With every new release, ILIAS gets a bit better... a bit clearer... a bit closer to what you need on a day-to-day basis. ILIAS 11 is no exception: lots of new functions and improvements mean that the platform is more flexible, understandable and efficient. A real community project – developed with and by you.

ILIAS 11 is here

After intensive development and testing, we are proud to say that ILIAS 11 boasts a whole number of new functions. Just like in the previous versions, it isn't just about new features, but also about sensibly improving existing functions and streamlining workflows. Altogether 40 new features have been introduced into ILIAS 11 and 10 features removed. This means that ILIAS 11 is a relatively small update in comparison to previous versions. However, there has been intensive work on the code in the background - these improvements will be noticeable in day-to-day use. ILIAS runs more smoothly, is more stable and just performs better overall.

A Smooth Start With the Guided Tour

Let's be honest, ILIAS, with all of its functions, can be pretty overwhelming, especially for new users or new installations. The new Guided Tour is there to extend a helping hand.

Step for step users can be shown the central functions and concepts of ILIAS, with helpful texts as 'speech bubbles' directly pointing to the relevant places, for example, buttons, menus or input fields.

A Tour can be configured in the administration and be flexibly tailored to specific views or roles. This allows you to create your own individual introductions to your ILIAS environment.

Tests Rethought: More Scoring Control

One of the key changes to ILIAS 11 is to be found in the area of E-assessments. The tab 'Scoring' has been completely overhauled and made more flexible.

The evaluation of tests can now be carried out on a participant or question basis. Questions can now either be all scored together, or scored individually. This makes scoring questions much more flexible.

Users can now also be give a permission which allows them to access and score tests even if they don't have the 'Editing Settings' permissions for a test. Participants can now also be scored anonymously via Test IDs. This ensures clear roles and greater impartiality when it comes to scoring tests.

It is also now possible to customise feedback on tests. This is made possible by the new Markdown editor – which supports headings, lists and highlighting. Feedback is entered via a modal window directly where you are working.

 

 

Small Improvements - Big Impact

On top of the larger changes, there are numerous smaller improvements that will be noticeable in the day-to-day use of ILIAS.

Shortlinks make it easier to work with public content by replacing cryptic URLs with simple, memorable links. Certificates can now also be directly accessed via a permalink.

A 'personal progress chart' now makes it easier to track learning progress in courses. Some of you may already be familiar with this 'progress meter' from learning objective oriented courses. In a course's 'Content' tab, learners can see exactly how much progress they’ve made so far.

The data collection object has seen the addition of, among other things, new field types for date and time, and now has placeholders integrated directly into the page editor. Notifications can now also be customised more effectively.

The mail function now also includes markdown support. Additionally, in ILIAS 11 it is now possible to delay the delivery of messages and mails so that they are sent when you want them to be sent.

In addition to the visible improvements, multiple smaller, structural adjustments have been made that may not be apparent at first glance. This is especially the case when it comes to accessibility, where thanks to the hard work of the testers, authorities and the SIG Accessibility, multiple improvements have been made and existing problems defined more precisely or resolved. Of course, in this area there remains plenty still to do.

More Details - an Overview

A complete overview of all changes can be found on our release page:

Hard Facts

ILIAS 11 was released on 4th May 2026. It will receive full support until 31.12.2027. After that, security bug fixes will be provided for a further year, before support for the software is discontinued.

ILIAS 11 supports PHP 8.3 and 8.4. PHP 8.2 is no longer supported. Further system requirements can be found on the release page.

As with every other major release, ILIAS 11 has been intensively tested - with an impressive amount of help from the community.

Together we carried out 5062 testcases! The vast majority of these thanks to testers from Germany and Switzerland. We were also really pleased to see that alongside experienced members, there were also some new, effective recruits who were a great help.

To help with particularly tricky tests, we supported out testers with weekly 'Live Testing' sessions. Then it was up to the developers, who were able to deal with over 600 bugs, tweaks and other small issues during the testing phase. This is an impressive number – if we were dealing with steps rather than issues, we could climb up to somewhere between the 30th and 40th floors of a skyscraper!

Towards the end of the testing phase we especially saw a lot of activity. Open tests were handled flexibly, and pull requests were written for other developers. That’s real teamwork.

We have already heard from the first users who will be migrating to ILIAS 11 in the near future. This shows that the shorter release cycles are increasingly being adopted in practice – and thus by users – whilst at the same time the demands on stable ‘zero releases’ are growing.

As is the case every year, once a release is out, it’s time to start preparing for the next one. Work on ILIAS 12 has already begun. We’re looking forward to your active support during the next testing phase. Without you, our wonderful community, none of this would be possible on this scale. Thank you all so much!