International ILIAS Blog
Keyword: Technical Board
Keywords: Community, Technical Board
As an "UI/UX-Expert" your tasks will be:
- Help us with your knowledge to answer questions or find opinions.
- Inspect new or old contributions regarding UI/UX.
- Be available for questions from the community.
- Give lectures or workshops to spread your knowledge.
Full details on the position can be found in our Jobs forum.
Keywords: ILIAS 6.0, Security, Technical Board, Test&Assessment
Many ILIAS users want to access their LMS from their smartphones. As ILIAS is responsive, it can easily be used on smaller screens. But there are limits to mobile usage. For this reason, the topic "mobile ILIAS" continues to be discussed regularly. One approach that was developed within the ILIAS community is the Pegasus app: Its users get logged in automatically to their ILIAS platform and they can access documents offline. They can also work with position-based augmented reality scenarios. We spoke to technical board member Timon Amstutz about the app and the upcoming ILIAS developments.
Keywords: Development, ILIAS Society, Technical Board
At the last ILIAS-DevConf, the Technical Board presented a new Strategy Paper (PDF-Download) that outlined the key points of its future work. The paper has its roots in the ILIAS-Vision that was formulated in 2015. We spoke to the Speaker for the Technical Board, Alexander Killing, about the contents of the strategy and the measures that will result from it.
Keywords: Security, Technical Board
More and more we read in the media about targeted hacks and attacks on popular software platforms, databases and content management systems. Especially software with many users can be a worthwhile target for hackers looking to steal personal information.
As server-operated software, ILIAS is also theoretically vulnerable to such attacks. So that it never comes to that though, we are working hard to prevent bugs and to close security loopholes that become known to us. Together with the technical board, we have put together a small FAQ to explain how security vulnerabilities are dealt with in ILIAS.
Keywords: Development, Technical Board
In July this year, you were able to read the first report from the Technical Board which has been in charge of the development of ILIAS since earlier in the year. Since then, a lot has taken place, according to Timon Amstutz, who just recently took over the role of speaker of the board for the next six months. We spoke to him about the new Jour-Fixe process, improved communication possibilities and the plans for 2017.
Keywords: ILIAS Society, Technical Board
A mission statement, closer cooperation with the product manager and the first veto: the Technical Board has been picking up speed. We talked about the developments of the last few months with the speaker of the board, Richard Klees.
Keywords: Development, PHP, Technical Board
One of the greatest challenges in the development of ILIAS 5.2 is – as reported – the conversion to PHP7. This requires us to go through and update the whole source code. Additionally, a whole number of external libraries need to be replaced. We talked to Fabian Schmid, who as a member of the Technical Board is coordinating the work, about the current state of the conversion.
Keywords: Security, Technical Board
The Technical Board has received a security list request regarding the latest ImageMagick vulnerabilities with several remote code execution vectors among them. These were announced last week (see: ImageTragick). To exploit these vulnerabilities, an attacker needs nothing more than the possibility to upload infected image files which are supposed to be post-processed by ImageMagick. This is true for each ILIAS user who is able to upload a profile picture or images at a variety of other places. Mitigation of the issue in ILIAS is unfortunately not possible at short notice.
ILIAS administrators should use a policy file as described at the website mentioned above to disable the vulnerable ImageMagick coders. Furthermore, an updated version of ImageMagick has already been released. We strongly recommend upgrading to the latest version to allow for safe operation of your platforms.
Keywords: Development, ILIAS Society, Technical Board
At the general meeting of the ILIAS society in Bremen, it was unanimously decided to set up a new body focused on software development: a Technical Board responsible for mainly strategic decisions that affect the long term development of ILIAS. The Technical Board takes over the central tasks of the previous Head of Development position, thereby taking on an important role within the development management of ILIAS. ILIAS Product Manager Matthias Kunkel welcomed this decision: "With the establishment of the Technical Board, the reliability and quality of the development of ILIAS has now been placed on a sustainable foundation".
Behind the decision to create the new board was the simple fact that the increased time demands of the tasks involved were no longer possible for one voluntary Head of Development to handle alone. This was why Alexander Killing resigned from that position after many years in 2015. It is all the more gratifying that Killing is a member of the new board along with his interim successor Fabian Schmid. At the ILIAS general meeting in Bremen both were unanimously voted (one abstention) to the new Technical Board along with Timon Amstutz, Michael Jansen and Richard Klees. The board therefore has an excellent line-up that is ready to master the coming challenges in the development of ILIAS.