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JourFixe-2012-10-15

The Jour Fixe took place at Monday, October 15, from 09h00 to 14h15 at Databay office in Würselen. Participants were:

• Max Becker, Björn Heyser, Michael Jansen, Alexander Killing, Matthias Kunkel (Minutes), Stefan Meyer, Gregory Saive, Florian Suittenpointner

1 Appointments

2012-10-29: Jour Fixe at Uni Köln; main focus on ILIAS EA integration and test object
2012-11-02: 14 years ILIAS
2012-11-08: ILIAS Nord: user meeting at Uni Göttingen

2 Bugfixing for maintained versions 4.1 and 4.2

Last releases:

• ILIAS 4.2.6 published at 10 October 2012
• ILIAS 4.1.9 published at 29 March 2012

Next releases:

• 4.2.7 is scheduled for December 2012
• 4.1.10 is scheduled for 24 October 2012

We went through Mantis and had a overlook about all open issues. All issues were screened and assigned to the responsible developers.

1. #9850 - Anonymous can't access course: Bug should be fixed according to Matthias' comments.
2. #9846 - Tags of deleted objects: In case of a tag that is assigned to an object in the trash a message should be shown "You do not have the permissions to access the tagged objects anymore" plus an option to delete the corresponding tag.
3. #9836 - Change Login Usability: Bug shall be fixed as recommended in bug report.
4. #9813 - Required option for instant messenger adresses: We will open a feature wiki page and tackle this issue with 4.4. But there will be no "bug fix" for 4.2 or 4.3.
5. #9874 - Inconsistent Action-Menu for courses: We consider this as a feature request and part of a more general discussion related to the naming of "Desktop", "Overview", "Selected Items", ... We should tackle this with 4.4.
6. #9817 - Mail To Members Without Receiver Info: We would prefer any solution that has entries in the TO field, either sending all these mails individually or using a dummy TO recipient. Please check what options are feasible and make a recommendation.

3 ILIAS 4.3

3.1 Status of Development

A first beta of Release 4.3 has been published at September 04. Current development status (September 02) is

• Implemented features: 128
• Features that are in development or implemented but still need changes or usability fixes:
  1. Apply test defaults every time: Check usability. Björn will add more information about this feature to the wiki page.
  2. CSS Revision, improvements will also be done during beta( e.g.: we try to get rid of the three columns layout table).
  3. Deleting Selected Passes: setting needs to be implemented to switch this feature on/off for each test.
  4. Developer Guideline: Writing SQL queries efficiently: ongoing, also during beta
  5. Extended placeholders for test certificates: Alexander will add information about how this feature works (and probably rename page).
  6. Filemanager: Stefan will add information about filemanager support by different OS and unsupported features to feature wiki page.
  7. Framesetless Toc2Win Layout: Check usability
  8. Improvements in German Language File: usability issues may also be finalised during beta
  9. Improving Calendar Usability: usability issues may also be finalised during beta
  10. Move or link - user interface: Indentation needs to be fixed
  11. No default calendar for courses and groups: News block deactivation needs to be moved to new "Tools" submenu, too.
  12. Redesign Simple Search and Advanced Search: open usability discussion
• Open Conceptual Discussion:
  1. Item Group - Free Sorting Edit Mode in Container Objects: still open conceptual discussion.
• Not started yet: 2
  1. Avoiding Double Form Submission will be finished during beta
  2. Improving Forum Usability
• Total number of features: 130
• Abandoned features that still need to be removed:
  1. RBAC Cache
  2. Remove Feedback Feature in Courses
  3. Remove Digilib Book Support : all digi books will be transformed to ILIAS LM

