1. Course content
  2. Case 2: Keeping track
  3. Case 2a: Student org
  4. Models
  5. Content types

Content types

Content types

What content types should we make for the Gamerz IS? Here are three:

  • People
  • Projects
  • Events
Georgina
Georgina
Question. You’ve got “people,” but we’ve been talking about “members.” Are they the same thing?
Ruben
Ruben
Another great question! Are there people we might want to store data about, who are not members?
Ray
Ray
Maybe. One of the members’ goals was “Recommending a speaker.” Would the speakers be org members?
Georgina
Georgina
Oh, I see! Some speakers might be from game design companies. So members are people, but there are other people we want to know about, who aren’t members. Another one. I’m in the Association for Information Systems student org. Amy Rutledge is our faculty advisor. Gamerz would have an advisor, too. They would want to know her email, and other things.
Marcus
Marcus
OK, so, we make a content type for People. We’d need to know who was a member, right? The managers need to know that.
Ruben
Ruben
Good thinking, Marcus! Yes, you’d need a field. A view would filter on that field, to show just the members.

Person content type

This content type is for people that Gamerz wants to track. Members, managers, speakers, advisors, maybe others.

What fields should it have? Looking at the requirements, we’ve got:

  • Name
  • Email
  • Dues paid?
  • Affiliation (member, etc.)

Anything else?

Adela
Adela
Phone number. You might need to text someone, like, ask them where the pizza is.
Ruben
Ruben
OK. Anything else?
Ray
Ray
I was the secretary of the marketing org. One thing we never figured out was how to keep random notes about people. Like, Hali knows about marketing research, Wendy is good at stats, and such. We’d write notes on paper, but they’d get lost. Could there be a field for that?
Ruben
Ruben
Sure!
Georgina
Georgina
Hey, wait a minute! I don’t want everyone knowing all about me. The people running things, OK, but that’s it.
Ruben
Ruben
Good point. What should we do? Any ideas?
Marcus
Marcus
We could write that down about each field. Who can see it. Maybe like this:
  • Name
  • Phone (manager access only)
  • Email (manager access only)
  • Dues paid? (manager access only)
  • Affiliation (member, etc.) (manager access only)
  • Notes (manager access only)
Ray
Ray
How about people’s majors, like art, or computer science?

Thinking about promoting the club. If you see someone with your major, you might think about joining.

Oh, and if you could see what projects they’re working on. You could look at the project info, maybe ask them about it.
Here’s the list of fields for Person:
  • Name
  • Phone (manager access only)
  • Email (manager access only)
  • Dues paid? (manager access only)
  • Affiliation (member, etc.) (manager access only)
  • Major
  • Projects
  • Notes (manager access only)
Ruben
Ruben
Good list! We’ll have to decide data types, like text or number, but let’s do that later. What about other content types?

Project content type

(Talky talk talk.)

  • Name
  • Homepage (a URL)
  • Description

Next…

Event content type

(Talky talk talk.)

  • Title
  • When
  • Where
  • Description
  • Speakers

Summary

Content types are things you want to store data about. We listed the fields for three: Person, Project, and Event.