Abandon Active Users Block on Personal Desktop

1 Requirements

The implementation of the Who is online? tool for awareness basically fits the needs when it comes to the requirement to find (interesting) users that are on the platform at the same time. Therefor the existing personal desktop block could be abandonded.

One open requirement is that users see the number of users (open sessions) simultaneously logged in the platform. There are at least three options

• Show this in the footer for administrators only (would cost performance on every screen)
• Show this information in the Administration > General Settings > Server
• Inlcude this number in the session statistics (Adminstration > Statistics and Learning Progress > Session Statistics)

2 Additional Information

• Idea / concept: Alexander Tödt, Jour Fixe, Alex Killing
  
• Interest in funding: Funded by Technische Hochschule OWL
  
• Maintainer: Alex Killing
  
• Implementation of the feature is done by Alex Killing
  
• Testcases by: (please add your name if you want to create the testcases for this feature)

3 Discussion

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], June 21, 2015: All three options mentioned above are only focusing on administrators. Doesn't it make sense to show all users the number of currently logged in users? E.g. by keeping a little block on the PD where the number of current logged-in users is displayed? To avoid too much session checks, I think it would be sufficient if this number is updated every five minutes.

Killing, Alexander [alex], June 22, 2015: For what reasons would a non-administrator need this information?

Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel], June 22, 2015: It is not unusal in web applications to see how many users are logged in. You see that you are not alone on this installation, that it is used and that - in case of a high number of users - this could be could be the reason why some page requests are a bit slower today. Last but not least - our users got that information for years, even if it was never the correct number as users could hide themselves in this list.

JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe], 22 June 2015: The four maintianers participating in the jour fixe today all have a preference for the "Administration > General Settings > Server" page, since this would be an appropriate place. A block on the personal desktop with this information would produce too much clutter for too little value in our opinion. Any other opinions?

ILIAS_LM, 2015-06-21
Do I get this right: A normal user can't see anymore if there are other unicorns around and who they are? I get the point with the performance mais c'est dommage.
As a student (OK, this was before Facebook, Skype, etc.) I loved the who's-online-block. Finding others awake at 2 a.m., trying to accomplish a Leistungsnachweis, we started to "chat" via ILIAS-mail. That was social media in my youth. ;-)
EDIT: OK, "global awareness tool". I get it! (Yes, I've been there, as you presented it at the conference... Sry!)

Killing, Alexander [alex], 22 June 2015: @Alix, yes it is possible to configure the awareness tool to show a similar behaviour (All Users / Online).

4 Implementation

...