Forum: Custom Metadata for Postings

1 Initial Problem

Big forums with multiple threads and entries tend to become confusing. In order to find interrelated issues in big forums we need to filter forums with metadata. The service for big forums should be streamlined with upcoming ILIAS services relating to metadata.

2 Conceptual Summary

• Similar to wiki pages it should be possible to use global/local advanced metadata for postings in ILIAS forums. The activation process could be located in the settings form of a forum itself. Moderators should be able to configure the availability/reuse of global metadata in their forums. Furthermore they should be able to add new metadata, analogous to the wiki object.

• When creating new postings (or editing existing postings), the respective author should be able to define/select the concrete values for the specific post (by appending the metadata input elements to the existing form elements). Moderators should be able to edit these values.
  For example certain postings in different/comprehensive threads of the ILIAS "Administration - Installation - Core" forum addressing database topics for ILIAS installations could be markes as "Oracle relevant" by assigning a concrete value "Oracle" to the metadata field "Database", available in this forum.

• A filter element (e.g. Responsive Table Filters when it will be part of the ILIAS core in the course of the implementation of Category for Huge Amount of Data) containing the active metadata field definitions (as input elements of type: text, date inputs, selectbox, checkboxes) should be presetend as a filter bar above the threads table, to create a new method for searching relevant discussions a the contained forum threads. Users should be able to set filter criteria and submit the form. The filter is finally applied and ILIAS presents a list of postings (only postings matching the criteria are displayed).
• When users click on the linked posting titles in the result links of this filter result, they will be redirected to the respective posting (anchor) in the posting list (of the containing thread). In this context ILIAS presents an opened accordion UI element.

• The metadata of postings should be respected by the Lucene search (global search and local search in forums).

• The metadata data could be part of the export/import process of ILIAS forums (single forums, forums in cotainer objects). If this is an requirement of the ILIAS Jour Fixe and the global metadata service does not support exports/imports of the consumer's (forum postings) metadata (and their relationship/references), the responsible code maintainer of the Export/Import service has to be involved/contacted.
• Because the clone/copy process of forums is not implemented yet (except the first posting), metadata will not be cloned/copied when a forum is or threads/postings are cloned.

3 User Interface Modifications

3.1 List of Affected Views

• Forum: Settings (new Setting)
• Forum: New Tab "Metadaten/Metatada"
• Forum: Posting View (Assignment/Appearance of Metadata)
• Forum: Thread View (Filter/Result)

3.2 User Interface Details

3.2.1 Forum: Settings View

3.2.2 Forum: New Tab "Metadaten/Metatada"

3.2.3 Forum: Posting View

Assignment

Presentation

3.2.4 Forum: Thread View (with filtered result)

3.3 New User Interface Concepts

• Filter (see: Category for Huge Amount of Data / Responsive Table Filters)

4 Technical Information

• Dependencies:
  • Metadata (Configurion UI, Export/Import)
  • Search (Lucene)
    • The Lucene indexing mode of forums has to be switched to an incremental indexing process. Each time a posting or thread is created/update/deleted or the title/description of the forum itself was changed, the forum module has to throw certain events (similar to the file object).
    • Furthermore Meyer, Stefan [smeyer] suggested to revise the Lucene indexing process in a way that modules/service can provide a certain SQL string for an optimized indexing of advanced metadata.
  • UI
    • Category for Huge Amount of Data / Responsive Table Filters

5 Contact

• Author of the Request:  Koch, Karola [kkoch] ( kkoch [at] hsu-hh [dot] de ) | Helmut Schmidt Universität Hamburg
• Maintainer: Jansen, Michael [mjansen] (Forum); Meyer, Stefan [smeyer] (Metadata, Search)
• Implementation of the feature is done by: {The maintainer must add the name of the implementing developer.}

6 Funding

If you are interest in funding this feature, please add your name and institution to this list.

• Helmut Schmidt Universität Hamburg

7 Discussion

Jansen, Michael [mjansen] As the responsible code maintainer I support this request.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], Nov 23, 2015: We appreciate the support of global and local custom metadata in forums in general. We agree that metadata should be added per posting by the posting author and that moderators are allowed to modify the assigned metadata (like they are allowed to edit the content, too). But some questions need to be answered before we can schedule the request:

• Where are the metadata of postings presented in the forum? The current presentation of custom metadata in wikis cannot be re-used as there is not enough space for an additional right column on the thread view of a forum (esp. when 'Sort by Posts' is enabled).
• Are metadata only presented for the posting itself - or is there (also) an aggregation view on thread level (to see what is discussed in this thread)?
• Is the mentioned filter offered for the entire forum - as a new kind of navigation to forum postings? Or is this filter only offered per thread? What is the general purpose of this filter?
• Is metadata inherited to replies? Or has every posting author to add the same metadata again to his posting - to keep the chance that the posting is in the filter result?

Jansen, Michael [mjansen], 13 Sept. 2016:

• Presentation: I discussed this with Karola Koch, we elaborated three possible approaches.
  • Option 1: The metatada could be presented as additional information for each posting (below the message).
  • Option 2: The metatada could be presented in an (initially closed) accordion below the message.
  • Option 3: The metatada could be presented (e.g. in a popover or lightbox) when hovering/clicking a certain trigger (could be a glypth) element.
• Aggregation: There is not aggregated view planned in the first implementation step.
• Inheritance: Authors are able to add metadata for each top level posting (only) below the root posting. The metadata will be then derived by all answers in the sub tree. Defining concrete values for the answers will not be possible anymore for postings in the sub tree.
• The filter elements are offerered per thread, in a toolbar at the top of the posting list. Because answers of top level postings derive metatada from their root, they will be filtered in case their root is filtered.

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], Sep 27, 2016: @ Michael: If I understand you right, the metadata are set for a thread and not for every single posting within the thread, right? So they indicate what topics are discussed within the thread. In this case I would recommed to rename this feature page to "Custom Metadata for Forum Threads" - as this is what is meant. Would you agree?

Jansen, Michael [mjansen], Sep 27, 2016: No, according to Karola the metadata shuld be set for postings (Wiki -> Wiki Page, Forum -> Posting).

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], Sep 29, 2016: There is already an idea how to improve the presentation of filters in ILIAS, see Responsive Table Filters and to extend them to filtering ObjectList items, see Category for Huge Amount of Data. I highly recommend to use such a new general responsive filter for the current feature, too.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], March 13, 2017: We highly appreciated this suggestion and schedule it for 5.3. We would like to re-use the UI listing panel and create a sub-element 'UI forum listing' (financed by Uni Bern) including its sub-element for displaying the metadata key-value-pairs, see PR399, as well as the responsive table filters (see Filter-Configuration in Categories).

8 Implementation

{The maintainer has to give a description of the final implementation and add screenshots if possible.}

Test Cases

Test cases completed at {date} by {user}

• {Test case number linked to Testrail} : {test case title}

Approval

Approved at {date} by {user}.