JourFixe-2020-12-07

Date and place

Monday, December 07, 2020 from 13:00 – 17:45 as VC meeting in BBB.

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1 Appointments

If you want to participate at one of the above mentioned workshops, please register for the related session. This helps to organise the workshop. Thanks!

2 Maintained Versions

2.1 Roadmap

Due to the extraordinary workload in all e-learning teams based on the Covid pandemia, the technical board and product manager decided to extend the maintenance of ILIAS version 5.4 until end of 2021. This will give all ILIAS using institutions enough time for the migration from 5.4 to 6 or 7.

2.2 Mantis Bug Reports

All open issues reported or modified since the last Jour Fixe were screened by the product manager before the Jour Fixe and assigned to the responsible developers if necessary. The following issues were discussed in detail:

2.3 Bugfixing Statistic

Bug reports[1] set to status 'open' and not been touched by responsible maintainer for more than 21 days (checked this morning) as well as bug reports with priorisation voting:

* New votes: bugs priorised within the last 14 days   ** Old votes: priorised bugs before last JF (older then 14 days)   *** Resolved: Resolved or closed bug reports in the last 14 days

Bug reports with status 'Fixing according to priorisation' should be fixed before other bugs are tackled. Priorised bugs very important for one or more institutional members of the ILIAS society. Handling this reports with low priority contradicts the intention of the established bug fixing process.

2.4 Development Issues of Maintained Versions

The following development issues concern one or more maintained versions. Issues related to upcoming versions have to be added in chapter 3.

1. none

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]:

2.5 Open Pull Requests to Discuss

2.6 Continuous Integration

At the time being, our Travis installation for CI is not running due to a changed "business model" of the new Travis owner. We are currently looking for a new solution. Until then, we kindly ask all developers to have a special look on the results of their local unittests (as there will be no warning by Travis at the moment).

3 Publishing ILIAS 7

3.1 Status of Testing 7

Testing Status this morning

Today, test week 4 has started. Still 9 weeks[2] to go!

Additional information

3.2 Development Issues

Development issues and topics related to ILIAS versions 7

1. none

   JourFixe, ILIAS [jourfixe]

4 Developing ILIAS 8

4.1 Large Development Activities for ILIAS 8

The following 'projects' have been suggested for ILIAS 8 at the last Jour Fixe and discussed by the Technical Board and product manager afterwards. The comments mentioned in the last Jour Fixe are kept below. Importnat note that those feedback are just the feedback from the Technical Boards. We did not analyze them from a product placement angle, just from the view point of how much the project might impact the technical foundation of the software and how much inolvement of the Technical Board will be necessary to get it of the ground. There might be project in here that all TB members are agree are highly important, to which the TB nevertheless assignend no special priority, just because we believe there is no involvement of our part necessary. 

1. Splitting-up T&A Into New Components, presented by Kunkel, Matthias [mkunkel]
   Comments: First workshop should take place before Xmas. Matthias will send invitation into group.

   Statement by TB: Thank you to move this ongoing project with deep architectural impacts further along. The Technical Board deems the corresponding discussions among the ILIAS developers very important. To mitigate the substantial risks in this project the Technical Board asks the stakeholders to clarify the conceptual foundations, the implemented scenarios and use cases, and the path to the implementation of a new T&A before moving on. This development has the potential to positively impact the strategic goals to create an "Adaptable Learning Environment" as well as a "Reliable Learning Management". The TB assignes a high priority to this development.

2. Page Layout Revision - Part III, presented by Zenzen, Enrico [ezenzen]
   No comments

   Statement by TB: Thank you very much for moving this long running project steadily forward. We believe we already came a long way, but that there still are quite a few steps to go. The Technical Board sees a substantial impact of this development on the goals to create an "Adaptable Learning Environment" and to make ILIAS "Usable for Everyone". The TB assignes a high priority to this development.

3. Validating Imports, presented by Meyer, Stefan [smeyer]
   Comments: Import will still work for "old export file versions". Maintainers have to make their components capable to validate import files. Discussion if DTD/schemes are provided globally or locally has still to be discussed.

   Statement by TB: Thank you very much to bring this topic that has gotten little attention during the last years to the forefront. The Technical Board hopes that enough time resources can be invested and enough funding acquired to also takle the important structural and fundamental questions in the foundation of the imports and exports. If this is the case you can count on the support of the TB. This development has the potential to positively impact the strategic goals to create an "Adaptable Learning Environment" as well as a "Reliable Learning Management". The TB assigns a high priority to this project if the corresponding resources are allocated.

4. More Flexibility and better Metrics for Help, presented by Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
   Comments: more maintainer will be involved depending on tackled sub-projects; funding might be provided by ILIAS NRW for several years; project is also related to PLR III, esp. because of screen IDs.

   Statement by TB: We believe this project to have a connection to our point of focus "Usable for Everyone" in our Strategy  2019. Further this will have some structural impact on the software and will involve multiple maintainers.  As laid out in our strategy, we try to tackle the "Usable for Everyone" part of our strategy by setting a high priority on core concepts such as consistency and accessibility. This does not reduce the need for an online help, but we will not set a special priority to it. However, we encourage stakeholders to push the project.

