Drupal+Modules

= Drupal =

Drupal is a free content management system. It is capable of organizing and publishing content in customized formats. The system is easy to learn and difficult to master. However, mastery of Drupal is not necessary in order to use the system. Free modules for Drupal are available via the web. These modules come in a wide variety of looks and functions. Drupal managers can use modules created by others. This allows for users of all skill levels to use Drupal successfully.

Drupal is opening the world of web design and data management to new users. Its easily modified structure and built in database function allow for users to modify content as needed without having to be database or html experts. toc Users that publish on the web through traditional methods must have an html based web site. User that store data in a database must be able to convert that data into simple formats to be placed on html pages. Drupal allows users without knowledge of html or database management to publish professional looking website that work and are easily modified. This is accomplished by using pre-made modules for Drupal.

What are Drupal Modules
Drupal modules are free contributed functional pieces of web and database interface. This piecing of software allows Drupal managers to use specific types functionality while excluding others. Drupal modules are made by Drupal users and published for anyone to use. Drupal offers more than 11,000 of these modules through their web site. This is all part of Drupal being an open source system. See more about open source systems at @Open Source, Shareware, and Freeware.

Modules:
Some of the most useful Drupal modules include:

Views: A module which allows managers to freely move content around a page. The views module can make cleaning up a web site easy. However, it is important not to start with views, since the database information views needs will not be available.

Content Construction Kit: A module that allows managers to add custom fields to nodes. When Drupal displays database or content info it normally cannot be modified from the web browser level. Content Construction Kit allows managers to add fields to data via a web browser. This function is extending Drupal's database. Traditional web design would require changing the database structure at its basic levels. This module allows this to be done on the fly via a browser.

Pathauto: The Pathauto module automatically generates URL/path aliases for various kinds of content (nodes, taxonomy terms, users) without requiring the user to manually specify the path alias. This allows you to have URL aliases like ///category/my-node-title// instead of ///node/123//. The aliases are based upon a "pattern" system that uses tokens which the administrator can change.

Use in Biology at the University of South Carolina[[image:biolhomepage.png width="560" height="530" align="right" caption="Current Biology Home Page"]]
The Biology Department at the University of South Carolina is working to move its web presence entirely to Drupal. Drupal will allow for the department to organize faculty, staff, and student data in database form. This database will be linked to the web pages making editing of information faster and more accurate. Drupal will also allow for the department to set the look, feel and functionality of department web sites while allowing faculty, staff, and students to edit its content.

The ability for faculty, staff, and students to edit content makes for a better overall experience for web users. The Network Administration office is in charge of Drupal management. However, IT people are not biologists. Having Drupal allows the Network Administration to manage the system overall while allowing biological experts to directly manage the content of their specific section of the biology departments web pages.

Changing contact information for faculty, staff, and students on the department's traditional page requires editing of the source code of the biology directory page and changing the database of contact info directly. The current Biology home and other pages are a mesh of source codes. These pages have been edited by cutting and pasting from other sites. This has led to a web page that is unmanageable. When contact data changes or faculty, staff, and students change, the Excel sheets containing this data must be manually changed. Every semester scores of changes must be made.

The new Biology Drupal page will eliminate the bad source code while also eliminating the need to constantly manually update the database. Using Drupal module such as taxonomy and views, the Network Administration will be able to manage the biology web site more easily. The new site will offer faculty, staff, and student the ability to edit their own contact data. Faculty will be given a page for themselves that they can populate.

Images from Biology Drupal page: media type="flickr" key="69821474@N03" ARG0="&lang=en-us&format=rss_200" width="500" height="500" align="left"

These slides show the Biology Drupal page. Notice how all the pages have the same template. Also notice how easily the data for the content of page can be manipulated. Furthermore, the Network Administration has built the page layout and set permissions for all faculty, staff, and students. This allows for individuals to edit content and contact information about themselves. Most importantly, it gives a consistant professional feel to the Biology departments web presence.

**References**
Dries Butaert. (n.d.). About Drupal. Retrieved 2011, from Drupal-Open Source CMS: @http://drupal.org/about

SiteGround.com Ince. (2011). Drupal Tutorial - How to use Drupal CMS. Retrieved November 15, 2011, from SiteGround: @http://www.siteground.com/tutorials/drupal-tutorial/

University of South Carolina Deparment of Biological Sciences. (2011, November). Retrieved November 15, 2011, from Biological Sciences, University of South Carolina: h@ttp://www.biol.sc.edu/