Overview

Segue is an
open source content management system designed for e-learning that
combines the ease of use of course management systems with the
flexibility of weblogs for creating various types of sites including
course, news, journal, peer review and e-portfolio. When integrated
into an institution’s administrative systems, it can become a portal
providing access to an indivual user’s course and personal websites.

This
overview introduces many of the features of Segue. Within feature
descriptions are step by step instructions for how to use features.
Segue also has contextual help with its user interface.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23493&action=site”>Site Creation
New Sites and Users
By default, every Segue user is given a "slot" that they can use to
create a personal site. In addition, Segue administrators can create
any number of additional "slots" which can be assigned to any Segue
user and used for any purpose. Screenshot I shows the user interface
(UI) for accessing personal site, other sites, as well as "slot" from
which a site can be created.

Access & Activation
Users can specify who can view a given site and when it is available
for viewing. In addition they can chose hide their site at any
time. Site owners can refine access to further through Segue’s
granular <a href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23685&action=site”>roles and permissions.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23686&action=site”>Organization
Hierarchical
The current version of Segue supports a three level navigational structure. This
means that a given site can be organized into sections each of
which can contain any number of pages. Pages in turn can contain any
number of independent timestamped content blocks (text, images, file
downloads) or can be content themselves. The content blocks of any given page can be sorted by recent first or
recent last, or can be sorted by user’s who added or edited them,
sorted alphabetically or sorted by some custom ordering (see: Features > Weblogs).

Segue
sections and pages are mapped to a navigational layout to provide a
clear and consistent context. All sections of a site can be displayed
horizontally across the top and bottom of a site or vertically in the
left sidebar. Segue pages can be displayed in either the left or right sidebar of the site and can be content themselves or RSS feeds or dynamic lists of site categories or participants
or containers for other content blocks. If the site’s sections are
displayed in the left sidebar, then the pages of any given section
appear directly below the section to which they belong.

Associative
In addition to hierarchical organization of content, Segue also allows
creators (and editors) to organize content into multiple categories
which can then be aggregated. This allows creators to make associations
between content across hierarchically organized sections and pages.

Reorganization
All content in Segue can be moved or copied to different nodes in the
site hierarchy or to nodes in any other site. Authorization to do so is
determined by any given user’s roles and permission.

RSS
Segue supports both publishing its own content via RSS (really simple
syndication) as well as reading RSS feeds from itself and other sites.

Tagging
Segue allows creators to put any given content block into multiple categories via a user interface that is modelled on del.icio.us.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23506&action=site”>Blogging
Any page of any site in Segue can be set up to function as a weblog. A
given Segue site can have dozens of separate weblogs since a Segue page
can consist of any number of independent, timestamped content blocks
(text, images, file downloads), each of which can be made the subject
of a discussion or assessment. These content blocks can be sorted by
recent first or recent last, or can be sorted by user’s who added or
edited them, sorted alphabetically or sorted by some custom ordering.
As well these content blocks can be copied or moved to any other
location in the site or any other site a user has permission to add to.

Podcasting
Segue supports RSS 2.0 with enclosures. Podcasts can be created simply by uploading media files into File for Download content blocks. Whatever text is attached to the content block becomes the RSS item description.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23494&action=site”>Course Management
When Segue integrated into an institution’s administrative systems, it
can become a portal providing access to an individual user’s course and
personal websites.

Customization and Collaboration
Segue can be distinguished from many other course management systems in
the degree to which its appearance and organization can be customized
and the extent to which students can contribute to the course site
itself.

When a site is created, users can customize its appearance by chosing
<a href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23687&action=site”>themes and theme settings and adding custom headers and footers. In
addition, users can chose from various <a href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23687&action=site”>templates that suggest
organizational schema for various types of content. Once created, the
organization of the site can be further customized. Faculty can give
students in their classes permission to discuss, add, edit or delete
from the entire class site or any content block, page, section of the
site.

Faculty
Faculty will see a list of all the classes they are teaching with the
option to create a site for any class. If classes have more than one
section, a single site can be made which groups all of these sections
together into one site. Faculty can copy a course site from a previous
semester into a "slot" for current semester.

Students
Students will see a list of all the classes they are enrolled in with
links to sites created in Segue. As well Segue will list all the
course sites for which a given student has editor permissions.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=22633&action=site”>Discussion & Assessment
Discussions/comments can be attached to any/all content blocks of
Segue. The site owner can specify precisely who can participant in
these discussions. In discussion mode, all participants can read
and respond to each other’s posts. In assessment mode,
participants will not be able to read each other’s posts, they will see
only their own posts and replies to their post by the site owner.
Site owners can rate any/all posts to a discussion/assessment.
Discussion posts can be sorted by recent first, recent last, rating or
author.

Site owners have an interface available to them that summarizes all the
posts by all participants in a given discussion on a site or all the
discussions of a given site. From this interface, site owners can email
as a group any subset of discussion/assessment participants.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23685&action=site”>Roles & Permissions
Segue has a granular, hierarchical permissions structure (that matches
a site’s organization structure) that allows site owners to precisely
define who can discuss, view, add, edit and/or delete any content
block, page or section of their site(s).

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23687&action=site”>Themes & Templates
The appearance of any Segue site can be customized by means of themes
and theme settings. Each theme can have its own theme settings or
variations. When a user creates a Segue site, they also chose from any
number of templates. Templates are Segue sites with various
organizational schema to help new users get started. Once a site is
created with a certain template, the sections, pages and content blocks
of the template can be modified and adapted to the user’s preference.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=22635&action=site”>HTML editor
Segue has a cross-platform HTML editor (HTMLarea) that works with Win/Mac Mozilla 1.3 or greater and Windows Internet Explorer.

<a style="font-weight: bold;" href="https://segue.middlebury.edu/view/html/site/segue/?&site=site ?&section=5736&page=23689&action=site”>Administration
Any number of users can be designated as administrators. All
administrators can add/edit users, classes and slots.
Administrators can also view logs and act as any other users.

Users
Administrators can add and edit users. When users are added to
the Segue user database, they are sent a email with their username and
password. After initial log in, users can change their password.
Segue can also be configured to use multiple external authentication
methods.

Slots
All Segue users are automatically given a "slot" to create a personal
site. Administrators can create any number of additional slots
for any given user.

Classes
Administrators can add class "slots" to Segue and specify the
instructor (as owner) and add students to the class. If Segue is
configured to authenticate with LDAP and if the LDAP server specifies
class information for all users, then class slots are populated
automatically when users log in.

Logs
Administrators can view logs of all Segue activity. Perhaps the
most useful log view for daily monitoring is by recently updated
sites. Logs can also be filtered by type of activity, site and/or
user and sorted in various ways.