workflow for submissions to an academic conference can be made up with the following states: editing a submission, posting a submission, assigning a submission to one or more reviewers, reviewing a submission and done.
• Wokflow Fields: This module extends the Workflow module by enabling individual CCK fields in a workfow state to be be viewable and/or editable to user roles. So I would propose adding several fileds to the node type "submission" for the result of the review process (or: for the results of many review processes). The Workflow Fields module is necessary to hide these fields to the user while the submission is created or reviewed.
• Content Access: One need to consider which users can view and edit submissions. Without any additional node access module, one cant specify individual roles with view/edit access to submissions. I would prefer not to be too restrictive: a role based content access can be sufficient. Within a role based concept, all reviewers can theoretically review all submissions. But it's a different task which submissions are shown to an individual reviewer in his/her workspace. If a reviewer can even edit the submissions not shown in his/her workspace, one may be better prepared for unexpected occurrences like illness. Content Access can be used to configure this node access rules.
• Views: At least one can use the Views framework to build an individual workspace with a to-do list for every reviewer. I would propose adding a user reference field to the submission node type (perhaps as a multivalue field for multiple reviewers) for storing the assignment to the reviewer/s. Then create a to-do list with showing all submissions assigned to the logged in user. A second to-do for the conference organiser is useful showing all posted submissions not assigned yet.
• Consider using the Content Locking module to avoid a submission being edited by two reviewers simultaneously.

Well actually we needn't organise a second conference with Drupal until now. So I have to notice that we neither contribute to the developement of the Conference module any more (thanks to zyxware for doing this job now) nor we tested this drupal configuration with a real conference. But we realized some workflow configurations in Drupal 6 covering similar scenarios. So it's very likely to me that this configuration works.

In den vergangenen Tagen hatte ich die Gelegenheit, die (relativ) neu eingerichtete PC-Hall der Universität Duisburg-Essen zu besichtigen. Dieser Raum ist speziell zur Durchführung PC-gestützter Prüfungen präpariert ist. Während ich die Abschlussprüfung in meinem Magister-Studium noch ganz klassisch mit Stift auf Papier geschrieben habe, erleben hier zahlreiche Studierende eine andere Form der Prüfung. Je mehr das Internet und digitale Medien zur Vermittlung von Lehrinhalten eingesetzt werden und je mehr sich digitale Kommunikation über das Internet in der Alltäglichkeit verbreitet, desto mehr rückt natürlich auch die Frage in den Fokus, wie dieser Entwicklung angemessene Formen des Prüfens aussehen.

Interessant ist bereist, dass die Prüfungen nicht handschriftlich sondern mit der Tastatur geschrieben werden. Längere Texte können wie in einer Textverarbeitung korrigiert und verändert werden. Das war z.B. bei meiner Abschlussklausur nicht so und ich halte das für sehr hilfreich insbesondere beim Verfassen längerer Texte. Bei dem System, das an der Universität Duisburg-Essen eingesetzte wird (L-Plus), besitzt jede/r Student/in weiterhin ein Login und Passwort, um die Klausur am Prüfungstag abzurufen. So kann auch bei der Zuordnung der Klausurfragen zu den Prüflingen nichts mehr falsch laufen. Ich erinnere mich, dass damals eine Klausur zu Goethes Wahlverwandtschaften übrig geblieben ist. Die Klausuraufsicht hatte dann Mühe herauszufinden, ob jemand die falsche Klausur ausgehändigt bekam oder die Person einfach nicht zur Prüfung erschienen ist.

Solange da die Prüfungen jedoch in diesem Raum abgenommen werden, sind es ja eigentlich keine "richtigen" Online-Prüfungen. Das System L-Plus ist jedoch eine Client-Server-Lösung, so dass die Prüfung auch durchaus an einem anderen Ort erfolgen kann. Ebenso kann die Durchsicht der Prüfungen über das Internet erfolgen. Diese Möglichkeiten sind besonders dann nützlich, wenn die Prüflinge und/oder Prüfer an unterschiedlichen Orten sind.