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JourFixe-2013-04-15

Page Overview

1 Appointments
2 Bugfixing for maintained versions 4.2 and 4.3
3 Feature Requests for ILIAS 4.4
- 3.1 Funded Features
- 3.2 Funding Required / Unclear
- 3.3 Postponed to Next Jour Fixe
4 Miscellaneous

The Jour Fixe has taken place at Monday, April 15 from 09h00 - 17h45 at ILIAS office in Cologne with the following participants:

Michael Jansen, Alexander Killing, Matthias Kunkel (Minutes), Jörg Lützenkirchen, Stefan Meyer, Fabian Wolf

1 Appointments

2013-04-25: ILIAS Dutch in Etten-Leur, NL
2013-05-07: ILIAS-Nord in Bad Segeberg
2013-06-05: SIG Mathe+ILIAS in Stuttgart
2013-06-13: ILIAS-BW in Konstanz
2013-07-09: ILIAS-NRW in Köln
2013-08-28: 20th DevConf, Munich
2013-08-29 to 30: 12th ILIAS Conference Munich

2 Bugfixing for maintained versions 4.2 and 4.3

Last releases:

ILIAS 4.3.2 published at 08 March 2013
ILIAS 4.2.7 published at 03 January 2013
ILIAS 4.1.10 published at 03 February 2013 (maintenance ended)

Next releases:

4.3.3 is scheduled for 19 April 2013
4.2.8 is scheduled for 26 April 2013

We went through Mantis and had a overlook about all open issues reported or modified since the last Jour Fixe. All issues were screened and assigned to the responsible developers. We discussed in detail:

#10865: Default Action in User Administration: We would like to keep it an "Set Active". We removed "Delete" operations from the top of other drop downs in the past, too, since these are the operations usually "only" needed at the end of an "item workflow".
#10866: Troubles in a Test with Questions from a question pool in a deleted course:
1. The test should check dynamically (when started) whether the pools it depends on still exist, if not a message should be displayed on the starting screen and no start button should be offered. Test authors should be able to enter and edit the test and get a message, too.
2. If a pool is finally deleted all tests that depend on the pool should be set offline.
3. If easily possible the pool deletion workflow should get the additional hint for tests being "not available any" more. (contact Alex on the details)

3 Feature Requests for ILIAS 4.4

The following two lists contain only features that have not been scheduled yet for 4.4 and therefore need to be discussed. Features that are already scheduled but liked to be discussed due to development questions should be added to the next Jour Fixe agenda, section "4.4 Development Issues".

