OLAT - The Open Source LMS
Welcome to OLAT (Online Learning And Training), the web-based open source 
Learning Management System (LMS) based on Java and completely free of charge.
The development of OLAT started in 1999 at the University of Zurich, Switzerland, where it is the strategic learning management system and deployed on the main OLAT server. The University of Zurich leads the further development and provides a team of 12 developers pushing OLAT to the next level.
NEWS:
OLAT @ DevLearn 2009
(19.11.2009) OLAT was well represented at last weeks DevLearn conference and Expo. At the Expo the University of Zurich's booth, where
Joël Fisler presented both OLAT and eLML, was well visited by people from higher education and from company representatives.
Hardly anyone in the US had ever heard of OLAT 
Joël Fislers presentation @ DevLearn 2009and so most people where even more surprised when they saw the live demo and the clean and easy to use interface. We did receive
a lot of comments saying that at first impression OLAT seemed easier to use and more powerful than many commercial and open
source learning management systems used within the US market. Joël Fisler attended also the demofest and the conference where
he was able to hold a presentation about the tools followed by a lively discussion about open source tools in education. First
cooperation plans with commercial companies and with a US university have been established and we will announce them on our
website as soon as the deals are fixed. After visiting three conferences and expos in the US and Canada during the last month
we feel optimistic that finally OLAT will start to become recognized and used in North America.
OLAT 6.2.2 released!
(11.11.2009) Recently we released the new version 6.2.2 - this is another maintenance release. For a full list of bugfixes and improvements check our Bug tracking System. Continue to the download section...
Joël Fislers presentation @ AACE's E-Learn 2009
OLAT @ AACE's E-Learn 2009
(04.11.2009) OLAT was present at AACE's E-Learn 2009 conference in Vancouver in late October. Joël Fislers "best practice" presentation entitled "Creating, handling and implementing e-learning courses and content using the open source tools OLAT and eLML at the University of Zurich" covered both the content creation tool eLML and the open source LMS OLAT plus a short live demonstration. The conference offered up to 12 parallel session, so we are happy to have counted maybe 20 attendees at our session. A second OLAT demonstration was held two days later at a swap of ideas and open source tools between educators and IT specialists. Besides these presentation lots of informal talks and exchanging of ideas made the E-Learn 2009 in Vancouver a real success for the OLAT project.
OLAT 6.2.1 released!
(15.10.2009) The OLAT team has released OLAT 6.2.1 today. As usual for a maintenance release it contains some bug fixes and also some improvements: QTI editor provides now a table functionality, formatting issues with TinyMC and tests, forum preview, css default theme references files that do not exist, daily updated search index. Continue to the download section...
TELearn participants visiting the OLAT booth.
OLAT @ TELearn Taipei
(13.10.2009) Considering the fact that OLAT has been translated to both traditional and simplified Chinese, it was about high time to get in touch with interested OLAT users and translators from the area. Participating in the TELearn (Technology Enhanced Learning) conference in Taipei seemed just about the right occasion to mingle with university members interested in LMS and open source software in general. We had many opportunities to talk about the features and functionalities of our LMS during the poster session and to get into touch with people visiting our small booth. We'd like to welcome new OLAT users and invite you to share your impressions as a OLAT newbie with our community. At the same time, subscribe to our newsletter and keep yourself posted!
OLAT newsletter 2009 no. 1
(06.10.2009) OLAT grows continuously and so does the number of users and developers. This results in interesting news and information we want to share with you. So, here it is: the first OLAT newsletter.
OLAT 6.2.0 public release available!
(29.09.2009) As planned, the new version 6.2.0 is released today. Some major enhancements are done and a bulk of new features have been added: calendar import/export, new IMS-Content-Packages Editor, a TinyMC Editor Upgrade (e.g. formula editor), extended export function for grouplists and many more.
For a full list of bug fixes and improvements check the release notes. Continue to download section...
eLML wins the CH Open Source Award 2009
(24.09.2009) On 23th September the 2nd CH Open Source Award was held during the "OpenExpo 2009" in Winterthur (Swiss). "eLML" won in the category 'Education Award'! With this price young talents are promoted, who are campaigning in a FOSS project. Check the CH Open Source Award Website for further information.
So, the whole OLAT team cheers: Congratulations Joël!!!
OLAT @ 21st Century Learning Conference | 17.-19.9.2009
(23.09.2009) This year's "21st Century Learning Conference" took place in Hong Kong and was about "Extending Tomorrow's Leader with Digital Learning". The conference was mainly attended by teachers and IT administrators of international schools from Asia and Oceania. OLAT seized the chance to be present in this area for the very first time. Even if the scope of the conference was rather broad, there were surprisingly many participants interested in OLAT, or in open source software in general. There was a vivid discussion about "E-learning and open source tools" during the Unconference session on Friday and a 45min presentation about "What is a LMS? What is OLAT?" held by Sandra Arnold-Roth. The audience was particularly impressed about the multilingual user interface - big thanks to our active translator community!
First OLAT User Day was a success!
(21.09.2009) The first OLAT User Day was held on September 11th at the University of Zurich. So far we can say: it was a success! The OLAT User Day gave the participants the opportunity to meet up others from the OLAT community. Just to come together, share ideas and to discuss matters of common interests. Main issues were the work with and on OLAT: Developers, authors and users were swapping ideas on workflows, problems, news and particularities the whole day through. The participant’s feedback was throughout positive.
