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Evolution of Broceliande 6
Solid foundations
The Forest of Brocéliande has evolved over a little over 10 years via various developmental versions into a site that uses current technology but is flexible and innovative enough to accommodate technology changes for, perhaps, the next five years. The current version 6 completed development in 2011. It’s based on the site development application DRUPAL.
Content is easily modified and accessed and gives students and other visitors to the site a lot of autonomy in how they choose to study and what they choose to read. The interactive nature of the site facilitates and encourages this. Now students and teachers don’t have to be in the same room and they are not dependent on video conferencing. Learning via the internet is different to attending a lecture and this site understands the difference too, between teaching and learning.
The goal of this site is to encourage and facilitate the exchange of educational resources between the sources and the readers. For both parties, the power is in their hands to create a motivating, engaging and flexible learning environment.
Version 1 (2000-2003)
The original idea was to create an online teaching resource to support students. Expertise at C3ED (Centre for Economics and Ethics for the Environment and Development) formed educational resources outside the context of the University of Versailles as a stand-alone project. It was then into the pilot phase supporting the work of European Ecological Economics and Sustainable Development Policy at the UVSQ.
Version 2 (2004)
From 2004, as a result of restructuring the Bachelor-Master-PhD to accommodate standardisation of European universities the Master SETE (Sciences of the Environment, Territory and the Economy) programme was created. The development of the Forest of Brocéliande reflected a need to harmonise the proposed educational fields with the structure of the site at a time when the university was developing digital virtual learning environments.
Woods, Trees and Branches (2006)
The structure of the site was originally conceptualised as a walk in the forest. By 2006 the first level of navigation was a wood (now known as MODULE). A wood was composed of several trees (now known as AREAS) which corresponded to sections of academic courses. Each tree could have several branches. At each level of the forest you could see where you were visually via icons and page banners.
Two tools were developed to power the site. Joomla was the content management system. eXe, an e-learning XHTML editor, enabled content to be inserted. Once created it was imported into Joomla as a hyperlink. Both tools were necessary to place the pedagogic resources online.
From here the concepts of grains and fruits were developed but the basic ideas of how to provide complex information in an accessible environment was now established.
Fine tuning Version 6
At the beginning of 2010, restructuring at the OVSQ-UVSQ saw C3ED phased out and REEDS research laboratory established. Work continued on fine tuning the Forest of Brocéliande. Navigational pathways were developed to facilitate movement and connection between Areas and Grains. This operational manual was produced and visual concepts for the live site established.