5. Better Support for Vocational Training, presented by Tödt, Alexandra [atoedt]
   Comments: Improvement of membership service is relevant for Learning Sequence, too; 'Course registration' process' has higher prio than 'Presentation of Courses'

   Statement by TB: We believe especially teh membership service to be a core element of ILIAS and therefore regard this service to be of paramount importance. For this service to be better reusable for other components would target our point of focues "Adabtable Learning Environment". The suggestion of improving this service by better encapsulating it, has also be made by the responsible maintainer in the "splitting up course" project. In general the project could also improve the usability of ILIAS by streamlining the involved features, see "Usable for Everyone". From the given description, we are yet unsure to which degree the membership service will be a part of the project. We will set a high priority to this part if it can be tackled, if not we will not set a special priority.

6. Improvement of portfolio function for ILIAS 8, presented by
   No comments

   Statement by TB: We would like to see the feature go live for the next release. We highly encourage stakeholders to push the project. The technical impact outside of portfolios might be somewhat limited, we therefore do not set a special priority to this project.

7. Configurable Dashboard(s), presented by Killing, Alexander [alex]
   Comments: Richard Klees / CaT and Timon Amstutz /UBern are interested in contributing to the concept and would like to push project.

   Statement by TB: The TB believes that this project has a great strategic potential to foster ILIAS being an Adaptable Learning Environment. However we think that the already outlined technical approach (integrate into the Global Screen Service) should not need too much care of the Technical Board, thus we do not give the project a special priority.

8. Mediacast Revision, presented by Killing, Alexander [alex]
   No comments

   Statement by TB: The TB believes this project to be of value for various learning scenarios. We also think that the media management in ILIAS should be improved in future versions of ILIAS. However for ILIAS 8 the adaption of the new File System Service should be tackled first. The TB would very much like to see this project take off, but does not set special priority to it.

9. Page Editor Revision Part II, presented by Killing, Alexander [alex]
   No comments

   Statement by TB: The TB believes this project continues to have a positive impact on the usability of the ILIAS software and we also believe this project continues to strengthen the community. However we see that fundamental ground work, especially on the client side, has been established on a level that allows to continue the completion of the already listed remaining features for ILIAS 8, thus we do not give the project a special priority.

10. Improvements of Competence Management for ILIAS 8, presented by Zenzen, Enrico [ezenzen]
    No comments

    Statement by TB: The TB is not considering the project a matter where it is to be involved very closely, as it's most predominantly a feature. Still, the TB is looking forward to seeing these new features and kindly asks stakehlolders and maintainers to specifically consider usability and accessibility criteria during the implementation.

11. Improving Accessibility, presented by Vorkauf, Klaus [KlausVorkauf]
    Comment: project is very important for ILIAS but will be a challenge and requires a lot of coordination and compromises. Funding is provided by ILIAS NRW (2021-2023).

    Statement by TB: The TB is excited to see the progress in this key development, especially in light of both the importance and challenges ahead for it. We are considering this a top priority development and like to point out how progress can be made in several fields by now already, such as feature requests, kitchensink procedures and also through first PRs. The TB is going to involve itself and assist in the process, though it may require some resources from the stakeholders in order to properly do so. We're also seeing current movements of the TB in relation to this project, like the creation of expert-groups, one of them being about accessibility, to ensure a longterm strategy and progress.

12. Revising the German Language File, presented by Vorkauf, Klaus [KlausVorkauf]
    Comments: Already very valuable contributions made by PH Zurich and Uni Bern.

    Statement by TB: The TB is looking forward to seeing this project moving forward. While it is not going to be directly involved, we'd like to remind the stakeholders to also coordinate with maintainers to circumvent issues about language variable meanings versus their current wording before they emerge.

13. Improvement of Object Management, presented by Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
    FW URLs from DC: Set Online« & »Set Offline« for Manage Screen, Revision of Access to Timings Settings of Objects, Centralizing online/offline status
    No comments

    Statement by TB: The TB thanks Oliver for pushing this important issue and clarify core concepts of our object handling. Since virtually all objects, be they shipped as part of the ILIAS core or as plugins, are subject to these concepts, we see strong connections to the section "Adaptable Learning Environment" in our strategy, especially the first two sections regarding the core concepts and interface design in ILIAS. We ask the involved persons, and especially the project lead, to look into these sections and also attempt to move towards the goals we have set there. Still, we are confident that progress can be made without substantial ressources from the TB and thus assign no special priority to this project for our work in the next release cycle.

14. ILIAS Resource Storage Service, presented by Schmid, Fabian [fschmid]
    Comment: All developers that are planning to implement uploads of files for their components should contact Fabian to use the new service already for 8. He will try to give related support to make this possible.

