zBENTO

Overview

zBento is a web-based information tool designed to enhance teaching, learning, and research activities—it is a flexible and customizable content creation, organization, and maintenance system.

Examples of uses for zBento

• Web-based information resource for students, fellow researchers, or the public,
• An intranet for a department or a program,
• A content management system for an individual’s research, or
• A groupware tool for collaboration between geographically dispersed entities.

Features

Content

• You can easily upload images, videos, and links.
• Each item you put into zBento can have any number of keywords—metadata—associated with it.
• For organization, a structured classification system also allows labeling of a content item (or groups of items) with multiple categories; items can then be viewed by category, or by groups of categories.
• Groupings of specific content—called “views”— can be saved and published for viewing on the web.

Search/Browse

• Question-based navigation (using natural language processing).
• Perform a Keyword Search for words used in the content keywords (metadata), content description, or within the content’s text (the template question’s answers).
• Filter by searching in any combination of categories.

Templates

• Templates— a series of questions or form fields—are used to guide authors in content creation. When answers are combined with the questions, web-based articles are automatically generated.
• Dynamic Template Creation for categorized items: template questions or fields can be assigned to specific categories and content types, so that when an item is added to the system and labeled, new template questions or fields appear and can be answered.
• Students can be prompted for reflection by filling out the template questions.

People

• Allows multiple authors (i.e., students, RA/TAs, colleagues) to contribute to content.
• Allows permissions to limit or grant access to site content and management to multiple users.