3.2 Open Development Issues

1. Action Menu: Content and Settings Links: has been implemented for all repository objects as usability fix for 4.3.
2. #9843 - Useless "Learning Progress" option in PD menu: The setting 'Learning Progress on Personal Desktop' should be transformed into a permission on the learning progress settings node "See learning progress overview of other users". The menu entry should be displayed if either this permission is given or the setting 'Accessible Personal Learning Progress' is activated.
3. #9699 - Order of Online Help texts: Already fixed
4. #9822 - Confusing information architecture...: We also think that the usability needs to be improved. Matthias will open a feature wiki page and we would like to tackle this for 4.4.
5. #9828 - Certificate: to Tab or to Sub-Tab?: We agree, it should be a subtab under settings.
6. #9845 - New order in the settings tab of the test: We agree that these screens need improvement. However this discussion should be done on a feature wiki page, so that other users can add their ideas as well. This is something we would like to tackle for 4.4. Please open a feature wiki page and put it on the JF agenda.
7. #9820 - Check boxes or radio buttons in the Settings-Tab of the Test: We agree with the suggestion of Alexandra and the re-phrasing of Jörg.
8. #9826 - Test > Settings > Personal default settings: We agree that this screen needs a revision. We would like to discuss this for 4.4. Please add a corresponding feature wiki page.

3.3 Roadmap for 4.3

• Release 4.3.0_beta1 : published at September 04
• Release 4.3.0_beta2 : scheduled for October 19
• Release 4.3.0 (stable) : scheduled for November 02
• 4.3 branch in SVN : scheduled for November 2012

4 Feature Requests for ILIAS 4.4

1. Introduction of Bibliography Object: We think this feature should be implemented as a new repository object type, since bibliograpic lists are an important and typical learning resource in higher education institutions. We schedule this feature for 4.4.
2. Control Flow for Plug-Ins: We postpone this discussion. Alexander will have a look at the details first.
3. Change default background: The request is not clear. Should we add an additional CSS class (or ID) that makes it possible to define a separate presentation in the CSS? Or should users somehow define the background for each portfolio/blog?
4. Page Editor » Data Table Editing: We appreciate the idea and schedule it for 4.4.
5. Request For Approval With Mandatory Message: We highly appreciate this idea and schedule it for 4.4. Please implement it for groups as well.

Postponed

Due to missing time we needed to postpone the following feature requests to the Jour Fixe at November 12, 2012.

1. Search in tag cloud
2. Survey Extension: 360° Questionnaires/Self Evaluation
3. Survey Extension: Competence Triggers
4. Competence Profiles
5. Competence Gap Analysis
6. Content Competence Assignment
7. Abandon Framesets
8. Clickable Links in Personal Profile
9. Unlink Title and Name in profile
10. Export Test Results to SPSS
11. Export Survey Data to SPSS

5 Miscellaneous

1. Suggested Interface Guidelines and releated bugs
   • Data Table Guideline, #9831: We would like to support headlines for all tables with ILIAS 4.4. The list of pages where tables have to be changed has to be completed at the wiki page Data Table Guideline
   • Guideline for Page Layout of Export Screens, #9830: We postpone this discussion to the next Jour Fixe. Please put screenshots diretly into the wiki page.
   • Controls Guideline, #9820: We appreciate the effort such a new guideline. But we think the current wording may not make it easy to decide whether to use radio or checkbox elements. We should try to add examples and make a more concise statement.
2. Shibboleth Maintaining: We are very happy that Fabian Schmid (iLUB, Universität Bern) has taken over the maintainship for Shibboleth authentication.
3. Non-ASCII characters in usernames and passwords: We won't allow non-ASCII chararacters in usernames and passwords as long as it is unclear if any feature in ILIAS might produce errors due to this change. The missing warning in the user import is considered as bug and has to be reported.
4. Obviously useless Apache authentication option in login page: If someone authenticates via Apache, s/he won't visit the login page, anyway. We consider this as a bug.
5. Next Core Developer Meeting: 04 December 2012 - place will be announced later.
6. Next Jour Fixe: Our next Jour Fixe takes place at Monday, October 29, at CompetenceCenter E-Learning der Universität zu Köln, Immermannstraße 49-51, 50931 Köln. Main topic of the meeting will be the integration of ILIAS EA development acitivities into the trunk for 4.4.