C-LARA

An AI collaborates with humans to build a language learning app.

Social network functionality in C-LARA

As of this afternoon, we have finally got email functionality included in the UniSA C-LARA server – I have tested by adding password reset, a feature many people asked for. Next, since it’s now possible to use email alerts, we should return to the idea of expanding C-LARA’s social network functionalities, so that we can organise content more effectively. I suggest the following plan:

  1. Add export and import functions, another feature many people have requested, so that we can start by exporting existing content on the old Heroku platform in zipfile form and copying it to the UniSA server.
  2. Implement the “simple picture book” functionality. This will make it much easier for non-technical people to create interesting, fun content.
  3. Implement a version of the “reading history” functionality we experimented with in LARA, so that people can optionally combine all the material they’ve read in a given language into a single virtual document.
  4. Add social network features to help organise the content – as a result of (1) and (2), we expect that there will be more of it. Some specific features that have been discussed:
    • Email alerts when someone rates/comments your content.
    • Email alerts when someone posts on a discussion thread you have contributed to.
    • Controls to opt out of receiving email alerts.
    • Making people’s home pages visible to each other. We need to decide what will be displayed on a home page.
    • Friending/following other users.
    • Sending personal messages to other users.
    • Some CSS styling to make the platform look more attractive.

      I have been looking at the code and discussing with Chat, and all of these are simple things that can be added quickly. It’s more a question of what we want to do.
,
mannyrayner's avatar

Posted by:

mannyrayner

4 responses to “Social network functionality in C-LARA”

  1. cathyc Avatar
    cathyc

    Here are some things that come to mind for me, in response to the post.

    (1) When you say, ‘discussion thread’, what is that? How and where does it exist? Will there be a forum, which might have all sorts of subjects in it, most obviously divided by language.
    (2) Pieces of content are an obvious place for discussion threads.
    (3) People should be able to make their account private/profile private, maybe their home page will just have this information on it.
    (4) How will deletion work? EG I make a comment and then decide I’d rather delete it, can I do that? I want to delete my account, will I have the option of leaving my comment content intact but under the name ‘deleted user’ eg as on Goodreads?
    (5) Will you be able to import content from LARA – or is all that already on Heroku?
    (6) Good idea to put populate the platform with some content before adding these other features, so that they can be trial used.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
    1. mannyrayner Avatar
      mannyrayner

      These are good questions:

      (1-2): We can already add discussion threads to pieces of content, but since we haven’t had email alerts there was little point to them – no one noticed that they had been added.

      (3): Yes, clearly we need to introduce the public/private distinction. So presumably, if your account is private then only you, or possibly only you and your friends, can see content you have created. This should be easy.

      (4) We don’t currently have a delete function for comments or for accounts, but again this should be easy. We need to agree on what the exact functionality is.

      (5) I will implement importing/exporting from C-LARA to C-LARA first, then think about extending it to allow moving content from LARA to C-LARA. The downside is that it involves considerably more work, since the two formats are not identical. The upside is that we have a lot of good LARA content we should move over.

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply
      1. cathyc Avatar
        cathyc

        I think as far as (4) goes, something like Goodreads does is a good idea: encourage a user who wishes to delete their account, not to delete their comments as a service to the community. The fact that their name will change to ‘deleted user’ will likely keep anonymity.

        It would be a shame to lose all that LARA content. Obviously we want it in CLARA, not LARA. Get Chat onto it 🙂

        Like

  2. mannyrayner Avatar
    mannyrayner

    I think we should keep the current high-priority list and cross off those items first – but when we’re done (I’m guessing late Jan/early Feb), it would certainly be good to be able to import LARA content.

    Like

    Reply

Leave a comment

Categories