Drupal for Education and E-Learning offers a step-by-step overview of how to work with Drupal to build a complete rich learning environment. In this book you will learn to set the default installation of Drupal, and how to expand your social bookmarking site to include a platform for exchange of podcasting and video, share images, and interactive discussions on the rich media content. You will also learn to organize your site so that as learning occurs over time, you and your students will be able to track your work history.

This fragment, Social Networks and extend the user profile in Drupal is taken from the book for Drupal E-Learning Education and written by Bill Fitzgerald.

In this article you will learn how user profiles can be used for a variety of purposes. At one end of the spectrum, a profile can be used to store basic information about the user. At the other end of the spectrum, a user profile can be a place for a user to develop and share an online identity. As you create the functionality behind the user profile page, you should know the type of profile to create for users.

Drupal ships with a basic profile module. This module is a great starting point, and for many sites provide all necessary functionality.

If, however, wants a more detailed profile, you may have to take the next step: building a node in the profile. This involves creating a content type that stores the profile information. Node-based profiles offer several practical advantages, these nodes are can be extended using CCK fields, and may be categorized using a taxonomy. In Drupal 6, user profiles through become nodes, using the Content Profile module.

The best approach to user profiles will be determined by the objectives of your site. Using the core Drupal profile module provides some simple options it will be easy to configure and use. Extension of profiles by the profile module content enables a more detailed profile, but requires more time to create.

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