To: Kevin Marlatt, Instructional Technology Specialist

From: Leah Allan, Karen Edoff, Agnieszka Obstoj, and Josh Shipman.

Date: May 13, 2009

Re: CMS Development Tool

Introduction
This proposal is in response to your inquiry on April 29, 2009 regarding a Content Management
System (CMS) for online training and instruction for a K-12 educational setting. As you know, a
K-12 educational setting requires a different solution than a corporate one. A K-12 CMS must
provide interactivity to keep student interest, a means of assessing student learning, and an easy-
to-use format so that the content is not obscured in any way. After independent research and
several discussions, our team would like to propose Drupal as the best possible CMS for your
learning environment. In addition to being a leader in the field of content management systems,
Drupal meets your personal criteria for a K-12 system.

Research Methods
Our team engaged in a rigorous research process to find a CMS to meet your needs. First, we
developed a chart that integrated the following criteria, based on your request for proposal:
 Ability to support multiple content creators
 Ability to deliver assessment, receive and store data
 Ability to receive user feedback
 Ability to create social networking
 Ability to maintain a consistent look
 Ability to be hosted by a variety of host providers

Final selection must meet all of the following:

 Cost effectiveness
 Ease of use
 Ease of installation
 Need for technical support
 Overall effectiveness as a CMS

Each team member selected two Content Management Systems to review according to the
criteria above. Our team members chose to review the following systems:
Dokeos LMS/LCMS Drupal ModX
Stellar CMS Joomla Moodle
Concrete5 Mambo Silverstripe

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Our members spent hours researching the above systems and filling in our criteria chart. After
discussing the criteria chart, we selected two of the best Content Management Systems for
further review: Dokeos and Drupal.
Initially, Dokeos and Drupal were selected for a variety of reasons; however, upon further
investigation the selection of Dokeos was questionable. The pricing was very high and further
information on the product was scarce. The team members in charge of studying Dokeos decided
to further investigate another option, Joomla, and decided it would be a better fit for your needs.
Next, our team members compared Joomla and Drupal to see which
one best fits the final five criteria listed above. The following matrix
will show you how the two systems compare:

Cost Effectiveness
Joomla is free to download.
Joomla can be used on a variety of host providers with one click installs.
I.e., dreamhost

Other websites that host Joomla:

http://www.hostgator.com/ $4.95

http://www.justhost.com/ $4.95

http://www.lunarpages.com/index.php?cj_id=lunarpages&AID=5802068&PID=2255172 $4.95

http://www.site5.com/ $7.95

http://myfreewebs.net/ free

Drupal is a free tool.

While there are many hosts for Drupal, Siteground is the #1 web host for Drupal and cost only $5.95 a
month.
SiteGround is known as “the No.1 host for Drupal], because of its better feature/price ratio, great Drupal
tutorials, and above all - Drupal-optimized servers and experienced technical support.
$5.95
http://www.siteground.com/

Ease of Use

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Joomla is a content management tool favored by many due to its ease of use. With the release of Joomla
1.5, content management has even become easier. The Joomla 1.5 comes with many features that make
website creation a cool breeze for both beginners and professionals.

Not only is the application easy to use, their tutorials are

easy to follow!
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/drupal-
tutorial/drupal_how_to_use.htm#managecontent

Ease of Installation

Download for free. Easy to install. Even has a tutorial if you get stuck.
Web sites will works with one click install. One install = one website.

Many web hosts offer one-click installs. If the host you choose does not offer a one-click install, you can
still simplify the installation of Drupal (to avoid manual installation), use Fantastico. Fantastico simplifies
many application installs, including Drupal.
One install = multiple websites.
Watch the installation video here:
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/drupal-tutorial/drupal_installation.htm
If you do not want to use Fantastico, you can install Drupal manually. See tutorial:
http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/drupal-tutorial/drupal_manual_installation.htm

Need for Support

Several forms for technical support::

 Community
 Forums
 Tutorials
 Contact tech support via email

Self-help is easy! Drupal has a built-in context sensitive help menu, and online tutorials on how to use the
built-in tool:
http://php.opensourcecms.com/free/videos/drupal.php?videoid=3
Additional support is also available via their
website:

Drupal has substantial resources available

to answer your technical questions and assist you in expanding your knowledge.
There are also many books on Drupal.

