Knowledge Repository Guide
The Knowledge Repository (KR) is a spot where schools and districts can place resources to be used by all users. These resources can be public or you can restrict areas of the KR to just specific students, staff and teachers. Resources can include files as well as hyperlinks to external resources not in the Knowledge Repository. Users can also rate and sort these resources.
Accessing the Knowledge Repository
You can access your Knowledge Repository by adding /kr at the end of your site (ie. http://www.yourdomain.com/kr). You may also access this area by having it be part of your published links or by adding a link on a page.
Managing the Knowledge Repository
Adding a Domain
To begin you need to add a domain. A domain in the Knowledge Repository is considered to be the top level of the section you are about to populate with content. To add a domain, you need to be an administrative user and go to System Administration and then under the Knowledge Repository section click on Manage Domains.
Click Add Domain.
Fill in the Name of your domain. You can add a Description if you wish.
Click Create Domain.
Managing a Domain
By clicking on a specific domain from within Manage Domains or on /KR, you can perform a number of actions such as adding categories, editing categories, changing security settings, editing domain settings and deleting the domain.
Adding a Knowledge Category
All the resources within the KR must be stored within the Knowledge Categories.
To create a knowledge category:
Click Add Knowledge Category from the Domain Administration menu.
Fill in the Name of your category. You can add a Description if you wish.
Click Add Category to create the category.
Security
Direct Permissions
The Direct Permissions tab lists all the users that are given direct capability of modifying this domain. You can add users to the list by clicking Add. A window called Select Groups and Users will appear. Here, you can select the groups/users that you wish to add and then click Add.
If you’ve accidentally added someone, you can remove them by selecting them from the bottom list and clicking Remove.
When you are done, click OK. To remove direct permissions from a user, check the box next to the user’s name and then click Remove. If you click on the + beside a user, you can alter the privileges that user has.
You also have the option to allow inheritable permissions from parents of this object to propagate to it by checking the box at the bottom and clicking Apply. The same goes for resetting permissions on all child objects and enabling propagation of inheritable permissions.
Actual Permissions
Actual Permissions refer to users that have the privilege of modifying this domain, but the permission may be inherited. That is they might have permissions through inheriting from parent object permissions. At the top of this section is a search field to help you look for specific users or groups. If you click the + sign beside a user, you can see exactly what privileges that user possesses for the domain.
Editing a Domain
This page is used to edit the name and description of the domain. You can change the name using the Name text field, or change the description using the Description text area. Once all changes are made, click on the Update Domain button to finalize the change.
Deleting a Domain
To delete a domain, click Delete Domain.
Once the link is clicked, a warning message will appear asking you to confirm the action. If you click OK the entire domain along with all of its categories, sub-categories and any resources that are not linked to multiple domains will be permanently deleted from the system.
Managing Categories
If you click on a category within a domain, you can access all the resources and links in a category just by clicking on them. There are also sorting options on top of the list of resources. Sort By Date lists the items from the most recently created to the least recently created. Sort Alphabetically lists the items from A to Z. Sort By Rating lists the items from the highest to the lowest rating.
To access any created categories, click on the name of the category.
On the left-hand side of the page, the first section is called Contribute which includes the Add Resource and Add Link options. The Categories section is a list of links to all the sub-categories of this category. And the Administration section contains the tools that you can use to edit the category.
Adding a Resource
It is simple to add a new resource.
Click Add Resource from the left-hand side under Contribute. Each resource can be a file of any type, or a link.
You can add a single file or multiple files at the same time. To add a single file, click on Browse to select the file from your computer, change the File Name if necessary, fill in an optional Description and then click Add Resource.
Adding a New Link
To create a new link:
Click Add Link.
Enter in a Link Name and a Web Address (URL).
If you wish you can also add a Description of the link.
Adding Sub-Categories
To create a sub-category of the current category:
Click Add Category from the Administration menu.
Fill in the Name of your category. You can add a Description if you wish.
Managing Resources
You are able to edit, remove, and purge items in a category by clicking on Manage Resources. To manage a specific resource:
Click the Edit button beside it. You are able to edit their name, description, and URL or file path.
