International ILIAS Blog

Thanks to a successful crowdfunding campaign within the the ILIAS community, it has been possible to raise the funds necessary to already offer PHP7 compatibility in the next ILIAS version, 5.2. This success shows once more that open-source projects really are capable of surmounting extraordinary financial hurdles and thereby guaranteeing the sustainability of their further development. Around €150,000 were able to be collected for this project. We are very pleased with the engagement of the community: PHP7 promises significant improvements in performance combined with lower resource usage. All participants in businesses and higher education facilities were aware of the importance of this update, resulting in the rapid success of the financing goals.

The deadline for submitting proposals for the ILIAS conference in Utrecht has been extended. It is the first that the most important user event of the ILIAS community comes to The Netherlands. Until April 22 everyone is invited to suggest a presentation or workshop for one of the following conference topics:

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.