http://eport.maricopa.edu/published/s/ki/skipperkid/collection/1/

Demonstrates custom google search and picasa slideshows integrated into an ePortfolio

The District Server has been updated with the latest ePortfolio release.   Enhancements include:

• Wiki Enhancements: wysiwyg wiki editor, captcha for open wikis, ability to download images/docs from within the wiki editor

• wysiwyg editor (non-wiki) enhancements: ability to download images/docs from within the editor, better support for images and links. I've made some progress having this editor work in Safari, but it is not in this release. I'm hopeful to have it working within the next few weeks.

• Discussion Board enhancements - Read-only discussion threads, discussion header added

• Survey/Test enhancements : ability to configure surveys/tests as "persistent". This means that you (the eport owner) can configure a list of id/passwords so that the survey is limited to these users. The survey can be "saved" and "continued" in multiple sessions before ultimately submitted.

• Better transmission error handling and cross-browser support along with a variety of performance improvements. Plus lots of little niceties like the ability to put a collection URL into the sidebar directly without having to change to the syndicateXML format. .png files are now supported in all places where pictures can be uploaded.

• Composite Page -- allowing pages to be creatively combined into a single page for a more complex web 2.0 style presentation. Sample links: http://www.uhseport.net/published/r/in/rincon/composite/1/,
  http://www.myeport.com/published/t/es/test9
  

All ePortfolio domains are now up on the newest release of the software.

Blog and Discussion boards are being spammed!  It's crazy out there.

Captchas (those fuzzy images whose contents you need to type in) are in place for all blog comments and open discussion boards (option #2).

The spam will now be curtailed!

A set of enhancements have been installed on the district eport server:

• Performance improvements (especially with large eports)
• Atom feeds supported on RSS sidebar
• Discussion Board page has been added
• Syllabus Page has been added

To get these new page types to show up, select Arrange and then Save (this causes eportfolio manager to refresh)

1. Many forms now have a Wysiwyg editor instead of the plain textarea. Here is an example Add Home Page form. The spell Checker has been changed to render html in addition to text so it can be used properly with the editor.
2. Significant Performance Improvement for autopublish (< .5 seconds overhead regardless of the eport size).  For large eportfolios, this is a significant performance gain.
3. Weblogs now support categories:
   • A user can configure up to 24 categories
   • Links to categories render right under the blog heading - Example with Categories
   • You can now syndicate just entries within a category (this is cool)
   • (In order to enable this, you will need to choose Manage or Edit to cause the weblog to rebuild)
   • Other blog enhancements include the ability for the user to configure who should be notified about comments (could be different users for different blogs within the same eport) plus various new settings to manage RSS notifications.
4. There can be up to 24 categories defined for a calendar (used to be 6) . Can also syndicate just events within a category (similar to the blog)
5. ePortfolio now works properly in NFS environments (preparing for a Linux Cluster installation)
6. ePortfolio allows a timezone to be configured for a domain or an individual eport (AZ time is not always the best choice)
7. Form security has been added to all eport forms.  This is an extra level of security that will ensure that forms are never copied and/or altered in any way.
8. Javascript Widgets added:
   • A nice color chooser appears for all colors selected in Configure (the form requiring copy/paste is gone)
   • A calendar date chooser appears for all calendar operations that involve date
   • Survey/Test questions can optionally be configured to include a calendar (for date choice) or calculator (for numerical answers) . An example of this can be found here. These can be added to existing surveys by editing the text-field question (rebuilding the question will add the new choices to the list of text-field types).
9. Survey Enhancement (in addition to the javascript widget): Ability to persist a survey in the student/staff portal so that it can be worked on over time. This will be the basis for many of the LifeMap forms that should be configured (CGC only)
10. New Checksheet Page - will appear only in the checksheet webports. Allows an adviser to configure checksheets that can be imported to the Student Portal (CGC only) .  Example Checksheet:  http://www.myeport.com/published/c/he/check2006/checksheet/13/

Status:  This release has been installed on all servers:  7/23/2006

Installed 1/16 on all machines

Here is a list of enhancements:

* when previewing in editable, a visible banner alerts you that it is editable (will help with people Not publishing editable links)

* Weblog headers can have pictures in them now

* All picture uploads can have captions which display underneath

* Survey page: - Advanced statistics allowing one to get stats for just a segment of the population (only those that answered a particular question with a specific answer). Also Survey header now show in $results and in workflow form data