3.1 Funded Features

Usability Improvements of Assignments and Grading Screens in Exercises: We appreciate the general suggestion to improve this screen and schedule it for 4.4. We will continue with detailed discussion:
- We support to support links in the work instructions, we have to decide whether a simple or a page editor solution is more suitable
- Improvements on learning assignment view: basically ok, we have to systematically check other values that appear on this screen
- Save Button: We would like to rename the current Save option to "Save Selected" and introduce a "Save All" one on the top right. "Download all returned files" should be moved to the toolbar.
- Columns: The Image column and the login column should be optional selectable.
- The separation of the screens is a bigger discussion issue for us. First, we are unsure how the different workflows of institutions look, and whether a separation could be problematic or not. Second, we already have three sub tabs "Assignment View", "Participants View" and "Grades View". The separation suggested here would at least add a new "dimension" to the existing sub tabs "Assignment View" and "Participants View". We may end up with 5 to 8 subtabs, which may be an additional source of confusion.
- Feedback: The upload screen of the tutor should get a message that tells the tutor that an upload of a feedback file a) Sends an automatic notification to the user and b) adds the file to the learner's assignment view. The link in the message for the learner should a) automatically open the corresponding assignment accordion section and b) use a link anchor.
Anonymous Peer Feedback: We appreciate this request and schedule it for 4.4. The text editing component will be discussed on the Text Area for Solution page. One question: Would a simple text area be enough for the "grading"? Or would the ILIAS rating feature (five star) be appropriate? Or a real grading scheme needed?
Text Area for Solution: We appreciate the feature and schedule it for 4.4. We would like to start with on new type "Text Area" and skip the combination of Download/Text Area, since it makes many things more complicated and the combination of other existing subtypes (blogs/portfolios) would make it even more complex. We currently prefer to use a simple version of the TinyMCE editor here.
Mobile Support Style Sheet Editor: We appreciate the feature and schedule it for 4.4.
Default Sorting of Objects in Repo: We would prefer to extend the screen "Administration" > "Plugins, Modules and Services", similar to the "Position in Add-New-Object List" option. This could be implemented for release 4.4.
Design for the Maintenance Page: We would like to schedule this for 4.4, but still need a discussion with Jean-Luc.
PDF Storage of e-Exams We appreciate this feature and schedule it for 4.4:
- We support the idea to introduce a plugin slot for the digital signature step.
- The archive files of a test should be accessible within a test object (downloadable).
- It should be possible to define a target directory on the server in the T&A administration where the archive files can be optionally automatically copied. If needed an event can be triggered, that could be retrieved by event hook plugins. These files should not be deleted by ILIAS anymore and be accessible after the test objects are deleted.
- We currently do not see the need (and object) to introduce the workflow engine, especially not to customize the "post archiving" process. This could be handled by plugins listending to events or a custom cron job (we need a cron job plugin slot here).
- The digital signature plugins slot is discussed on the Slot for Plugin to sign exams digitally page.
- The PDF generation is discussed on the Improving PDF generation page.
- We agree that this page can be renamed as Matthias suggested.
Limit the number of media playbacks: Could you please describe the "didactical scenario" in more detail. We can imagine this being a limitation in the online tests. But we do not see this being a general feature for media objects. It would be quite disturbing to have this limit as an option in media objects, e.g. embedded in wikis. If the test scenario is the only one, we further think that a question type "media" could be more feasible as an implementation. Please give us feedback and put this topic on the JF agenda again.
Prevent auto complete and spell checking: We appreciate the idea, even if we do not know how a technical solution to prevent spell checking looks like. Furthermore we think that a settings is not needed. ILIAS should always try to prevent these features for tests.
Cloze Question: Separately configured gap lengths: We highly appreciate this idea and schedule it for 4.4.
Import/Export plugin hooks for Tests: We envisage a general export plugin slot and, if possible an import plugin slot, too, that could be used by all repository object types. This does not mean that necessarily all repository object types support this slot, but that it is easily possible, e.g. by implementing an interface, to support this plugin slot for other types. Especially for modules that already use the ilExportGUI class, it should be quite easy to implement this kind of slot. It may be a little more difficult for the import plugin slot. – @ Fred: Do you think this is feasible? If so, we can schedule this for 4.4. Please add a comment here and put the topic on the JF agenda again.
Slot for Plugin to sign exams digitally: We support this plugin slot. The slot should try to set only a minimum of technical implications of the concrete plugins. If possible, it would be nice to have a general "digital signature" service for PDF (are other file types possilble, too) underlying in ILIAS. This service could be used by other components as well (not necessarily plugins), e.g. the "certificate" service.
Link to User Name: We appreciate this feature and schedule it for 4.4. We currently prefer an extension of the "internal link" feature to offer a new type "User". The editor should always show the account name of the user whereas internally the ID should be stored.
Matching Question: This is still an open feature-request, isn`t it? Funding is possible by Universität Bern.
Cloze question: Points on gap combinations: Since the editing in the T&A is already quite complex: Could you provide a mock-up screen for the editing view, please? If this can be edited without too much additional complexity, we could schedule it for 4.4. Please put the topic on the JF agenda again.
PDF Elektronische Signatur: This will not be an official part of the ILIAS core. The plugin slot for the core is discussed on the Slot for Plugin to sign exams digitally page.
New passive mode for randomized drawing of questions in tests and courses with learning objectives: The decision on taxonomies in tests has been discussed on Taxonomies for Test Questions. The description of the additional suggested feature suggested on this page is too vague.
- Who defines the filters and weights? When and how are the filters and weights specified? How may the screens that define the filters and weights look like? What values can be used, et cetera?
- There seem to be two projects that have similar needs here, the Optes and the Unirep Online project. We hope that the requirements of both projects can be met by the same (at least in major parts) implementation. See Continuous Testing Mode
Delimiter Tag for Paragraphs: The heading syntax already works, also in the JS mode. For separating paragraphs, we are searching for a good marker, e.g. "§§§" without additional text in one line. We schedule this for 4.4.
Internal links to Sessions: We schedule this for 4.4. Unfortunately the current repository links are not implemented in a generic way. If possible this should be done with 4.4.
Number of pages: We see the need for this. However ILIAS needs to check access for each item to correctly count the number of pages. This is already a performance issue now, when starting with one page. Example: If you search, e.g. for a common phrase like "test" or "introduction", the ILIAS search index may find around 200 items (or even more). Now ILIAS must check RBAC permissions, preconditions, settings like "online/offline", timings and more for each item which makes everything very time consuming. A learner may only have access to item number 1, 5, 150 and 199. To get these 4 entries ILIAS has to check 199 items. If we extend this counting of entries to multiple pages, the server load will increase massively (already on mid-size installations). Due to this reason we reject this feature request.
SOAP Function getLearningProgressChanges: We appreciate this idea and schedule it for 4.4.

3.2 Funding Required / Unclear

Enhanced Permission Handling For DC Contributors: We appreciate the "View only own entries" setting and schedule it for 4.4.

3.3 Postponed to Next Jour Fixe

There was not enough time to discuss the following suggestions. They are now on the agenda of the next Jour Fixe.

Funded Features:

Not Funded / Funding Unclear:

4 Miscellaneous

Development

New Explorer Service: Alex gave an introduction to the new explorer class and how to use it. Detailed information about functions and methods of this class is offered in the Development Guide. All explorers that are currently part of a frameset (repository, ILIAS LM, mail, ...) will be moved to the new class. Which other explorers that are not embedded in a frameset will be moved too will be decided later.
Export Tab Guideline: We keep the current guideline, which basically says to use ilExportGUI which more or less implements the behaviour suggested by Alexandra. Except that we would like to keep drop downs already if there are two options. Furthermore we would like to rename the "(XML)" part to "(XML, ILIAS Exchange Format)", since users may not know the purpose of this format. Also it could be possible to have multiple XML-based export formats, e.g. "Create Export File (XML, ILIAS Exchange Format)" and "Create Export File (XML, IMS-QTI)". We schedule these changes for 4.4.

Next Developer Meeting

The next meeting for ILIAS developers is scheduled for 16 Mai 2013. We meet us - probably - again at Qualitus.

Next Jour Fixe

Monday, 29 April 2013, 09 a.m. at the ILIAS open source e-Learning office in Cologne

Last edited: 30. Apr 2018, 19:11, Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]