Chamilo

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Ywarnier (talk | contribs) at 15:17, 23 September 2010 (→‎See also). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Chamilo
Developer(s)Chamilo community members and professional partners
Stable release
1.8.7.1 / July, 2010
Operating systemCross-platform
TypeCourse Management System
LicenseGPL
Websitechamilo.org

Chamilo is an open-source (under GNU/GPL licensing) e-learning and content management system, aimed at improving access to education and knowledge globally. It is backed up by the Chamilo Association, which has goals including the promotion of the software, the maintenance of a clear communication channel and the building of a network of services providers and software contributors.

History

The Chamilo project was officially launched on the 18th of January 2010 by a considerable part of the contributing community[1] of the (also GNU/GPL) Dokeos software, after growing discontent on the communication policy inside the Dokeos community and a series of choices that were making parts of the community insecure about the future of developments. As such, it is considered a fork of Dokeos (at least in its 1.8 series). The reaction to the fork was immediate, with more than 500 active users registering on the Chamilo forums in the first fortnight and more contributions collected in one month than in the previous whole year.

The origins of Chamilo's code date back to 2000, with the start of the Claroline project, which was forked in 2004 to launch the Dokeos project. In 2010, it was forked again with the publication of Chamilo 1.8.6.2.

Community

Due to its educational purpose, most of the community is related to the educational or the human resources sectors.

Active community

The current (as of June 2010) active community of Chamilo is considered around 300 people. Community members are considered active when they start contributing to the project (through documentation, forum contributions, development, design)[2][3][4].

Passive community

The community is considered passive when they use the software but do not contribute directly to it. As of June 2010, the passive community is estimated to more than 55000 users[5]

Chamilo Association

The Chamilo Association is a legally registered non-profit association under Belgian laws (a VZW) since June 2010. It was created to serve the general goal of improving the Chamilo project's organization and to avoid a conflict of interest between the organization controlling the software project decision process and the best interests of the community using the software. Its founding members, also its first board of directors, is composed of 7 members, of which 3 are from the private e-learning sector and 4 are from the public educational sector.

Releases

2010-07 - v.1.8.7.1

Version 1.8.7.1, codename Palmas was launched at the end of July 2010[6]. It included security fixes to the wiki tool, many fixes to bugs found in 1.8.7 and a series of minor global improvements and new features.

2010-06 - v2.0 alpha

Chamilo 2.0 was originally (first plans date back to 2006 in the Dokeos Users Day in Valence, France) meant to be released as Dokeos 2.0, as a completely new backend for the LMS. The complete team of developers working on this version decided, in 2009, to move to the Chamilo project, thus leaving the Dokeos project repository with incomplete sources.

2010-05 - v1.8.7

Version 1.8.7, codename Istanbul was launched in May 2010[7] with major internationalization (language and time) improvements to the previous version, moving a first major step away from Dokeos. It also added new pedagogical tools to its previous version. This version was the first to be released officially as GNU/GPL version 3.

2010-01 - v1.8.6.2

Version 1.8.6.2 of Chamilo was originally meant to be released as Dokeos 1.8.6.2 in January 2010. Because of the community schism, it was left incomplete and continued (starting November 2009) as the Chamilo project. [8]

Statistics

The free-to-use Chamilo campus registered 12000 users in June 2010 (5 months after its launch). The Peruvian Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola reported 800 users connected in the same 60 seconds time frame in April 2010.

Interoperability

The Chamilo 1.8 series benefits from third party implementations that allows easy connexion to Joomla (through JFusion plugin), Drupal (through Drupal-Chamilo module) and Oracle (through specific PowerBuilder implementations).

Extensions

Chamilo offers a videoconferencing system as well as a presentations to learning paths converter, which require advanced system administration skills to install.

Technical details

Chamilo is developed mainly in PHP and relies on a LAMP or WAMP system on the server side. On the client side, it only requires a modern web browser (versions younger than 3 years old) and optionally requires the Flash plugin to make use of advanced features.

Main features

  • courses, users and training cycles advanced management (including SOAP web services to manage remotely)
  • SCORM 1.2 compatibility and authoring tool
  • multi-institutions mode (with central management portal)
  • time-controlled exams
  • international characters (UTF-8)
  • timezones
  • automated generation of certificates
  • tracking of users progress
  • embedded social learning network

Worldwide adoption of Chamilo

  • Currently focusing on the academic sector, with many universities throughout Europe and Latin América currently using it (see [9]), Chamilo is looking into the private sector market, with latest improvements oriented into the reliability of tracking learners time and efficiency.
  • Chamilo is currently backed up by a series of small to medium companies (see [10]) which are required to register as members of the association to be recognized as official providers.
  • Year 2010 is focusing on spreading the software usage in Asia, with translation teams active in the translation to Simplified Chinese, between others.
  • Chamilo is also used in public administrations : Spanish and Peruvian ministries[11], as well as unemployment services and NGO's.

Trademarks

Chamilo is a registered Trademark protected by the Chamilo Association, declared under Belgian law[12].

Other L(C)MS

  • Moodle - uses the same technology (Apache-PHP-MySQL) as Chamilo
  • Sakai - developed using Java, requires another scale of hardware resources for the same users base
  • Dokeos - original software project from which Chamilo was forked in 2010
  • Claroline - original software project from which Dokeos was forked in 2004
  • Blackboard - proprietary LMS

See also

Notes

  1. ^ See http://www.chamilo.org/en/about-chamilo#who-is-moving-to-chamilo
  2. ^ http://www.chamilo.org/forum
  3. ^ http://translate.chamilo.org
  4. ^ http://support.chamilo.org
  5. ^ http://version.chamilo.org/community.php
  6. ^ http://www.chamilo.org/en/news/chamilo-1.8.7.1-released
  7. ^ http://www.chamilo.org/en/chamilo-1.8.7-istanbul-released
  8. ^ http://code.google.com/p/chamilo/source/detail?path=/documentation/installation_guide_es_ES.html&repo=classic&r=244eba5f7d97e293f14e26f2e2f8e81095d9871d
  9. ^ http://version.chamilo.org/community.php
  10. ^ http://www.chamilo.org/en/providers
  11. ^ http://aulavirtual.ucg.gob.pe
  12. ^ http://www.ejustice.just.fgov.be/tsv_pdf/2010/06/30/10095530.pdf
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chamilo&oldid=386554033"