By placing a check beside a resource, you can choose to remove it from this category by clicking on the Remove button at the bottom, or you can delete it from the system by clicking on the Purge button.
Note: If the resource is only part of a single category, removing the resource will permanently delete the item just like when you purge a resource.
Editing a Category
By clicking Edit Category you can make changes to the Name and Description fields.
If you make any changes, click Update Category button to finalize the change.
Deleting a Category
Once the Delete Category link is clicked, a warning message will appear asking you to confirm the action. If you click OK, the entire category along with all of its sub-categories will be deleted.
Working with Resources
If you click on a resource within a category, you will be able to edit and update the resource, configure metadata and categories and determine security settings.
Viewing a Resource
The View Resource tab shows all the information about the resource. The file details section includes the file name, the user that last modified the file, the date the file was last modified, the file size, and user ratings are displayed. Also, if there are any other files linked to this resource, they will be listed here.
If you have yet to rate this resource, you can do so using the radio buttons after the resource information.
The Metadata attributes section, displays any information that has been added on the Metadata tab.
The Comment section allows users to add their own comments via the Add Comment link, reply to someone else’s comment using the Reply link, edit a comment through Edit, and delete a comment by clicking Delete.
Rating a Resource
The Knowledge Repository also supports the concept of rating your resources. Users can rate resources to capture the community’s impression of this resource. Users who have not rated a resource will see something like the following on the View a Resource tab:
The average rating will be display on the category page next to the file.
Editing a Resource
If you click on the Edit Resource tab, you can update the Name or Description field of the resource.
If you make any changes, click Update File to confirm.
Categories
In the Categories tab, you can choose which category or categories the resource belongs to.
To add a category, use the Category Browser section.
First, click on the Browse button and a new window should appear.
Use that window to search through the Knowledge Repository and click Select on the category you wish to add.
Click Add to add the resource to the selected category.
In the Categories section, a list of all the categories that are linked to this resource is displayed.
Here, you can also delete any existing categories by clicking on cross icon under Action.
Linked Resources
In the Linked Resources tab, you can add files that are related to the resource and the will be shown in the View Resources tab. To link a file:
Use the Browse button and find the file.
Give the file a Name.
Optionally add a Description.
Click the Add Resource button to upload the file.
On the bottom this page, there is a section called Linked Resources. This is a list of all the files that are currently linked to the resource. Here you can sort the list of files by Name, Date Modified, User, and File Size by clicking on their respective links in the first row. You can also delete files by checking on the checkboxes of the files that you want to delete, and then use the Actions drop-down menu and click Delete Selected.
All Versions
The All Versions tab is used to store multiple versions of the resource so that it can be conveniently changed at any time. Under the All Revisions section is a list of all the versions of the resource.
You can access the files of each resource by clicking on their file names. You can also choose which version is the live version by clicking on the Make Live link. The live version is the one that all the users see. To add new versions, click on the Add New Revision link that is on the top right-hand corner of the section. To delete a version, click on the Delete link.
The All Versions tab also has a comment section much like the View Resources tab.
Metadata
When working with a resource, users can update the Metadata tab for the resource. This information will be visible to users viewing the resource.
Simply fill out the fields and click Update to save your changes.
Security
You can configure permissions on an individual resource by clicking on the Security tab.
Direct Permissions
The Direct Permissions tab lists all the users that are given direct capability of modifying this resource.
You can add users to the list by clicking on Add, and a new window called Select Groups and Users will appear. Here, you can select the groups/users that you wish to add and then click on Add. If you’ve accidentally added someone, you can remove them by selecting them from the bottom list and clicking Remove. When you are done, click OK. To remove direct permissions from a user, check the box next to the user’s name and then click Remove. If you click on the + beside a user, you can alter the privileges that user has.
You also have the option to allow inheritable permissions from parents of this object to propagate to it by checking the box at the bottom and clicking Apply. The same goes for resetting permissions on all child objects and enabling propagation of inheritable permissions.
Actual Permissions
Actual Permissions refer to users that have the privilege of modifying this resource, but the permission may be inherited. That is they might have permissions through inheriting from parent object permissions. At the top of this section is a search field to help you look for specific users or groups. If you click the + beside a user, you can see exactly what privileges that user possesses for the resource.