From ChemEd Collaborative

Welcome! This guide is meant to help instructors and course developers create anything from a quick webpage using our Chemistry Comes Alive! videos or Jmol library all the way to adding to our growing set of examples for teaching! ChemPaths has been created as a link between students and instructors, thus the pages you create will have to have an element of 'behind the scenes' mark-up.

Here you will find instructions on:

• Inserting Chemistry Comes Alive! Videos into ChemPaths articles.
• Inserting various Jmol applets into ChemPaths articles.
• Building Sample Problems within a ChemPaths article.

As well as guides on how to:

• Contribute your own example problem/story/website
• Create your own article within ChemPaths
• Create your own wiki-page to be used within ChemPaths
• Create your own Pathway to use in your course!

Any missing links above will be filled out as this manual is generated. If there is something that you would like to know about, please visit Justin Shorb's Talk Page.

Contents 1 What is ChemPaths? 2 Stepping Stones: What is an Article? What is a wiki-page? 2.1 Why use one instead of the other? 3 What is a Pathway? 4 Let's get started!

What is ChemPaths?

For now, visit ChemPaths as well as the webpage: ChemPaths. More information will be included here later.

ChemPaths is administered via a hierarchy of users. It is built using the Joomla! content management system. The user hierarchy can be found here: ChemPaths:Users.

Stepping Stones: What is an Article? What is a wiki-page?

An Article is a page created within the ChemPaths resource, edited through the WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor.

Articles can...

• be created by any user of ChemPaths with permission level "Author" or above (above would include "Publisher", "Manager" or "Admin").
• be edited by the original Author, or any higher level.
• be generated within the ChemPaths Website using a WYSIWIG editor (what you see is what you get) - basically this means that it requires NO programming knowledge to create a fairly decent webpage!
• include CCA! videos, any graphics (with permission), Jmol from the ChemED DL database, Dot Density Diagrams, etc.
• be included inside of a wiki page (from the student user point of view, not the instructor's).
• show up as a related item within ChemPaths.

Articles must...

• be approved at time of creation. Once accepted, editing is uncontrolled, except by permission level of user.
• be linked into a pathway/menu/module by a "Manager" or "Admin".

Articles do NOT...

• allow for peer review, editing or version control.

A Wiki-page is like what you are reading right now! Wikis are becoming more popular, and the syntax for writing the pages is becoming more commonplace.

Wiki-pages can...

• be created by any user of the ChemEd Collaborative Wiki (with permissions).
• be edited by any user of the ChemEd Collaborative Wiki.
• be included within any ChemPaths pathway/menu/module, just as any article.
• contain CCA! Videos, etc. just like Articles, only if they are being viewed through ChemPaths Website.
• contain a ChemPaths article inside it by using a tag phrase.

Wiki-pages must...

• be submitted to ChemPaths via a registered username to be included within the resource.
• be linked into a pathway/menu/module by a "Manager" or "Admin".

Wiki-pages do NOT...

• allow for immediate review of what the page will look like to a student. this means that there will be no way to see whether or not the videos/Jmol applets have been encoded correctly until after creation and submission.
• cross-reference. Thus, a wiki-page will not show up on the ChemPaths 'related items' menus.

Why use one instead of the other?

Articles are great for stand-alone material. A module/page on Nuclear Reactors would make a good Article. Articles have been generated on Wave Mechanics (as it applies to atomic theory), for instance. Articles are less suited for multi-page topics, such as teaching density using explicit examples from various fields of study.

Wiki-pages are useful because they can organize multiple examples together. It is more like the 'text' of a textbook. Bring in other examples using Article-includes. Examples can be found of this on the Sample Page.

Since Articles are linked within ChemPaths according to their keywords, it is best to keep stand-alone information within them. Thus, if a student happens to see 'Nuclear Reactors' in the side-bar, it will be visiting another article which can be understood by itself, not one page which does not make sense out of context.

What is a Pathway?

The ChemPaths site is a living textbook. It is always growing, mutating and becoming fine-tuned. Just as you are not likely to cover all sections within a textbook, you will be completely unable to cover all pages within ChemPaths. There are biological examples, geological examples, and fundamental chemistry examples. Perhaps you would like to cover a few of the bio examples with a few textbook examples and combine them into a mini-text or module? Maybe you would like the information that you see to be displayed in a different order? These would be examples of Pathways. Each site within ChemPaths acts like a Stepping Stone. You can create your own pathway through the various sites, and ChemPaths will offer off-pathway examples ('near-stones') to your students to hopefully pique their interest. Related Articles from the NSDL and within ChemPaths itself appear as a side-menu as your students continue through the designated path. It allows for clear differentiation between 'expected knowledge' and 'encouraged learning.'

Let's get started!

Go to the Creation Guide to get started making your own Article!