Drupal, at its base installation, is a blank slate, a content management system that can be used to create a large variety of different websites. Thus, Drupal is preconfigured for creating a community site suitable for the online writing classroom, a highly configurable platform that better facilitiates community interaction and collaboration than is possible with proprietary course management systems. Educators will find that this distribution eliminates 95% of the work involved in setting up a Drupal site for a writing class, as well as containing some documentation materials which will reduce the learning curve for site administration.

It is not possible within the scope of this text to explain all Drupal configurations, modules, and features. Instead, the Drupal Site Configuration Guide is intended as a large FAQ that will guide you through some basic issues and answer some specific configuration questions which should get you started with your class site. As you become more comfortable with Drupal, it is certainly worthwhile to learn more -- so that you can take advantage of the flexibility and wide range of configuration options and additional features.

For much more detailed information on Drupal configuration and usage, consult the administration help section of this site and the extensive Drupal Handbook at drupal.org. Also be sure to read the help material available at the top of many of the administration pages.

This site configuration is built on Drupal 4.6