Every year, the international ILIAS community meets in late summer for its major conference. For the first time, this year’s event took place in the Netherlands, where the Royal Netherlands Army was an outstanding host to more than 180 visitors. In the modern Kromhout barracks near the Utrecht city centre, the participants enjoyed two packed conference days - exchanging ideas, discussing with each other and learning about new e-learning scenarios.

After welcoming the participants, the first conference day began with the inaugural keynote in the well-attended Waterliniezaal. The Dutch e-learning expert Wilfred Rubens devoted his engaging speech to the importance of social learning. After looking at the learning theories of Albert Bandura, Rubens presented the didactic principles of social learning and asked how ILIAS could facilitate it further. Following Rubens’ lecture, Esther Oprins of the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research presented a look at the military training in the year 2030.

Still in 2016, however, the next ILIAS version is scheduled be released. A preview at it was presented by ILIAS product manager Matthias Kunkel. Besides supporting PHP7 and a number of usability improvements, 90 new features made it into the beta version. This version will now be tested extensively by the community. The first stable version of ILIAS 5.2 should then be released shortly before Christmas.

After the lunch break, the conference program was split among multiple tracks. In the great hall, lectures and presentations of half an hour each were held. In several other rooms, the participants could choose between two or three longer workshops. The programme was packed as never before in the history of ILIAS.

One focus was put on the topic "Acknowledging learning activities and competences". Here, the use of Open Badges was explained and the participants were shown easy ways to create their own badges. Other workshops were held on the use of surveys in competence-based scenarios and on xAPI (the SCORM successor in ILIAS).

Another focus dealt with the linking of systems and applications. Increasingly, ILIAS as an LMS is connected with other platforms, such as campus management systems or the e-learning platforms of partner universities. The corresponding interfaces allow an easy exchange of information and learning materials. But external applications can also be helpful for the creation of content. Fittingly, a workshop showed how ILIAS glossaries can be created quickly and easily from existing Office files. Another workshop explored how ebooks can be generated from ILIAS learning modules.

Strengthening the communication and interaction of students and teachers was yet another focus of the conference. In this context, a series of lectures and workshops showed how ILIAS is being used for informal learning, both in scientific training and on the job. Special importance was put on measures to motivate the learners, facilitating learning outside of the usual contexts in schools and universities.

Despite this, e-learning in the classroom remains an important issue. Its practice has changed in recent years, though, as exemplified by a presentation on the "flipped classroom": Here, ILIAS learning modules and formative tests serve as preparation for the on-site sessions. Formative tests are also the focus of Spiral Math. This assessment programme uses ILIAS to deepen math skills of students in the US and to strengthen long-term retention. A third presentation in this track showed how existing computer labs can be turned into legally compliant electronic examination centres by the push of a button. Finally, the live voting plugin - about which we already reported here on the blog - was also featured in a workshop.

The last day of the conference provided a look at "Learning in the year 2020". It showed how the right mix of methods and technical means (such as interactive video, augmented and virtual reality) could make e-learning even more effective in the near future.

The conclusion of the conference was the enthralling keynote of NATO’s E-Learning Programme Manager, Paul Thurkettle. He reported on the past, present and future of the programme, showing among other things how NATO - after a slow start - now regularly recommends and adopts open source software such as ILIAS.

A final highlight of the conference was the Community Award ceremony. This year’s award was presented to David Boehringer from the University of Stuttgart. ILIAS Society’s board member Werner Willi gave the laudation, in which he highlighted Boehringer’s strong commitment to the ECS, among other merits. Once again, congratulations to a well-deserved laureate!

We would also like to thank all organizers of the conference, as well as all of the speakers and attendants. The magnificent summer weather, Utrecht’s beautiful old town and the cozy social event with sushi and sake rounded off a very successful event. In 2017, the ILIAS conference will take place in Freiburg, Germany. We are already looking forward to seeing you there!