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ATutor (Learning Management System)

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Project News for ATutor (Learning Management System)

  • ATutor 1.6.4 Released

    December 16, 2009

    *ATutor 1.6.4 Released*

    ATutor 1.6.4 is now available. Current users should upgrade as soon as possible. To try the new features in this release, visit the demo site at the link below. Or, download a copy to setup your own installation.

    *ATutor 1.6.4 Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

    *ATutor 1.6.4 Download*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php

    *What's New in this Release*

    *Common Cartridge*: The primary addition to this release is support for the IMS Common Cartridge Lite 1.0 content interoperability standard. This standard combines IMS Content Packaging and IMS Question Test Interoperability (QTI), as well introducing tool interoperability with the ability to now associate activities with content. Changes for Common Cartridge have also added Web links to external Web sites as content pages. (Thanks to the Ontario Enabling Change program for funding this work, and the University of Bologna's Department of Computer Science for their contribution.)

    *Common Cartridge Importing*: Import any of the hundreds of existing common cartridges to quickly add learning materials to courses. Visit the Open University's OpenLearn site ( http://openlearn.open.ac.uk ) for a large collection of cartridges released under a Creative Commons license, that can be freely imported into ATutor.

    *Common Cartridge Authoring*: Using the built in content authoring tools in ATutor, create your own common cartridges, or take an imported cartridge and customize it.

    *Common Cartridge Exporting*: After creating a new cartridge or modifying an existing one, export the cartridge so it can be reused in other ATutor courses, or imported into another LMS that supports the common cartridge standard.

    *Common Cartridge + AccessForAll*: If you are creating adaptive content based on the IMS AccessForAll standard, or the ISO FDIS 24751 standard, export your adapted content as part of a common cartridge, and import your adapted content when adding cartridges to a course.

    * *Other New Features* *

    *Prerequisite Tests*: Instructors can setup prerequisite tests with content folders to automatically give students access to content in those folders when they pass (or take) a test. (Thanks to Bridgepoint Health, Toronto)

    *User Interface Enhancements*: More Fluid features have been integrated into the ATutor user interface. The Fluid inline editor allows authors to edit the content navigation menu directly. And, new folders and content pages can be added using the editor tools embedded in the menu. Menu boxes can now be collapsed or expanded to customize which tools are displayed. The old sub menu has been replaced with a new tool bar to provide easier access to various tool components. The Browse Courses screen has been updated with a cleaner look, and a more fluid layout.

    *Package and Backup Conversion*: With the new content structure added to support common cartridge, old content packages, and old course backups are automatically converted to the new structure when imported or restored. All content in an ATutor installation is converted to the new structure during a system upgrade, so in many cases no extra effort is required to convert to the new content structure.

    *Extended Social Profile*: More optional personal profile characteristics can now be added to an individual's ATutor network profile such as weight, height, eye colour, languages spoken, ethnicity, alternate contact or representative, disabilities, and more (Thanks to Lights, Camera, Access http://www.lightscameraaccess.ca)

    For a full list of changes, including new features and bug fixes, see the atutor.ca bug tracker ChangeLog.

    *ChangeLog*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/mantis/changelog_page.php


    * *Translation* *
    Translators can now update the languages they are maintaining to include the language for ATutor 1.6.4. There are only a handful of new language items in this release, so updating from the previous version should not take more than a few minutes.

    *What's Coming Up*
    *ATutor Transformable*: Work has begun on the ATutor learning content authoring tool and repository. Transformable, it's development name, will allow content authors to prepare elearning content, create AccessForAll adapted versions of their content, and import or export content in content packages or common cartridges. With a full set of Web services, LMS developers will be able to program an interface to the repository, so content, and its adaptations, can be presented in any learning management system that supports Web services or IMS content interoperability standards.

    *ATutor Mobile*: A new mobile theme has been roughed together in 1.6.4 in preparation for new themes being created over the next development cycle for iPhones, Blackberries, and Android phones. You'll soon be able to use your mobile device to access your ATutor courses.

    2009-12-17 17:11:26 UTC by greggy

  • ATutor 1.6.4 Beta Released

    A beta release of ATutor 1.6.4 is now available for testing and feedback, leading up to the final release in mid December. Post your feedback and bug reports early to the ATutor Bug Reports Forum

    *ATutor Bug Reports*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forum/3/1.html

    *ATutor 1.6.4 Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

    *ATutor 1.6.4 Download*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php

    *What's New in this Release*

    *Common Cartridge*: The primary addition to this release is support for the IMS Common Cartridge 1.0 content interoperability standard. This standard combines IMS Content Packaging and IMS Question Test Interoperability (QTI), as well introducing tool interoperability with the ability to now associate activities with content, and the addition of Web links for including external Web sites as content pages. Activities are limited to discussion topics in this release, looking forward to a future release where any of the available tools in ATutor can be added to content as learning activities, based on the emerging IMS Learning Tool Interoperability (LTI) standard.

