Contents
1. Introduction
1.1 History
2. Design goals
2.1 The first version
3. Features
3.1 General features
3.2 Features for teachers and pupils
3.3 Features for users
3.4 Features for developers
4. Available modules
5. Supported languages
6.Requirements
6.1 Server
6.2 Clients
7. The installation
7.1 Upgrading to a new version
8. After the installation
9. Wish List
10. What Site@School is not
11. Contributing team
12. Useful links
Site@School is a system to build, manage and maintain the website of a primary school.
Site@School's foundations are at the Public Primary School Rosa Boekdrukker.
It was designed by teachers, parents and a secondary school student in Holland. The first version of S@S appeared in September 2002.
Its main design goals were born when we looked at numerous primary school websites. Many of them looked dull, static, dusty, unmaintained, sometimes years old, without any changes. And, more astonishingly, we could hardly find any input from pupils, teachers or parents on those sites.
The school sites seemed to be the result of a one time design by someone (webmaster, designer?) where, after the glorious opening of the site, time came to a halt.
This search brought us to thinking about some device to make a site easy to maintain.
We found out this device is called a CMS (Content Management System). We looked at many CMS's on the web but could not find the CMS that fulfilled our wishes.
Their main drawbacks were: too many useless features, too complicated, too little functionality for a primary school, too hierarchical structure,
management assumptions that do not reflect the structure of education, etc..
They were all wonderful CMS's, but not for a primary school.
So we decided to design a CMS ourselves by formulating our design goals.
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These were our design goals in 2002 (in no specific order):
- Primary design goals: simplicity and easy maintenance for the users, i.e. pupils, parents and teachers.
- We wanted a school site that has, figuratively spoken, the 'Under Construction' banner always 'up', meaning there is always something new because so many people (teachers, pupils, parents, etc.) can have their input on the site.
- Pupils of every age should be able to put their own material on the site.
Very young children can publish their drawings or their first words. Older kids can publish their texts or papers.
- The school site must be extremely easy to maintain by people without
any HTML knowledge (HTML is a markup language in which web pages are
made). CMS maintainers in a primary school are teachers, or parents, or pupils and not webmasters, web designers or system administrators.
- The management of the school site must be doable by more persons, each with different 'access rights' regarding the tasks they can perform on the system. Management tasks must be distributable to users, teachers and pupils to enlighten the task of the teachers.
- Management and maintenance must be possible via a web browser so you can manage the site from your own location (home, a computer in a classroom,
an Internet cafe, etc).
- It must be possible to design your own school site and still use the CMS. That is, our CMS must be site-design-independent.
This ensures that schools using the CMS can have complete differing web designs.
- The construction of our CMS must be modular. This enables easy adding of functionalities.
- Our CMS should be multi-lingual. It's not only for us, it's also 'for the world'. This is one of the school's mission statements in software development.
- The CMS should be LAMP and WAMP compatible. That is, usable under Linux and Windows, with Apache, MySQL and PHP. Apache is a web server, MySQL is a database server and PHP is a web programming language.
- The CMS should be OSS/GPL, meaning Open Source Software, available under the GNU Public License. For you it means, in short, that the CMS is free software. When you modify it, you must make your modifications publicly available.
- The installation process of a CMS can be complicated for the average user or school teacher,
when you must edit in the configuration files, create a database, etc.. We wanted a very simple configuration, with a Graphic User Interface.
When we had our design goals we gave the assignment to a secondary school pupil proficient in PHP coding to build the CMS: Mark de Haan.
He already had many ideas on the construction of a school CMS. He finished version 1.0 in September 2002.
The initial version 1.0 was financed by the Local Municipality Council "De Baarsjes" of Amsterdam, Holland. (Stadsdeel de Baarsjes) (info@baarsjes.amsterdam.nl).
The price of this version of the CMS at that time was EURO 1500.
We gave the CMS the name 'Site@School'.
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Out of our wish list, design goals, wishes from others, continuous rethinking and improvements, the following features of Site@School emerged ( updated for S@S v2.4, May 2006).
The features are listed in no specific order.
- Site@School comes with a comprehensive manual with over 360 screenshots, describing every operation in detail. The manual can be installed in Site@Sschool itself, enabling easy consulting while you are working.
- Managing Site@School is extremely easy. Within an hour you know the basic operations. A guided tour is available in the manual.
- Simple installation. We tried to make the installation as easy as possible by supplying a GUI (Graphical User Interface). All available modules are installed.