    Statement by TB: The TB thanks Fabian for the work he has already done on the project and for pushing it further in this release. This important development has a strong positive influence on the security of ILIAS and on potential hosting scenarios. It thus will play nicely with various goals we have set in the section "Reliable Learning Management". As a shared service in ILIAS with a well crafted and documente interface, it also caters to the goals we have set in the section "Adaptable Learning Management". Since the core concepts and implementation is settled, a huge focus will need to be on the implementation of the new service in other components. Every developer and maintainer should move their components and plugins to the new storage service soon to reap the various benefits for the component and the system. We thank Fabian to offer support for this move. To finish that adoption process soon we also assign a high priority for our ressources and work to this project.

15. Setup Revision - Season Finale, presented by Klees, Richard [rklees]
    No comments

    Statement by TB: We believe this project of be a major step in our point of focus towards "Reliable Learning Management" and also "Adabtable Learning Environment". The major corner stones have been set in the current release. We thank the responsible maintainer and all involved developers. The next steps are still large and will involve many maintainer. Further we believe that the patterns now available due to the work done here could help solve other existing issues. We encourage all developers to participate in the work to be done here. Since we believe this project will probably not require special attention from the TB, we do not set special priority to it.

16. Roll out UI elements, presented by Samoila, Oliver [oliver.samoila]
    Comment: Important project for ILIAS 8 with synergies with PLR III - but a lot of work...

    Statement by TB: The TB thanks Oliver and all other involved persons for pushing this long term effort. We see that many challenges of usability and accessibility, as well as questions regarding the client side implementation of ILIAS, could be tackled more efficiently when the integration of the UI components into the system is substantially improved. We thus also the strong synergies with the projects "Page Layout Revision", "Page Editor Revision" and "Improving Accessibility" and ask the involved persons to coordinate their actions accordindingly. Regarding our strategy, we see strong connections to our goals in "Usable for Everyone" regarding how we want to develop our UI, with the section "Learning Everywhere Anytime" regarding the usability on various devices and with the section "Adaptable Learning Environment" regarding the shared concepts and terminology. Since substantial ressources are already devoted to this effort from various sides, we still see no special priority of this project for the ressources of the TB.

17. Support for LTI Version 1.3, presented by Kohnle, Uwe [ukohnle]
    Comment: Certification of LTI support in ILIAS is considered as an important fact for ILIAS, at least for marketing purposes.

    Statement by TB: The TB thanks Uwe and his collaborators for looking into the implementation of this new feature. Please be especially carefull when implementing this feature regarding two aspects. For one, we expect that the implementation will be backed by a third party library. Please make sure to follow our guidelines, processes and directions regarding the inclusion of libraries to ILIAS. Foreign code is a liability to our project and the library that we currently use for LTI is abandoned for quite some time now. Second, as for the introduction of XAPI, we need an environment and ressources available for and manageable by the ILIAS society and community to autonomously test the features this project is looking to implement. We ask all stakeholders and collaborators in this project to thoroughly look into this challenge and provide according solutions. Since we still mostly see this as a feature for ILIAS, we do not assign special ressources by the TB to the project.

4.2 Suggested Features for 8

1. Introducing Assessment Question Service :We had a long discussion today about the suggested question service but still have some conceptual questions before making a final decision. It is not really clear what is the relation between question and question service and of what a question consists of. There are also objections in the community that taxonomies, page content and links to learning material should not be part of a question - or at least under the control of the ASQ (see suggestion in chap. 2.3). In addition, it would be very helpful if all information provided by Stephi, Martin and Adrian today in the JF would be found in the wiki page as well. This concerns also the questions posted to this request in the last days (see chap. 10).
   There is a need to specify this relation with the community and stakeholders before making a final decision about the request as this determines the future steps to realise the planned separation of the existing T&A.
   We kindly ask all stakeholders and interested developers to participate at the upcoming workshop(s) to help us pushing this large development activity.

2. Limited View of postings : Thank you very much for the updated feature request. Using a view control for this specific presentation of forum threads sounds good. The only problem we still have is how to define the starting node from where the postings are still presented (while others are hidden) in mobile view because the tool slate is in a separate view and users might not understand where to click to define the node.

3. Personal Starting Page dependend of local roles : We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 8.

4. Administrating and Minuting Employee Talks : We highly appreciate this suggestion and schedule the feature for ILIAS 8. Please make "Access to talk" a permission that can be given to positions (chap. 2 - Employees). Martin Studer will take over maintenance of this service.

5. [[]] :

   • Request presented by
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6. [[]] :

   • Request presented by
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7. [[]] :

   • Request presented by
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8. [[]] :

   • Request presented by
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5 Miscellaneous

Maintainerships

Fred Neumann asked to resign from maintainership of the language service in ILIAS. We asked all developers and service providers to apply for maintainership until yesterday. We have now one candidate who is willing to take over the maintainership from Fred. It is Großkopf, Katrin [katrin.grosskopf] from Kröpelin Projekt GmbH in Berlin. Product manager and Technical Board will decide upon the candidature on their meeting tomorrow.

Bug Tracker → Issue Tracker

Technical Board suggest to change the wording from bug to issue to show that there might be problems that cannot be considered as technical faults, e.g. problems in documentation, privacy or user experience.

Next Jour Fixe dates