CBOX Classic is designed for use by communities of all kinds, while CBOX OpenLab is specifically designed to support communities at educational institutions. This results in some important differences in the underlying architecture of the two packages, such as:
- CBOX OpenLab introduces the concept of Group Types. CBOX OpenLab comes with a set of default Group Types (Course, Project, Club, and Portfolio) that we believe will be useful for educational communities, but these may be customized as needed by the site administrator.
- CBOX OpenLab introduces the use of Member Types. Again, CBOX OpenLab comes with a set of default Member Types (Students, Faculty, Staff, Alumni) that can be customized as needed.
- CBOX OpenLab includes the ability to define Academic Units (Schools, Departments, and so on) as applicable for the institution.
- CBOX OpenLab includes directories for each Group Type. In order for these directories to function correctly, each individual site in the community must be associated with a group (groups and sites can exist independently in CBOX Classic).
- CBOX OpenLab requires the use of the CBOX OpenLab theme and WordPress Multisite; CBOX Classic can be used with CBOX Classic theme or without it, and WordPress Multisite is optional.
The goal of these features is to enable the administrator to set up a site that is organized in a way that reflects the needs of a particular educational community, and is thus easier for site members to understand and navigate.
In addition, CBOX OpenLab integrates tools (plugins) created by digital humanities practitioners, including Braille, Anthologize, and PressForward, along with features designed for faculty and students, such as the ability to grade and leave private comments on individual site posts (WP Grade Comments). See the Plugins section of our documentation for more details.
For more information about the functionality of CBOX OpenLab, please read our documentation.
Posted in: CBOX OpenLab
