Some theoretical and practical aspects of educational portal design based on CMS System

Abstract

In this paper the authors describe and review their own experience as well as the experience of other countries in the use of of CMS for the development of educational portals. In addition, the paper includes a preview of system side requirements for such CMS as Joomla!, Drupal, WordPress, PHP-Fusion, Web@all CMS, Mambo and eXtreme-Fusion. The authors propose a concept of an educational portal that meets the needs of students, academic teachers, lecturers and administrative staff of the university. A description of the layers and target groups of this educational portal is provided, too. Moreover, the article examines results of a student survey relating to their expectations concerning the faculty’s educational portal. The last section of the article provides advice for designers of CMS-based portals, based on the authors' many years of experience in the field and an analysis of the available examples.