    *Common Cartridge Importing*: Import any of the hundreds of existing common cartridges to quickly add learning materials to courses. Visit the Open University's OpenLearn site (openlearn.open.ac.uk) for a large collection of cartridges released under a Creative Commons license, that can be freely imported into ATutor.

    *Common Cartridge Authoring*: Using the built in content authoring tools in ATutor, create your own common cartridges, or take an imported cartridge and modify it.

    *Common Cartridge Exporting*: After creating a new cartridge or modifying an existing one, export the cartridge so it can be reused in other ATutor courses, or imported into another LMS that supports the common cartridge standard.

    *Common Cartridge + AccessForAll*: If you are creating adaptive content based on the IMS AccessForAll standard, or the ISO FDIS 24751 standard, export your adapted content as part of a common cartridge, and import your adapted content when adding cartridges to a course.

    *Other New Features*

    *Prerequisite Tests*: Instructors can setup prerequisite tests with content folders to automatically give students access to content in those folders when they pass (or take) a test.

    *User Interface Enhancements*: More Fluid features have been added. The Fluid inline editor allows authors to edit the content navigation menu directly. And, new folders and content pages can be added using the editor tools embedded in the menu. Menu boxes can now be collapsed or expanded to customize which tools are displayed. The old sub menu, which people had difficulty seeing, has been replaced with a new tool bar to provide easier access to various tool components. The Browse Course screen has been updated with a cleaner look, and a more fluid layout.

    *Package and Backup Conversion*: With the new content structure added to support common cartridge, old content packages, and old course backups are automatically converted to the new structure when imported or restored. All content in an ATutor installation is converted to the new structure during a system upgrade, so in many cases no extra effort is required to convert to the new content structure.

    2009-11-18 17:46:33 UTC by greggy

  • ATutor 1.6.3 Released

    * *ATutor 1.6.3 Released* *

    ATutor 1.6.3 has been released. Current users are encouraged to upgrade to take advantage of some significant new features. ATutor can now be used as social networking software, as a learning management system, or for both social networking and elearning.

    *ATutor 1.6.3 Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

    *ATutor 1.6.3 Download*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php

    * *New Features in this Release* *
    *ATutor Social*: The main new feature in this release is the integration of ATutor Social, which is based on the OpenSocial 1.0 standard. Users can develop a personal profile, keep a contacts list, create or join social groups, and link any of the thousands of open social gadget applications into their social networking environment to personalize it to their needs.(Funded by Ontario Media Development Corporation for Lights, Camera, Access)

    *Detailed Course Home Page*: Instructors can choose to use the Detailed Home Page view to display current information, and provide quick access to that information directly from the course home page. Course Tools can now be arranged by dragging and dropping, and can now be managed directly from the course home page. (By University of Bologna, Italy)

    *Fluid Libraries Update*: The Fluid Infusion 1.1 libraries have been added to provide a range of new dynamic interaction in ATutor. The drag and drop tools on the course home page for example, use the Fluid grid reorderer. A wide range of other features provided by Fluid are now available for developers to use for adding "Web 2.0" functionality to their modules. (See Fluid Infusion Features at: http://wiki.fluidproject.org/display/fluid/Components )

    *Visual Editor Updated*: The ATutor content editor has been updated with the most recent TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor. The AChecker module for TinyMCE has been updated to take advantage of the new AChecker Web services. Authors can now paste content from Word documents into the content editor, making it easy to quickly gather existing content to assemble an online course.

    *Security Features*: Accessible Captcha user validation has been added to ensure only humans can register, and not malicious scripts from SPAM bots. Confirm email address has been added, to minimize potential email typos. Also added is a setting for maximum login attempts, locking the login screen for a period, preventing repeated guessing of account information by unauthorized users. (By Fraser Health Authority, Canada)

    *Profile Picture Update*: A 320*240 image is now possible as a profile picture.

    *LaTeX Support Updated*: LaTeX support has been added throughout all of ATutor, making it possible to write math equations in announcements, forum messages, test items, inbox messages, etc.

    *Glossary Update*: The ageing Overlib library used to generate mouseover glossary popups, has been replaced with a modern, stylable, jQuery based tooltip popup. (By Norwegian Center for Telemedicine)

    *Theme Updates*: A bunch of the older themes have been updated to work with new features in ATutor. See the themes change log for theme updates. (http://wiki.atutor.ca/display/atutorwiki/Themes+Change+Log)

    *Certify Module*: Instructors can now install the Certify module to automatically issue a certificate based on successful completion of any number of ATutor tests. (By Norwegian Centre for Telemedicine)

    2009-07-23 18:09:09 UTC by greggy

  • ATutor 1.6.3 Beta1 Released

    Jun 12, 2009

    *In this Newsletter*:
    ATutor 1.6.3 Beta Released
    ATutor Translation
    AChecker Accessibility Evaluator Released

    * *ATutor 1.6.3 Beta Released* *
    The first beta release of ATutor 1.6.3 is now available for testing and feedback. ATutor users are encouraged to visit the demo, or install a version, and try out the new features. Requests for feature adjustments, and bug reports, can be posted to the Bug Reports forum. Please take the time now to test the new ATutor while changes can still be made.

