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Technical sheet |
Evaluation date: 2005/07/07 |
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| Functional features |
| Didactics/Learning flow management |
With version 3.2.0 Learning Paths features are available: it's possible to constrain the access to a particular course upon the execution of a previous course, exercise or test. The operation is manual in the first two cases: the tutor should do the evaluation and then enable the students to access the course, in the latter the student, if he pass the test, is automatically admitted to go on in the learning process. |
| Tests and assesment |
There are 7 different types of questions available: single response - multiple choice, multiple response - multiple choice, close question, matching question, ordering question, image map question and Java Applet question. It's possible to create different pools of questions in order to reuse them in more than one case, and it's possible to view the results and the level reached by the classroom; there are also features to export results. |
| Media formats/Authoring |
The content can be created within the platform or imported: SCORM/AICC, HTML (in a single file format or in a whole web site zip collection) and XML are supported. Native Ilias LM format can be exported in XML format and from version 3.4.0 even in SCORM format. A really important feature is the use of Metadata for the categorization of the LO, it is particular useful for the logic organization and the searching facilities. Users can be imported in XML format and all types of media files are supported. |
| Course monitoring |
The courses can be online for a well fixed period, and it's possible to choose different types of enrollment: a free enrollment, an approved by instructor enrollment or a conditioned by results one. The users results can be viewed in a table format and exported in an Excel file. |
| Communication |
Regarding synchronous communication, only chat is available. For asynchronous communications internal emails functionalities and forum are available. |
| General look and feel of the system |
The system employs style sheets and it's fully personalizable. There are a few style/theme available, but administrators can make their own personalized styles. User can choose moreover his own language. The login page it's also personalizable. |
| Permissions handling |
Permissions handling is one of the best made tools available. It's possible to define "Global Roles" or "Local Roles", moreover "Templates of Role" and simple "Role" are available, and it's easy to create users and to assign them a particular Role. Roles can access all the objects available or a set of them, the administrator can define roles as needed, none of the other LMS can do the same. |
| Other features |
At the moment 17 languages are available (Albanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish, Serbian, Ukrainian) and it's possible to integrate ILIAS with an existing LDAP system. |
| Maintainability |
| Quality of technical documentation |
For the developer support has been created a section on the web site where it's possible to find all the project documentation: it's important to notice that all materials has been realized using Ilias. The documentation good but not complete and is only in english. |
| Scalability |
The scores that the team provided us with are quite impressive: 25.000 users for one installation (Bordeux) and 250 courses (Humburg) are really big figures. Moreover the possibility to implement, on the same server, a pool of clients (which can access different databases) add power to the system. There is an extra chance of registering the server to the central repository: in this case we can realise a net of interconnected servers that can share coursewares. |
| Extensibility |
There a Development Guide on the web site, that contains a lot of informations and tips for people who deals with a new Ilias development. The APIs are documented within the folder DOCS of the distribution, but are not complete and not in a verbose way. New requirements are handled within the forum, bugs are managed using Mantis and there is a CVS repository accessible to everyone who needs to get the latest available version. |
| Adaptability/standard compliance |
The conformance to SCORM (LMS-RTE3) the most common standard, the possibility to import the AICC modules and a whole internet web site represent very important features. |
| Usability |
| User documentation |
At the moment the documentation is not complete, but respect to the former evaluation a lot of informations have been added. The documentation is not separated by roles, but we can found materials for the administrators and for the generic management of the platform. |
| Generating content |
The system is quite different from other similar products but, once the differet approach is understood, it's easy to create content and the usability is high. |
| Level of expertise needed |
Administrators and tutors need a bit of training to understand the different approaches to administrate the platform and to manage users and coursewares, for authors and users there aren't too many differences from other systems. |
| Other |
The system is easy to navigate and can be personalized in a lot of ways. |
| Support quality |
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It's possible to obtain support services (development, maintenance and training) addressing the needs to a list of partners that are available on the web site. In case of problem the core team is fairly responsive. |
| Total cost of ownership |
| Type of users |
Mainly Schools and Universities. |
| Financial stability |
The first version of the product (an ancestor) is dated 1998, version 3 was started in 2002. The core team is funded and it's possible to sustain them. |
| One time cost |
The platform needs only open source products and, a simple personal computer. The software requirements are: Apache (it's ok version 1.3.x or 2.0.x), MySQL (version 4.0.x or 4.1.x), PHP (version 4.5.x or 5.0.x) and some open source libraries (zlib, libpng, zip and unzip, libjpeg, libxml, libxslt,...); the full list is in the installation document. To start up a system from scratch, more than one day is necessary. For people not skilled with these tools, now it's possible to use XAMPP (an Apache project) for an easily installation: all informations are on the site. |
| Recurring costs |
Periodical activities are the same for all web systems: patching the OS or the tools installed. Sometime may be necessary a system reboot. |
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