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OLAT Newsletter 2009 | no. 1

Dear Community,

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.

There was one major event this year: the 10th anniversary of OLAT! And we celebrated this appropriately while and with the first OLAT User Day. But read more below...

Have fun and enjoy the newsletter.

Kind regards
Your OLAT Team

#new OLAT release

On 29th of September the new version 6.2.0 was released. Some major enhancements were included and many new features have been added.

The calendar now provides an import/export function: Import your calendar from applications like Thunderbird via an ical link into OLAT (read more in Wikipedia on icalendar). Same with exporting your OLAT calendar into an external application. Hint: Usually you cannot edit an imported calendar in the external application or OLAT lacking writing access.

You can now create IMS-Content-Packages (CP learning content) directly in OLAT. The new CP editor allows creating, copying and importing of single HTML pages. You also can export your CP for the use in other applications: Make sure you’re in the “Detailed view” of the learning resource. On the right side in the box you have the link "export content" to start the download of your CP as a zip-file.

We upgraded the integrated WYSIWG editor. The special feature that comes with this is a formula editor. No more inserting mathematical formulas as pictures is needed, just edit it right away with the "jsmath" editor. The forum obtained another upgrade in formatting: Now you can use special characters. All in all the editing is much more comfortable.

And some more in a short outline:

  • the export function for group lists is extended: you can now choose different Excel formats in a dropdown
  • in the glossary synonyms can be defined, text formatted and you can call flexions
  • notifications of new events in a subscribed calendar are now possible
  • a new course function "close" to mark a course as finished but still keep the content accessible
  • e-mail workflows are enhanced
  • some improvements in the forum: e.g. reply with quotation and an extended sorting/viewing of threads
  • enhanced editing of the user’s profile and visiting card
  • learning resources (test, wiki, etc.) can now be created from within the course editor

#new OLAT member

Since February 2009 OLAT has got a new member in its community: the University of Hamburg.

With about 38.000 students, the University of Hamburg (UHH) is one of the top 5 of Germany's largest universities. Even though its roots date back to the 17th century, it was officially founded in spring 1919. As an e-learning-strategy was formulated at the UHH in 2006 a new portal has been established under the name „MICHeL - Media | Internet | Community | Hamburger eLearning”. The decision for OLAT fell last February and it is already productively in use. From April 2010 on it will be the main LMS at the UHH.

www.michel.uni-hamburg.de

#news from the community

The University of Macerata (Italy) developed a platform-independent tracking and monitoring toolkit.

E-tutors have to spend much effort to deal with issues concerning students who are stuck somewhere in their e-learning environment. To adjust a pedagogical model, it is up to the e-Tutor to collect and remember all these issues. To facilitate this process the University of Macerata (Italy) developed a platform-independent tracking and monitoring toolkit. The idea is to enhance already available Open Source LMS to "support e-Tutors recognizing and dealing with pedagogical patterns stored in a decentralized knowledge base". The toolkit is not a feature to be patched to OLAT, but as a matter of fact OLAT 6.1 is the first LMS for which an interface is provided.

#OLAT@events: recent and upcoming

21st Century Learning 17. – 19. Sept 2009 Hong Kong
Open Expo 22. – 23. Sept 2009 Winterthur
Technology Enhanced Learning Conference 2009 06. – 08. Oct 2009 Taipei
ICEIT 2009 conference 20. – 22. Oct 2009 San Francisco
E-Learn 09 by AACE 26. – 30. Oct 2009 Vancouver
DevLearn Expo by the eLearning Guild 10. – 13. Nov 2009 San Jose
Online Educa 02. – 04. Dec 2009 Berlin
Learn Tec 02. – 04. Feb 2010 Karlsruhe

Read a short report on the OLAT User Day:

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 feedback was throughout positive.

The User Day was organized as an "unconference”. This yet young concept - sessions can be proposed and are determined by vote - did work very well. Besides previously proposed sessions, last-minute contributions were considered. All sessions and minutes, as well as further information about the OLAT User Day can be accessed online: http://www.olat.org/xwiki/bin/view/OLAT+User+Day/

At the end of the first OLAT User Day we officially celebrated the 10th anniversary of OLAT.

#how to...

This is somehow funny: often forum threads start with "I really used the search function, but couldn’t find anything regarding my issue..." And if not, most first answers point out to the search function.

There is a well detailed documentation on how to install and customize OLAT fitting your needs. Here, we would just like to refer to some basic, but important things!

...change the title in the address bar of OLAT

The title in the browser window is combined by "page.appname - page.title - browser name". First two can be adapted easily via OLAT without editing the code.

  • Go to the tab 'Administration' and click the 'Language adaption tool'.
  • Use the search for the term "page.appname" (check 'Translation key', 'Language' and 'All packages')
  • As a single result the package "org.olat.core" is shown. Just click 'Adapt'
  • By default it is set to "OLAT".
  • You can now insert your own title within the field “Adaptions”
  • Save it and you’re done

It is the same with "page.title" that is set by default to "Online Learning And Training".

Don't forget to make the changes in each language!

There are some other keys that might be of interest to you, too:

  • login.header
    title on top of the login page

  • welcome.header
    title on top of the welcome page after logging in

  • guestwelcome.header
    title on top of the welcome page after logging in as a guest

  • guestwelcome.message
    lines right under the guestwelcome.header

...adapt the design

It is possible to adapt the layout of a course according to your own design needs by overwriting the OLAT layout, which is loaded by default. You only have to create your own CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) file, upload it to the storage folder and select it via "Modify properties" (in the box on the right in the detailed view).

As a matter of fact, there are many OLAT CSS selectors, classes and id's defined. Below we refer to a few of them, so you can see what’s possible.

  • body element
    With the body you can define e.g. the font, its size and the color:
    h3 { font-size: 200% }

  • headings
    There are different headings in use structuring the content. For example the heading of a single page is defined as 'h3'. Would you like to increase its size?
    body { color: red; font-family: Arial; font-size: 77.00%; }

  • background-Image(s) and -color
    On the left the course menu, in the middle the content area and on the right the tool boxes: these three are arranged like columns (left to right). You have to set the background-color to transparent:
    #b_col1 { background-color: transparent }
    #b_col3 { background-color: transparent }
    #b_col2 { background-color: transparent }

    Around these three there is a box where you can place a background-image:
    #b_main { background-image: url(path and filename) }

    Or just give all of them a unique background color:
    #b_main { background-color: dedicated color}

    You can also give each column a different color or background-image.

  • page width
    You can limit the size of the whole page width (within the browser window):
    #b_page_margins { min-width: 540px; max-width: 80em; margin: 0 auto; }

  • Hide Header/Footer
    You can hide the OLAT Header and/or Footer via:
    #b_header { display:none; }
    #b_footer { display:none; }

#imprint

OLAT Team
University of Zurich
http://www.olat.org
info@olat.org

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