    *ATutor 1.6.3 Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

    *ATutor 1.6.3 Download*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/download.php

    *ATutor Bug Reports Forum*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forum/3/1.html

    Over the next several weeks a series of betas and release candidates will be released, integrating comments from community feedback, leading up to a *final release about mid July*.

    *New Features in ATutor*
    *ATutor Social*: The main new feature in this version of ATutor is ATutor Social, the addition of social networking to ATutor. Users can develop a personal profile, keep a contacts list, create or join social groups, and link open social gadget applications into their social networking environment to personalize it to their needs. ATutor social can be run as a standalone social network, or it can be linked into the central ATutor community through the Open Social Shindig server.

    *Visual Editor Updated*: The ATutor content editor has been updated with the most recent TinyMCE WYSIWYG editor. The AChecker module for TinyMCE has been updated to take advantage of the new AChecker Web services.

    *Registration Updated*: Accessible Captcha user validation added. Confirm email address added. Set maximum login attempts before locking out for a period.

    *Profile Picture Update*: Add a 320*240 image as a profile picture.

    *LaTeX Support Updated*: LaTeX support has been added throughout all of ATutor, making it possible to write equations in announcements, forum messages, test items, email messages, etc.

    For a list of other bug fixes and feature adjustment see the ATutor ChangeLog:
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/mantis/changelog_page.php

    * *ATutor Translation* *:
    With the addition of ATutor Social, there are about 300 new language items to be translated. Translators should login to atutor.ca to update the languages they are maintaining, or translate on their own local installation, then export and post the language pack to the translation forum.

    *Translation Forum*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forum/4/1.html

    * *AChecker 1.0 Released* *
    AChecker is a free Open Source Web Content Accessibility Checker developed by the ATutor development team. Web content authors, webmasters, application developers, and others who create content for the Web can use AChecker to ensure the information they post will be accessible to everyone.

    *Check the Accessibility of your Web site at*
    http://www.achecker.ca

    *Download AChecker*
    http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/download.php

    *Find Help and Participate in the AChecker Community*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forum/18/1.html

    *AChecker Features*
    *Web Accessibility Checker*
    Check accessibility against standards including WCAG 1.0 & 2.0, BITV, Stanca, and Section 508.
    Login to save evaluation results.
    Generate a conformance seal to add to your Web site.
    Link the seal back to the original evaluation.
    Use the linked seal to monitor accessibility of pages as their content changes

    *Guideline Manager*
    View or edit existing standard accessibility guidelines
    Add new accessibility checks to guidelines
    Create custom accessibility guidelines

    *Checks Manager*
    More than 260 standard accessibility checks
    View or edit existing accessibility checks
    Create new accessibility checks

    *User Manager*
    Manage users and groups of users
    Create groups to perform various AChecker tasks

    *Multi-Lingual*
    Manage AChecker in any number of languages
    Translate AChecker into any language
    Import and Export language packs

    *Developer Features*
    Web services API, for programming accessibility checking into Web authoring tools
    Public source code repository

    *Credits*
    Thanks go to the Ontario Government's Enabling Change Program for its support of this project. AChecker is being developed by the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre at the University of Toronto.

    *Please redistribute this News Release broadly*

    2009-06-12 19:12:46 UTC by greggy

  • ATutor Social and AChecker

    *Introducing ATutor Social*
    ATutor Social is now available for testing and feedback. This Beta version can either be downloaded from the atutor.ca Web site, or for those using ATutor 1.6.2+. it can be installed directly from the Module Repository using the administrator's Module Manager. The final release of the module should come about the same time as the next major ATutor release (June 09).

    *Download ATutor Social Beta*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/modules/index.php

    ATutor Social is an implementation of the Google OpenSocial Container Specification. In addition to introducing basic social networking capabilities, such as keeping contacts, group participation, and social graphing, ATutor Social can leverage thousands of existing social applications that can be added each person's social networking environment with the click of a button. All of a sudden there are thousands of new modules for ATutor.

    *To learn more about ATutor Social, visit the Web site*
    http://www.atutor.ca/social/

    *Try the ATutor Social Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php

    *Post feedback to the ATutor forums*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forums/

    *Introducing AChecker*
    AChecker accessibility reviewer is now available for testing and feedback. AChecker is used to evaluate the accessibility of Web sites to a variety of international standards, including W3C WCAG, Section 508 (U.S.), Stanca (Italy), and BITV (Germany). Administrators can customize standards, edit existing accessibility checks, and create new checks. Try the demo on your own Web site to see how it fairs. Download a copy to install your own version of AChecker.

    *AChecker Demo*
    http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/demo.php

    *Download AChecker Beta*
    http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/download.php

    *AChecker Details*
    http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/

    *Post feedback to the ATutor forums*
    http://www.atutor.ca/forums/

    2009-04-16 12:45:47 UTC by greggy