* Home page and weblog entries have additional layout capability

* Weblog entries and collection header render a bit differently

* Hidden pages can now be syndicated (privacy settings)

* Semantics of 'SPACING' is somewhat different:
- beginning with SPACING still has the same meaning
- begining the entry with HTML will render strictly as html with html-style linewrap
- default (neither SPACING or HTML) will respect linefeeds . This seems to be what most people typically want and will avoid people having a bunch of unreadable text (see http://www.myeport.com/textInfo.html for more explanation)

* Configure: The picture showing the layout is dynamic based on user configuration

Some cool RSS enhancements have been added to all machines: 
 
You can now easily add a sidebar containing RSS links... here are a few examples: 
    ** http://www.myeport.com/published/t/es/test/home/1/
    ** http://www.myeport.com/published/r/ss/rss/wiki/1/
    ** http://www.myeport.com/published/t/hu/thurman/tdocument/2/
    ** http://eport.maricopa.edu/published/t/hu/thurman/weblog/1/
 
Plus you can add RSS links to any ePort page by using the <syndicate> directive.  Here is how it works...
    ** http://eport2.cgc.maricopa.edu/published/t/hu/thurman/collection/9/
 
Having a sidebar of syndicated calendar entries is an effective way to display a short-term schedule.  Here is an example: 
    ** http://webport.cgc.maricopa.edu/published/n/ss/nss/collection/1/
(note:  this is a webport page -- the template is different, but underneath it is exactly the same) 
 
In order to see Add Sidebar under Change Presentation in ePortfolio Manager, you first must do something to cause ePortfolio Manager to refresh; for example - Choose Arrange - however, you don't need to make any changes.

All Maricopa ePortfolio servers are currently running the new ePortfolio release (features described in the previous posting). NOTE: the district machine has been moved to a more capable server and now sports the trim URL of http://eport.maricopa.edu.

In order to see Wiki on the list of Pages you can add, you first must do something to cause ePortfolio manager to refresh; for example - Choose Arrange - however, you don't need to make any changes.

Calendar syndication begins with events created after the new software was installed. However you can Update existing events and they will be syndicated (again, you don't need to make any real changes).

Please contact me with any problems, ideas or feedback. I look forward to perusing your ePorts!

Schedule 
The next ePortfolio release is scheduled for installation as follows: 
       »Friday - 8/12/2005 - http://webport.cgc.maricopa.edu
       »Tuesday - 8/16/2005 - http://eportg.cgc.maricopa.edu, http://eport.cgc.maricopa.edu
       »Thursday - 8/18/2005 - new district machine (http://eport.maricopa.edu) - this will replace http://eport.mcli.dist.maricopa.edu/) 
 
What's in the Release? 

Please Comment: 
 
The next release of ePortfolio will include support for streaming multimedia.
 
The (opensource) Darwin Streaming Server will be installed on all machines along
with a set of opensource utilities called mpeg4ip.
The Quicktime client will be used exclusively (unfortunately, proprietary features
preclude interoperability between streaming media servers and clients at this time).
Quicktime is a standard player which is very easy to install.
 
When an ePortfolio user adds a Collection item or Document with an extension of
mov,mp3,aac,mp4v,mp4,avi,mpg,mpeg, they will immediately be taken to a "Streaming ePort Page".
This is similar to what happens when ePort users upload .html files  - they
are immediately taken to an 'Upload Image/Reference' eport page.
 
The Streaming ePort Page will: 
   - explain streaming multimedia in very basic terms
 
   - if the multimedia file is a .mov file, the user will be told that they need to "hint" 
the file (in Quicktime Pro) in order for it to stream properly
 
   - for all other extension types listed above, 
     * an .mp4 file will be created with the audio/video tracks of the original file
     * hint tracks will be automatically added so that the file will properly stream
     * these operations will be completely transparent to the user
 
   - this Streaming page will have an option to 'disable streaming' for cases where it
can't be made to work.
 
When streaming is enabled, the "eport links" will specify Quicktime as the player; 
the user will be automatically redirected to download the QT plugin when needed.
 
-----
 
Thanks to Austin Godber who researched/installed/suggested all of the opensource software
used with this approach.