Time tracking in Chamilo’s exercises for 1.8.6.2

Dokeos 1.8.6.2 will ship a new beta tool, the time tracker for exercises. It's been asked for since 2004, as far as I can remember working on Dokeos, but I have always refused to start implementing it, mostly because it was a risky business to have to support a JavaScript widget with the lack of portable JS libraries. Since the adoption of JQuery globally in Dokeos though, things have changed, and although *nobody* financed that development (which I am quite disappointed about, actually), we have taken the responsibility to put it inside 1.8.6.2. This is one more big step in the run against Moodle, which seemed to loose speed constantly for the last two years (see activity graph on Ohloh), and for which we were always getting justifications like:
  • more flexible (we still have some work to do on the graphical flexibility here)
  • supports UTF-8 (technically, we now do this as well, and support might actually be better than in Moodle, we didn't check that)
  • allows for timed exams (1.8.6.2 will support that)
  • is faster/more efficient (I am still waiting for data to prove argument and I seriously doubt it)
We are also working constantly on improving the time and scores tracking overall, as this is a highly sensible matter for most of us. The rest of the features set that varies is generally considered moot (=not important/useless) by users in many cases, but we have a bunch of things that Moodle doesn't have yet. Now as we prepare for Dokeos 2.0 and Moodle 2.0, I'm growing more curious about how this is all going to work in the future.

2010-06-08 update

As answered to Denis in the comments below, Dokeos 1.8.6.2 will never exist as 95% of its developers (myself included) moved to the Chamilo project after major organizational issues were left un-addressed for months. This being said, what was supposed to be released in Dokeos 1.8.6.2 was released in Chamilo 1.8.6.2 in January 2010 and improved in 1.8.7 released in May 2010. Feel free to download it from our website or test it on our free campus. This includes the exercises timer, yes.

Comments

Hello Yannick,

First, the site address I've posted has just been setup and there is nothing developed yet...Which brings me to why I'm writing you.

I am working on a project that is going to attempt to address the need for a personal learning management system for the "masses". I believe the future of professional knowledge acquisition will be driven by the creation of personal learning environments (PLE's) which allow a professional to collect and report progress acquiring knowledge from many sources especially all the hours spent engaged in learning using the internet.

I've chosen Drupal as my CMS platform for the project and would like to find out if you can be hired to:

1. consult to determine if the Dokeos tool would suit the needs of the project
2. assist with an integration of the Dokeos/Drupal module
3. provide your expertise in Dokeos customization/s,
if it makes sense to use the tool as my site's "backbone" LMS?

Please let me know if you could work directly on a project or at least consult?

I appreciate your time and follow up.
Regards,
Anthony

Hi Anthony,

Sure, I'm available for hire, depending on the scope of the project. I'm sending you a private e-mail right away to discuss it.

Yannick

Hi Yannick,

I have downloaded the latest release of dokeos (may 2010). I have been developing assessments and for one assessment in particular, I need to set a time limit. I have read that this feature was going to be release for dokeos, but I have not been able to find it. Could you please direct me as to how i can find this and use it.

I hope you can help me out with this
Regards,

Denis

Hi Denis,

We (95% of Dokeos developers) moved to the Chamilo project. What was supposed to be published as Dokeos 1.8.6.2 will probably never be published, as we decided to put it in the Chamilo 1.8.6.2 package. Currently, we are at Chamilo version 1.8.7 and the exercise tool benefits from a time limit (live time counter) which already passed through the test of 4 months of public release (with its own series of bugs being fixed).
You have two choices now:
- patch your own Dokeos to add the time counter (might be a little complicated)
- upgrade your Dokeos 1.8.6.1 to Chamilo 1.8.7. This is a normal upgrade procedure, but it means you will not be able to migrate to Dokeos 2.0 when it comes out (if it ever comes out). Either way, from Dokeos 1.8.6.1, you have to choose between Chamilo and Dokeos.

As a background information, the information available on the Dokeos website for the roadmap of Dokeos 2.0 is probably only commercial argumentation. We'll see what happens on the 10th of October (scheduled date for 2.0).
In the meantime (after the last release of Dokeos), Chamilo already provided two new versions with 6 major features added. Might be worth considering :-)