In the GUI you fill in some text boxes and you have the choice of:
1. Installation with demonstration data: This means most of the modules are functional.
A test teacher and a test pupil are in the system and 'everything' is functioning.
The demo installation is useful to see a lot of the possibilities of S@S.
2. Basic installation: Here you have to do everything yourself. Ideal when you build your site from scratch or start with your own template.
Whatever you choose, you do not have to edit complex configuration files. And if this is still too complicated, help is available. The installation is done only once and help can be found in Linux and Windows newsgroups or local user groups and, when you take our limited time in consideration, sometimes with us at our
S@S4US Forum.
- S@S is Open Source Software licensed under the General Public License.
- S@S is LAMP and WAMP compatible. It runs under Linux with Apache, MySQL and PHP and also under Windows with the same software.
S@S also runs on Windows 2003 server with IIS 6.0, PHP 4.3.1., MySQL 3.23.49.
- S@S runs fine on old hardware. We use the system with Linux on servers of 133 - 200 Mhz and 64 Mb RAM for schools of 2-300 pupils.
- S@S code, variable names, etc. and comments in the code are in English. This makes further development in other countries possible and easy. We assume that most people who write code in PHP know English.
- S@S can be coupled to an existing website-design. For the coupling of our CMS to your existing site you must have a fair knowledge of HTML and know how to integrate PHP code into HTML. The standard template is your example. However, we might be able to help you when you take our limited time in consideration. See the 'Creating templates' chapter of the manual. In case of problems, use the
S@S4US Forum.
- A S@S site can be easily reorganized, i.e. change locations of sections and pages.
- S@S is multi-lingual with an easy user interface. This feature enables translatiing S@S 'on the fly'. Adapting linguistic elements of S@S to your school habits is simple. All textual elements in S@S are in separate language files that can be translated via a translate interface.
- S@S is modular: When a school needs a facility (a chat, a newsletter, etc.) you have the choice to add functionality of a module to your school site.
The modular design makes future modules easy to develop and integrate into your CMS.
- S@S is managed via your browser, and can be managed everywhere when an Internet connection and a browser are available.
- A 'Tips & Tricks' section. Here you find useful modifications to further customize your S@S with very simple means. This section is continually expanded by the users of S@S.
- Easy backup facilities: With a few mouse clicks you can make a local backup of your MySQL database.
This feature is extremely useful for safety, because you have a local copy of your database.
And it's also very useful when you migrate your school site, for example to another ISP (Internet Service Provider).
- S@S has extensive e-mail alerts functionality throughout the site and in the modules.
For site visitors interested in a particular item this means: notifications by e-mail when something changes on the site. S@S users (admins) get e-mail notifications from modules. This feature also greatly reduces management time.
- When users (teacher, pupils or other users) login to S@S a PHP session is used, for this reason cookies must be accepted on their client PC's.
- Password encryption can be enabled to improve security.(standard on a new install for 2.4)
- Pupils can publish their personal pages. The total number of pages a pupil can have is 99.
When a pupil makes or modifies her/his personal page an e-mail alert is sent to the teacher.
The teacher can check the page and approve, disapprove, delete, or make the page visible. This feature can be enabled/disabled for every individual pupil.
- Projects. A group of pupils can have a project with pages that are accessible and editable by all group members.
When a page is in use by a group member and is accessed by another member, a warning message is given.
When the page is 'released', another group member can edit that page. In conjunction with the chat, collaborative, or project based learning becomes available.
- A teacher does not need to enter the Site@School Management system to manage the pupils pages of her group.
This makes managing pupils pages by teachers a simple job done in minutes. Multiple teachers can manage a class.
Adding pupils to a class can also be performed from the site.
- Teachers can also have their own web pages, together with the class and/or together with other teachers.
- An intranet for teachers. This is the 'Protected Area' in Site@School, where only teachers have access to.
The Protected Area can have its own theme (site design). Giving the 'Protected area' a different design prevents
errors like putting 'teachers only' material on the publicly accessible part of the school site.
- Easy management of classes: it's possible to move all pupils in a class to a new year.
- The possibility to couple teachers and pupils to modules.
This feature is used for example in the Forum module where teachers and pupils have a closed forum that is password protected and not accessible to the public.
The general forums are public accessible. This feature can also be used in the development of future modules.