In some way special was the format, the User Day was held like. This yet young concept of an "unconference" - sessions can be proposed and are determined by vote - did work also very well. Besides preliminary proposed sessions, last-minute contributions been considered. All sessions and its minutes, as well as further information to the OLAT User Day can be accessed online: check the OLAT User Day Wiki.
Last but not least: The first OLAT User Day also been the official celebration of the 10 years OLAT anniversary.
OLAT User Day 2009: Registration open!
(13.07.2009) As already announced in spring, the OLAT User Day will be held on September 11th, 2009, and you are kindly invited to participate. The OLAT User Day is an event where the OLAT community gathers together to exchange ideas. During the day, there will be kind of an „unconference“; in several sessions topics of common interests will be discussed. In the evening, we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of OLAT. For details, registration (until August 30th!), submitting a session proposal etc. check the OLAT User Day Wiki.
New 'COMMUNITY' tab in OLAT website
(25.05.2009) As most of you know, we did have a core community meeting two weeks ago at the University of Zurich in which also BPS, Frentix and the University of Hamburg (UHH) participated. The result of this very successful meeting was a detailed roadmap, a more concise incubation and publication process for new features and a core community meeting page with more information about the held presentations, photos, slides etc. Since there are more and more community events (OLAT Conference, OLAT User Day, Google Summer of Code etc.) we decided to introduce a new "Community" tab within the OLAT website. The "Community" section contains both existing and new pages.
OLAT 6.1.1 public release
(20.05.2009) Our first scalable 6.1 release needed some improvements and thus our first maintenance release 6.1.1 contains about 40 fixed Jira issues. The bug fixes include:
- IMS QTI improvements
- Layout-improvements and bug fixes for IE8
- Bug fixes within the user deletion workflow
- Fixes due to problems with language codes that contain underscore (e.g. zh_tw)
- Bug fixes concerning group management, WebDAV, Wiki, CSS etc.
For a full list of bug fixes and improvements check the release notes. Continue to download section...
IMS Learning Impact 'Leadership Award' 2009 for OLAT for best open source learning platform
(18.05.2009)
At last week's IMS Learning Impact conference in Barcelona the Global Learning Consortium announced the results of the Impact Award competition. OLAT was awarded with a "Leadership Award" for "Best Open Source Learning Platform". The OLAT team is honored to have received
such a unique award. A quote from the press release of IMS: "The LIA awards are unique in that they recognize the use of technology in context. Nominations include not only information
about the technology but how it is used by an education provider. In addition, the entries are evaluated according to eight
criteria of impact, including improving access to learning, improving affordability of learning, and improving the quality
of learning." (IMS 2009)
Starting in 2009 OLAT plans to become an IMS member and implement more IMS standards.
Core Developer Meeting in Zurich
(30.04.2009) Next week the OLAT core developers from the University of Zurich, Frentix GmbH, Bildungsportal Sachsen (BPS) and the University of Hamburg will meet for three days in Zurich to discuss issues about OLAT development, eAssessment, scalability, testing infrastructure and the OLAT roadmap. Besides that we will also integrate new features from our German partners into the main OLAT core during our "hackfest". We'll post the results of the three-day workshop on the OLAT website. If you're interested about the detailed schedule, download our PDF-information file or contact Patrick Brunner, the head of our development team. Both the document and the workshop are held in German but the results will be published in English.
OLAT is IMS Learning Impact Award 2009 finalist
(22.04.2009) OLAT was chosen as a finalist for the IMS Learning Impact Award 2009. On Monday, May 11th 2009 at 5pm Joël Fisler will present OLAT at the IMS Learning Impact conference in Barcelona. The conference lasts from May 11th to 14th, contact us if you plan to participate and would like to meet OLAT staff members. We did submit a short OLAT introduction video for the jury (also available on YouTube).
OLAT 6.1 release available!
(15.03.2009) With some days of delay we are proud to announce our latest OLAT release (OLAT 6.1). Certainly the most important new feature is: clustering! For about two years we have been working on a scalable solution for our LMS and are happy to release with 6.1 the first scalable version of OLAT. Consisting of three independent nodes the main OLAT server at the University of Zurich has been running stable for over a month now.
A second important new feature is internationalization: OLAT offers a new translation tool as well as an easier administration interface to install new languages. For a full list of bug fixes and improvements check the release notes and the updated OLAT manuals. Continue to download section...
10th OLAT Birthday: OLAT User Day 2009 on September 11th
(11.03.2009) On the 11th September 2009 we are celebrating the 10th anniversary of OLAT, and would like to invite you, as a user and member of our community, to join us. You will have the opportunity to meet up with like-minded people, to discuss matters of common interests, swap ideas, and – of course – to celebrate with us. So don‘t miss the OLAT User Day 2009, and make the entry in your diary today! More details will follow. Hope to see you in Zurich! Feel free to download the postcard if you didn't get one by "Snail Mail".
OLAT User Day 2009 Postcard (front)University of Hamburg switches from Blackboard to OLAT!
(17.02.2009) Yesterday the University of Hamburg announced that they will switch from Blackboard to OLAT. Their blackboard license ends in April 2010 but they will already offer an OLAT server for the next summer semester 2009. Thanks to the scalability release 6.1 OLAT fits Hamburg's needs for a high number of concurrent users. For more information read the press release or visit the University of Hamburg eLearning website. Welcome on board!!!
Check our older OLAT news in the news archive.
