In 'Community Stories: People, Projects, Practice', we take a look at the multifaceted ways in which ILIAS can be used in higher education, business and organisations; how both long-standing members of the ILIAS Community and new members of the society bring exciting perspectives to how they use and further develop the learning platform within their specific scenarios. We shine a light on inspiring stories and plans for the future, challenges and successes - from innovative teaching concepts to impressive projects that have been made possible thanks to ILIAS. From you, for you. The first entry (ok - second entry in the International Blog) is brought to you by Yvonne Seiler of the University of Bern.

Alongside her honorary work in the Society, Yvonne works as a UI/UX expert in the Support Center for ICT-Aided Teaching and Research (iLUB) at the University of Bern in Switzerland. The iLUB is divided into various focus groups, one of which advises and supports the staff at the University of Bern when it comes to the use and application of ILIAS in teaching, research and collaboration.

They describe their team as snappy, funny, lightning-fast, diverse, gregarious, conscientious, quirky, unique, collegial, attractive, trendy, cool, friendly and helpful - always well supported by special member Dr Pepper, the iLUB dog with his own ILIAS account, who puts a smile on everyone's face and helps you forget about challenging support requests.

Today, Yvonne is answering a few of our questions regarding her experiences with and the use of ILIAS.

Alina:

Hi Yvonne. So, how do you use ILIAS on a day-to-day basis at the University of Bern? Which areas of teaching or work are covered by ILIAS?

Yvonne:

ILIAS is the central learning management system at the University of Bern and an integral component, especially in day-to-day teaching. In that regard ILIAS is mainly used to make learning material available, such as videos, slides and interactive contents. More and more it is also being used for quizzes and tests for learning purposes. In one instance it is also used as an official exam platform for digital exams. Additionally, the calendar provides an overview of the dates of classes and lectures attended with direct access to any relevant documents.

But ILIAS is also used on a daily basis outside of teaching, like in research and administration, for example for digital working groups or for the creation of public surveys.

Alina:

And have you adapted ILIAS to your particular requirements, or do you use it 'out of the box'?

Yvonne:

As far as possible we use ILIAS 'out of the box', as long term this is the most efficient strategy.

For this reason, actively collaborating within the ILIAS community is of central importance for us, as it allows us work together on a standard version that fulfils as many universal requirements as possible in its core version. For ILIAS 8 we reworked the system and content style in order to allow a better interplay of visual design tools and to place content designed by staff front and centre.

In order order to meet our special requirements, however, we do additionally use plug-ins like OpenCast for video content and LiveVoting for interactive classroom events. Courses can also be conveniently created via an interface to the course management system.

We try to avoid changes to the code, i.e. patches, as much as possible. If patches are necessary, we ensure that they are extensively tested, especially after updates, by means of documented test cases.

Alina:

And are there any cases of special projects or initiatives that have been successfully implemented with the help of ILIAS?

Yvonne:

Some special projects that we have implemented using ILIAS are:

Decisive for the success of these projects have been in particular ILIAS's versatile permissions management, the flexibility that the page editor in particular brings with it, and the fact that these functions can be used individually or in combination. Additionally, didactic templates have proved to be important building blocks for establishing an efficient archiving process for surveys and working groups, as well for developing suitable templates from which users can choose.

Alina:

Have you ever had to use a function for a purpose for which it wasn't originally intended, in order to solve a problem creatively or get around some sort of obstruction?

Yvonne:

Two examples spring straight to mind in which we used functions creatively in order to fulfil special requirements.

One example comes from teaching: an adaptive learning path has been built using learning modules and tests, in which the tests serve as a password barrier to access each next learning module. Students receive the password in the feedback to the learning-success monitoring questions of the previous learning module - but only if they answer correctly. If you have entered the password correctly in the test, you will be given access to the next learning module.

A further example is the archiving process in our iTools: here we use didactic templates to manage access permissions efficiently. A template removes all access permissions from an Object when it is archived, and a second template restores the original permissions when it is de-archived.

Alina:

Those do indeed seem to be extremely creative ways to use ILIAS for your own purposes. What sort of feedback have you received from the educators and learners regarding ILIAS? Are there functions that are especially well received or improvements that are desired?

Yvonne:

The feedback regarding ILIAS is very mixed.

That ILIAS allows podcasts and videos to be used is especially appreciated. The page editor is also becoming more and more popular - as soon as our users recognise what can be done with it and get used to working with it, they become truly delighted by the display options available to them. A further plus point is the already mentioned area iTools, a category with a special authorisation concept that enables event-independent work in ILIAS.

At the same time, some of our users consider the platform to be too complex and cluttered. We haven't been systematically gathering feedback though, so this feedback is more of a reflection of the issue raised by users that contact our ILIAS support services.

One of the University of Bern's goals is, therefore, to simplify the user interface and to reduce the software's code base, which should result in workflows being simplified and therefore easier to understand. There is also a desire for automation and improved workflows for large volumes of data, such as the mass administration of several courses or the processing of feedback for a large number of participants.

Alina:

That is something that I am sure a lot of people could get behind. Your work really is very useful. And I can confirm that we have already been able to read, see and hear a lot from you in the community and we hope that the University of Bern and its hard-working community and society members will continue to work together with us to create an even better ILIAS in the future.

If you had a wish free, which function or possibility would you like to see in ILIAS in order to make it even better?

Yvonne:

Feedback from users has repeatedly shown us that useful functions of ILIAS need to be laid out with instructions or advertised. Rarely are functions actually missing, but rather the workflows often require multiple steps and in some cases have to be located over various different pages. That's why we would like ILIAS to be improved by seeing a stronger focus on complete workflows and processes.

What we would like for ILIAS is for the community to work together even more on broadly effective further developments such as Removing of Legacy-UIComponents-Service and Table, Component Revision, Refinement or IRSS, in particular through active participation and the provision of financial resources. For this reason, support is particularly essential for us, especially in concept and project work.

Alina:

I think I speak for the whole community when I say that we are really grateful for your support.

Thank you so much for having taken the time to answer my questions and having given us some insight into the world of ILIAS at the University of Bern. To finish with, you have brought us some visual insights. It is a fair bet that your expertise when it comes to UI/UX played a role in these.

(The images are quite long - scrolling through them is a good idea. To stop the carousel, simply click on your mouse button and hold).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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