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 Overall Effectiveness

Create multi-lingual websites Create your website in 60 different languages

 Create articles
 Create uncategorized articles
Create Content  Set the global parameters for articles
Create sections and categories  Set the parameters for individual articles
 Interlink articles with one another
 Upload documents and link to documents
 Insert images into articles
 Insert the read more option into articles
 Display articles on the Home Page
 Create a "table of contents" for long articles
 Create a contacts list
 Create a web links page
Joomla Built-in Components  Create a newsfeeds to and from your website
 Create a poll
 Install and uninstall components
 Add a category blog layout menu item
 Add a category list layout menu item
Add Menu Items  Add a section blog layout menu item
 Add a section list layout menu item
 Add a contacts menu item
 Add a newsfeeds menu item
 Add a web links menu item
 Change menu order
 Changing a menu type
 Add the login module for people to register
 Add the who's online module to track who is on
Modules  Add the search module to find information Add the breadcrumbs
module to enable people to track where they are on your site
 Add the newsfeeds module so that people can be updated if you
add new information
 Add the polls module to the site
 Installing and uninstalling other modules
 Install and uninstall plugins
 Enable plugins
Plugins  Enable the legacy plugins

 Install and uninstall templates

 Change the default template
Templates  View the html and CSS files for templates
 Add you own logo to a site

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 Overall Effectiveness

Because Drupal is open-source, it is a great platform for eLearning effectiveness.

Create multi-lingual  Translate posts to different languages through an easy interface
websites  Automatically import translations when adding a new language,
installing modules or enabling themes
 Use the optional localization client module (a separate download) to
translate the Drupal interface "on the fly"
Content management  Collaboration
 Post, revise, categorize and search content
 Offers multiple levels of categories for content (Joomla has only two
levels)
 View and edit comments, stories, content types, user postings, Web
feed, and content "taxonomy" (how stories are tagged, categorized, and
classified)
User management  Create and manage users, their registration requirements, roles,
permissions, and access rules
Drag-and-drop  Create and manage your site's menus
administration  Move blocks around to change the content on pages, or organize books
by dragging pages to their proper place
 The drag-and-drop interface is available for menu items, forums,
taxonomy terms, uploaded files, input formats and profile fields
Flexibility, and  Can handle multimedia, PayPal, blogging, wikis, chats
customized look and  hosts multiple websites in one installation
feel  Work with blocks (regions of pages), menus, modules, and themes
 supports new tools for themers, including the exciting Theme
Developer module (a seperate download)
Modules  Clean Modular Code - Drupal's functionality is organized into separate
modules, many of which are built-in, and the rest available online and
are free (Joomla modules are not free)
Community Learning  OpenID support is built in, making it easy for visitors to sign-up as
members
 Quickly add and manage poll options
 Forums - Include polls, quiz forms or any other type of content in
forums
 Feedback 2 allows users to quickly send feedback messages about the
currently displayed page, using a fixed positioned and ajaxified
feedback form
Strong user +  Weblogs
developer community  Education –
+ social networking http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-education
http://praxis.technorhetoric.net/index.php/Webcoursetools/tirrell1
http://kairosnews.org/using-weblogs-teaching-with-drupal
Manage Costs  Growth does not require additional licensing costs.
 Easier to adapt to new or changing needs
Scalable Database back ends
 Currently MySQL & PostgreSQL
 Oracle in the works

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Recommendation:

We give Drupal our “thumbs up” because:

 Drupal provides greater design flexibility, scalability, and good content

management.
 Drupal menus make reordering content extremely easy; just click and drag to move
items where you want them.
 Drupal allows for:
 Multiple levels of categories along with easily integrated content and
modules.
 Creating and managing multiple websites with one click installs.
 Drupal has a great team of developers from all over the world working to make the
system truly multi-lingual.
 Drupal’s Internationalization modules allow for fully translatable views in over 60
languages.
 High profile companies, schools and universities prefer Drupal because it currently
offers more social networking over Joomla.
 Examples of High Profile sites using Drupal include MTV UK, BBC, NASA,
Greenpeace.

It is no surprise why Drupal won both of Packt Publishing Open Source CMS
Awards this year and last year!

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