- Admins (they are called 'users' in S@S) can have various access rights on the system regarding their tasks. Every single user can have or be denied rights to:
- Page management and the 'Protected Area'.
- Section management per section.
- File management.
- Module management in general and per module.
- Configuration management (and, separately, for every option under Configuration)
- Tools section (and, separately, for every option under Tools).
- Statistics section
These features, in combination with the e-mail alerts makes it possible, for example, to make two pupils responsible for managing the guestbook and removing undesirable entries.
Or give parents the management over the section 'Parents', etc.
- With one mouse click teachers and/or pupils can be made users (admins).
- Password encryption for better security.
- Mass import of pupil data. Several file formats can be used to import pupil data.
- You can copy a user's properties to a new user. This simplifies adding new users.
- Two WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) Editors with a high 'word processor look-alike' design in which it is possible to write and format text, upload pictures, etcetera.
- The HTMLarea editor is usable under Linux (Mozilla 1.3.1 and higher, Firefox 1.0 and higher), Windows (Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher, Firefox 1.0 and higher) and Mac (Netscape 7.1 and higher,Mozilla 1.5.1 and higher, Firefox). It has extensive table functions but is no longer maintained.
- The FCK editor much resembles the HTMLarea editor but has some extra functionality. Most important: Import of Word documents.
More information can be found on http://www.fckeditor.net/
In all two editors the number of lines the editor shows before the right vertical scrollbar appears is adjustable in the configuration.
- For HTML diehards or special purposes a plain HTML editor is also available.
- Pages on a Site@School site can be made visible or invisible; an indispensable feature when linking pages to pages,
or easy for pages you only use once a year or on special occasions.
Or, when you need a lot of time to make a page, you can work on it every now and then and no one will see your work until it's ready.
- A 'high visibility mode' for people with visual disabilities. All characters in Site@School can be enlarged and icons are replaced by (abbreviated) words.
A low vision template is also available.
Since beginning of 2005 we try to get standards into the system. The manual is made following 'Guidelines for writing ServerAtSchool-documentation' (courtesy of Mr. Fokker).
The code of S@S follows the 'Coding guidelines' (courtesy of phpBB2).
Please follow these guidelines when contributing to Site@School.
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Site@School comes with a number of modules that's continually expanding. All available modules are included in the Site@School download. Modules that are developed between releases can be separately downloaded at our
Sourceforge download area.
Detailed descriptions of the features of each module can be found in their corresponding chapters. Below is a list of all available modules. The links link to the chapters.
- Advertisments module
- Agenda module
- Album module
- Calendar module
- Chat module
- E-mail module
- Formsbuilder module
- Forum module
- Guestbook module
- Links module
- Message module
- News module
- Newsletter module
- Pupils pages module
- Search module
- Template editor module
- Sitemap module
- TV module
- Up/Download module
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At this moment (May 2006), Site@School is available in the following languages:
- Bulgarian
- Chinese
- Czech
- Danish
- Dutch
- English
- Finnish
- French
- German (German users guide available)
- Hungarian
- Italian
- Japanese
- Norwegian
- Polish
- Portugese (Brazilian)
- Spanish
- Swedish
- Turkish
These languages are incorporated in Site@School version 2.4. Check our Sourceforge download site to see if new languages are available that are not yet incorporated.
You can help primary schools in your language to translate Site@School. The system provides an easy translating facility for 'on the fly' translations.
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Site@School needs LAMP or WAMP compatibility (i.e., Linux or Windows server) with:
- Apache webserver (1.3.23 or higher, or 2.0.48-1 or higher)
- MySQL database (version 3.23 or higher or 4.0.16-1 or higher)
- PHP (version 4.2.1 or higher, version 5 is not yet supported)
S@S also runs on Windows 2003 server with IIS 6.0, PHP 4.3.1 and MySQL 3.23.49.
Site@School runs perfect on old hardware. We have S@S running under Linux with computers of 133-200 Mhz, with about 64 MB of RAM, serving primary schools of 200 - 300 pupils. Of course, more memory is better.
- Linux (Mozilla 1.3.1. and higher, Firefox 1.0)
- Windows (Internet Explorer 5.5 and higher, Firefox 1.0, Netscape 7.1)
- Mac ( Netscape 7.1, Mozilla 1.5.1 and higher, Firefox).
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To install Site@School you need a bit of Linux or Windows experience, depending on the platform of your preference.
The installation process is explained in detail in the Installation chapter of the Site@School Users' Guide.
