F2 - or, shall we build an organizational portal based on social media?
Ecsedi Kornél
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Debreceni Egyetem
Turi Péter
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Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem
According to university students, those conventional institutional portals based on a menu structure and mostly static content are really boring and out-of-fashion. They demand something more dynamic, that reflects the ever-changing environment they live in, where they can find all information for their studies, where they can contact their schoolmates in the virtual world without limits, where they can become valuable sources of information themselves. A university which is determined to attract more and more students must recognize and respond to those needs. We shall present one promising approach to the problem by introducing the Drupal-based portal developed at the University of Debrecen. In the heart of this solution there is an extremely flexible grouping mechanism. The eduID based authentication and the connection to the Neptun student administration system enables the portal to group students automatically according to their studies. In addition to this mechanism, users can freely create their own social groups, and they can communicate inside these groups at their will. The system is also capable of handling more conventional static pages and menu structures to incorporate former institutional web content. Administration of these static pages are based on group membership, too. In this way we can build a unified framework for all the institutes and departments of the university to represent themselves on the web, and to keep in touch with their students. Students can always find relevant information easily through their groups while they can discuss recent events with each other (regarding e.g. essays, exams or even parties).