Algo Viz org An Online Educational Community for

Algo. Viz. org : An Online Educational Community for Algorithm Visualizations Jonathan Park : Carnegie Mellon University Clifford A. Shaffer Stephen H. Edwards Alexander Joel D. Alon Monika Akbar The goal of Algo. Viz. org is to increase algorithm visualization (AV) use in classrooms through the support of an active online education community. We are studying ways to go beyond the Digital Library model of providing content, instead focusing on how user-driven content (ratings of AVs, forum discussions of AV uses and needs) can build more active community participation. Methodology New Features Ongoing Work The website was created using the content management system Drupal. Using community contributed modules and custom PHP code, the following features were implemented into our website: This website is a work in progress. Several features are still being implemented. Single-Sign On (SSO)4 SSO is a login method with the concept “Sign on once, logged in everywhere. ” We tried to implement SSO in two different ways: • AV of the Day 1 The AV of the Day showcases highquality AVs. This includes an automated twitter update to the Algo. Viz twitter account. A cron job is used to reset the AV everyday at midnight. SSO module: An in-house module developed for the purpose of allowing any Drupal site to support login via SSO. • RPX Sign-In 2 A login method similar to Open. ID, but includes a larger range of login providers. For more information, visit http: //rpxnow. com Upcoming Features Catalog Entries 5 • Wiki Migration 3 In an attempt to make our site more centralized, we are migrating all the content on our wiki site (wiki. algoviz. org) onto the Drupal site. The catalog menu and annotated bibliography is complete but this is still an ongoing project. Central Authentication Service (CAS): A single-sign on protocol for the web developed at Yale University. We would like to store all AV catalog entries from the wiki site on the Drupal site. OR Contacts Cliff Shaffer: shaffer@cs. vt. edu Steve Edwards: edwards@cs. vt. edu A. J. Alon: alon@vt. edu Jonathan Park: parkjo@cs. vt. edu Monika Akbar: amonika@cs. vt. edu http: //algoviz. org