Intranet - nice and simple??

[JPS]

Hi guys, hopefully someone can confirm what I'm gonna do will work (or is the best way to do things)?

 

I am new to my school. They dont have an intranet currently and I have been set tasks that could be solved by the implementation of an intranet.

 

Long term I think our VLE (when we get it....) will supercede this but as an interim solution I think this is the best direction to go in.

 

Technically I think this is all I need:

1. Set up IIS on a server (dont think it matters which one?)

2. Create the page(s) either using Dreamweaver/Frontpage or even just code it in html

3. Save the pages on the server in a folder that IIS is set to point to.

4. Set users homepage to the intranet site (usually http://intranet I believe) via GP

 

Any corrections to my assumptions or advice on how to improve would be gratefully received.

[andydis]

Hi James, you had a look at ms sharepoint?

[JPS]

To be honest no. I was under the impression there was costs involved and quite a learning curve for someone who has never touched such thing before?? Please correct me though.

[Arcath]

that list sounds about right, personally ive never used IIS to host websites Apache isnt that hard to setup (although ive never tried to install it on Windows)

 

http://intranet should work but ive had some problem with resolving it, http://intranet.domain.local should allways work.

[ICT_GUY]

IIS is used here along with a single page (garish and child friendly picture with an image map) works really well for kids.

[irsprint84]

Sharepoint Services 3.0 is easy to pick up and free!

[Domino]

You'd get a whole lot more functionanilty with sharepoint, for a fraction of the time spent.

 

Also, AD integrated permissions with no bother

[budgester]

Linux Apache and Drupal.

 

Or

 

Linux Apache and Joomla.

 

Both of these will run on some old hardware, and have now license implications.

 

You really want a CMS for an intranet otherwise it will end up becoming a burden of updates that always have to come through you.

 

At least with a CMS you can easily teach someone how to add a new post.

[JPS]

ok, cheers so far guys. Another question, if I go down the sharepoint route is there any way of setting it up on my desktop PC for testing purposes? (As I understand it, you have to run it on W2K3). I could do without having to either a. stand at the server or b. concern the network manager by asking him to allow me to remote into the server when I fancy.

[Domino]

Well once its installed its pretty much all configured via a webpage anyway.

 

If you really wanted to try it out you could install it in VirtualBox or similar on your local machine, but you'd need a spare server licence to do so.

[somabc]

If you install it on the server you can configure it from your workstation. Otherwise download a Server 2008 trial and use that.

[p858snake]

If you install PHP (either with IIS or Apache or the many other web servers) as well, you can run most of the cms'es out there. I do believe moodle can run a "public" web site in front of the VLE mode, so you would be hitting one thing with two rocks there.

 

Although for simplish cms packages I have played with Website Baker before, or you could also use Wordpress to archive the goal of a intranet as well.

[srochford]

You say that you're going to get a VLE -do you have an idea of timescale? Has an actual product been selected?

 

Installing a basic intranet as you suggest is fine and if it's only ever going to be used for a few notices etc then it would be maintainable as a set of basic HTML pages but if it grows then managing it becomes hard work and something like Sharepoint (either the free version of the paid for one) becomes better (if you've used Linux then Drupal, Joomla etc are also good)

 

If the VLE is still at the stage of "we'd quite like one but we're not sure and we've got no money" then take a look at Moodle. You can install it on Windows or Linux (IIS/Apache; MS SQL/MySQL) and can easily run on a desktop machine while you're learning it.

 

You can set it up with a single, public "course" which would be your intranet but you can also set up subject based courses that people can try out/play with/look at/whatever to get a feel for what a VLE does.

 

Moodle.org: open-source community-based tools for learning for lots more details and the download.

[maxo]

I wouldn't go down the route of hosting a few static pages, because before you know it you'll end up with a huge mountain of pages to go through when you switch over.

 

You might as well set up something like Moodle, and it's free too, so I agree with what everyone says above. I think Sharepoint might have a slightly bigger learning curve, though, and isn't necessarily designed specifically for VLE use (though it can do that), but it is pretty powerful. I've seen setups where people use both Moodle and Sharepoint in conjunction (Moodle specifically for VLE use, Sharepoint for document management and various intranet pages and so on).