A new year is upon us – and it will start particularly well for users of ILIAS: the end of January will see the release of version 5.3! This will include a much improved competence management, the new calendar, better support for mobile end-devices in the page editor, staff view and much more...

The rest of the year will also continue eventfully for the ILIAS community. From 30th January to 1st February the society will be present at the LEARNTEC in Karlsruhe, Germany - a great opportunity for all of the trade fair visitors there to learn more about ILIAS. You will be able to find us in Hall 1 at stand G13. After this we will be concentrating on the conception phase for ILIAS 5.4, for which new feature suggestions can be submitted until the end of March. The most important new features will already be discussed at the Development Conference in Halle, Germany, on 16th March. A new board will also then be elected. After many productive years, Volker Reuschenbach and Werner Willi will not be seeking re-election. We can therefore expect some personnel changes coming up.

The large, annual ILIAS Conference will take place on 6th and 7th of September, this time in Luzern, Switzerland. The conference will give everyone a first look at ILIAS 5.4 and the speakers will tell us about the different ways ILIAS is being used after having been around for almost 20 years! November 2nd is then the date of our big anniversary – we will be celebrating ILIAS's birthday!

The ILIAS open source e-learning society wishes all readers a happy new year and looks forward to continue being your e-learning solution for the coming year.