OpenUSS 1.2 Final is out!

OpenUSS - Open University Support System

OpenUSS is a J2EE- and GPL-based E-Learning platform. OpenUSS ist an
infrastructure software for every Organizations, which have a need
to build an E-Learning platform:
- universities,
- schools,
- training companies and
- other companies, which offer direct training to their workers.

Like
-> Apache for web server,
-> JBoss and JOnAS for EJB server,
-> Tomcat for servlet server,
OpenUSS is targeted to take over the market for Learning Management
Systems (LMS). At least we believe that, LMS are also general-purpose,
commoditized, horizontal infrastructure software.
-> OpenUSS for LMS server! Yes ;-)

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OpenUSS Version 1.2 Final.

For users:
- Better Graphical User Interface.
- Using the whole width of the web browser.
- WebAccess Component
- With this component it is possible to upload a zipped
HTML files incl. pictures etc. These files won't be saved
in the database. They will be saved directly in the web
server directory.
- Quiz Component (Brain Contest)
- This component offers all assistants/professors to upload
an exercise with a well-defined answer. All the students
can afterwards download it and send their answer.
The Quiz Component will then check the answer automatically
and put the right answer in the top ten list.
- Mailinglist is now completely implemented with
MessageDriven Beans.

For developers:
- Build framework jakarta ant 1.4 is now included,
so you can compile OpenUSS easily. All build files
(Enhydra, JOnAS) are now in jakarta ant form. No batch
files will be needed anylonger.
- Completely rearrange all the source codes, so it's easy
for the new developers to understand the structure
of OpenUSS. The whole frameworks are now extracted as a
stand-alone (dev-framework) component.
The mail service (dev-mailservice) is also completely
implemented as a stand-alone component, so every
other components can use it easily. Think about a
notification system for the discussion component ;-)
This feature can be implemented on the next version.
- Delete all the files, which are not up-to-date (like all
IDE project files, etc.).
- Using the newest JOnAS 2.4.4.

Next steps and coming features:
- Search engine for the discussion component is on the way.
- WhoIsOnline component should be available in the next
version.
- HyperlinksCollection component will be implemented by
Torsten.
- LayoutManager and "skins" are in development. So each
organization can have their own look and feel.
We also want that each organization can use their own
text definitions like instead of "faculty" maybe "community"
and so on. So OpenUSS can be used for general purpose
stuffs -> University, School, Company, Project and Community.
- The presentation layer should be completely rewritten
using Barracuda as the webframework. Yes, Barracuda and
XMLC are really cool!
- The Administration component should be implemented
(who wants to be a volunteer for this component? ;-))

Have a lot of fun!

BTW. We are really happy if you want to join us! You can
just build your own components and we can integrate them
into OpenUSS.

OpenUSS Homepage
http://openuss.sourceforge.net
OpenUSS at SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openuss
Reference Implementation
http://www.openuss.org

OpenUSS Team
Prof. Dr. Heinz Lothar Grob
Dr. Frank Bensberg
Lofi Dewanto (dewanto@uni-muenster.de)
Torsten Menzel (torsten.menzel@informatik.uni-leipzig.de)
Alexander Ludi (openuss@yahoo.com)

Many thanks to all, who already support us!
OpenUSS Members: http://sourceforge.net/projects/openuss
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