... it's been a long (set of) week(s) working on the first really acceptable version of Dokeos 1.8.5. Initially, we didn't really want to put so much in there. There are not so many new features, yet we've made it so that it adds a set of commonly asked-for features.
Just half an hour ago, I tagged the 1.8.5 Beta release, so it's officially out there. You can download it here:
http://www.dokeos.com/download/dokeos-1.8.5-beta.tar.gz
The first that comes to my mind is LDAP. I've personally reviewed the whole thing so now it's just a matter of uncommenting two lines in a config file and you can pretty much configure everything from the web panel. You can even import users into the platform, a course or a session directly from LDAP.
The second is user fields. User fields allow you to add virtually any information about users. You just configure which one you want from the admin panel, and then users get additional fields in their profile page, which they can still choose not to fill if they don't want to. For example, you could ask for a date of birth, a city of birth, a country of residence, a mother tongue, and so on. You can also export these values from (non anonymous) surveys or exercises results.
The third is a review of forums usability, we the ability to show your avatar next to your post (like in the big forums around) and attach documents to your posts.
There are many small features like that in Dokeos 1.8.5, yet we are still in Beta, so we need your help to make the stable release a thoroughly tested release.
Now for useful information...
- We will put a testable campus on http://demo.dokeos.com/ shortly (this week-end) so you can try it out without the need for a local installation
- Dokeos 1.8.5 Beta is a *beta* version. It is NOT meant for production. You've been warned
- We are planning on releasing a stable in one month from now (end of May)
- You can report bugs that you find in Dokeos 1.8.5 Beta in the Dokeos forum, or if you are experienced in reporting bugs, you can create an account and start opening tasks in our BTS
- LDAP has been completely revamped, but I lack the experience with LDAP servers (particularly authenticated ones), so if you can help, please TEST, TEST, TEST, and report in the BTS or directly to me
- The developments that are quite new are likely to be more unstable. These include: LDAP, User Fields, HR Manager role, XLS export of survey and exercises results, audio recorder (although this one *is* still buggy), Woogie, Gradebook (not easy to understand without documentation), new Videoconference server (much easier to install)