This manual can be downloaded as the file 'S@S Manual<version-number>.tar.gz' or 'S@S Manual<version-number>.zip' from our Sourceforge download site. The 'install.html' file is also included in the program itself, see ../starnet/install/install.html.
The installation process is completely done via a Graphical User Interface.
At the Sourceforge site you can also find language versions that were sent to us after finishing the latest version. The manual and modules that are not incorporated in the .tgz or .zip file and must be downloaded separately from the same site. Please install the manual in the Site@School program. In this way you have your manual online when working with the program.
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When you have successfully installed Site@School there are a couple of things to do:
- Please download and install the manual in the Site@School program.
In this way you have your manual online available when you work with Site@School.
- Please take the Guided Tour now. It will show you the basic operations of Site@School in a hands-on way.
- Please send us the URL of your site, so we can add it to our list of sites using S@S.
You can use the e-mail link at the bottom of the home section in S@S management.
- Please place somewhere on your site that you are using Site@School and provide the http://siteatschool.sourceforge.net link.
In this way you help other schools to take advantage of this CMS.
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There are wishes which we hope to get fulfilled in the near future:
- More languages. Please help other schools by translating Site@School. We have a special feature, the Translate Tool, that enables online translations. Making another version is a piece of cake.
- Your school can help Site@School. We welcome financial support of the project. See Donate to Site@School
- Please e-mail us the URL of your site. You can use the E-mail link at the bottom of the home section of S@S management.
- Do you have wishes? Please report them to the S@S 4 US Forum.
Maybe we can fulfill your requests in a future version.
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When we receive requests for features in S@S, they are carefully considered and sometimes rejected.
Gradually it became clear what S@S is not:
- A school-, teacher-, pupil-, planning-, administrative management system.
There are programs better suited for that purpose. And, different countries have different regulations, resulting in completely
different requirements which makes it impossible to develop administrative tasks for S@S.
- Site@School is not Moodle; an excellent course management system (CMS),
i.e. a web application designed to help educators create quality online courses, ie. an e-learning system.
When looking for a course management system, Moodle is excellent and OSS/GPL.
- A system to manage your website in the .... business. We sometimes get feature requests that do not seem to originate from schools.
We are glad when S@S can be used for your business and when you want a feature for it we are happy to be of service for a fee that's normal in commercial IT.
- We sometimes get requests to make something adjustable. Most times no reasons or background for the request are given.
To be honest, everything can be made adjustable, but most times it's too much work for too little improvement in functionality.
- An educational Content Management System that endorses features that are against our notions on education.
- The victim of 'creeping featurism'.
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At this moment (May 2006) Site@School is used on many schools worldwide. Site@School has a small but enthusiastic development team and a wide user base that support us with proofreading, testing, bug reports and fixes, code, requests for features, etc.
The core team: Karin Abma, Dirk Schouten, Fred Stuurman.
Graphics: Barry Faas.
Translations by: Stepen James, Gabriel Campos (Spanish), Dener Brito (Brazil), Henry Jovik (Norway), Juergen Goldmann, David Prousch (Germany), VACANT (Japan),
Jinhe Pei (Peoples Republic of China), Thomas Karlsson (Sweden), Jean Peyratout (France),
Massimo Pipolo, Enrico Centenaro (Italian), Christopher Lojowski (Poland), Ylker Turen (Turkey), Timo Tervo (Finland), Ole Bang Ottosen (Danmark), Stefan Stefanov (Bulgaria), Gabi Beni (Hungary), Mirek (Czech) and us (Dutch, English).
Proofreading and corrections of English Users' Guide: Alex, Alice, Amy Morgan, Angela, Ann Kallyn, Chelsea, Julie, Matthew, Micah and Taylor;
pupils of "The Christ School", Orlando, Florida, USA, Douglas Bell
Translation of Users' Guide in German: David Prousch.
Contributions by: Aad de Vos, Peter Fokker, Remco Bruijne, Arne Maletzky, Matthijs Koopmans, Peter Matthijssen, Kees Schroijen, Gerard Roos, Jürgen Goldmann, Alain Riffart, Jan Meijer, Gerhard Smit and many, many others.
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Our primary Sourceforge download site
Our Homepage on Sourceforge. Check it out for latest news
An educational background to Site@School
The primary school in Holland where it all started
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Author: Dirk Schouten <schoutdi (at) knoware (dot) nl>
Last updated: 2006-04-01