Short description | | For quite a while now, we have been discussing within the community how we can achieve a similar level of reliability for plugins in terms of support and updates to new versions as ILIAS users are accustomed to from the core ILIAS system. Since plugins do not fall under the responsibility of ILIAS product management and release management, no structured process for compatibility with new versions has yet been established for plugins in general.
Among the hundreds of existing plugins for ILIAS, there are some important ones that are used by many users and provide indispensable functions for using ILIAS in the respective e-learning scenario. These include, for example, plugins that provide third-party software functions in ILIAS, such as the EtherpadLite, MultiVC or OpenCast plugins. Plugins for the functional extension of core components are also used on many installations and offer indispensable functions there.
But although these plugins are very important to their users, every major update to a new version of ILIAS is accompanied by considerable uncertainty as to whether all central plugins are already compatible, who will finance the updates, and whether the responsible service providers even have time for developing a new plugin version. This makes planning and implementing ILIAS updates unnecessarily complicated and time-consuming for system administrators and other parties involved.
A first step to improve the current situation of plugin support is the concept of ILIAS Community Plugins. It's idea is to create greater reliability for important functions in ILIAS. Matthias Kunkel presents the concept and how plugins could achieve this label and become 'Community Plugins'. The presentation also addresses the question which general aspects in the sustainability of ILIAS plugins can be tackled by this concept and which need other solutions. |
