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*