OLAT

OLAT is an acronym forOnline LearningAnd Training.It is a web application a so-called Learning Manage-ment System that supports any kind of online learning,teaching, and tutoring with few educational restrictions.OLAT is free software and is open source. Its devel-opment started in 1999 at the University of Zrich andOLAT won the MeDiDa-Prix prize in 2000. With ver-sion 3.0, the system was completely rebuilt and is nowavailable as a component-oriented application developedin the Java programming language. OLAT has supportfor various E-learning standards such as IMS (IMS Con-tent Packaging, IMS QTI), and SCORM. With version4.0, many add-ons have been introduced to the system,which makes it very easy to extend the LMS functional-ity. With version 5.0, new features like Wiki, Calendar,AJAX Beta Mode, and Fulltext Search have been imple-mented. Version 6.0 comprised a new and improved lay-out based on a usability evaluation. A subsequent versionprovides full scalability, meaning OLAT can be run on acluster of servers. OLAT 7.0 adds lots of new features, acourse wizard plus the implementation of important stan-dards like REST API, IMS Basic LTI and IMS QTI 2.1.In autumn 2011 some of the core community contribu-tors left the OLAT community because of strategic dif-ferences and started an alternative fork which is namedOpenOLAT.

1 FeaturesOLAT has many features typical for e-learning platforms:

Content managing Forums File discussions Quizzes with dierent kinds of questions Wikis Blogs Podcast Surveys Chat Submission module (for exercises) Grading module

Time marker for video data Scalability: OLAT can be run as a cluster Multi-language support (OLAT is multilingual andavailable in many languages; full support for UTF-8)

OLAT integrates the instant messaging systemXMPP to support the synchronous communicationprocesses and to extend the users awareness.

2 Current status and future devel-opment

As the strategic LMS of the University of Zrich, OLATis continuously being developed. In the meantime, OLATgains increasingly more attention, especially within theEuropean higher education market. OLAT and the SakaiProject have very similar goals, but compared to theAmerican initiative, OLAT has a much longer develop-ment phase and has been successfully in production forseveral years. OLAT has been developed from the be-ginning to support campus-wide E-learning and can becompared to commercial tools like WebCT Vista.OLAT is a mature LMS, used to support universities withthousands of users, e.g. University of Zurich with ap-prox. 50,000, Bildungsportal Sachsen (under the nameof OPAL) with approx. 40,000, University of Hamburgwith approx. 30,000 and, as of the summer semester2011, Goethe University Frankfurt with approx. 50,000users.[1]

By the end of 2011 the OpenOLAT fork has been startedas an alternative development line by the largest com-munity contributor who by this initiative left the originalOLAT community due to strategic dierences. The com-mon base of OLAT and OpenOLAT is the 7.1 release.From that point the two systems are heading into dierentdirections. The rst OpenOLAT release was published inFebruary 2012 with the number 8.0.

3 Recognitions OLAT won the MedidaPrix 2000, which is the mostimportant e-learning award in the German languagearea (Austria, Germany, and Switzerland).[2]

OLAT won the Swiss Open Source Award 2008.[3]

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2 7 EXTERNAL LINKS

OLATwon in 2009 the IMSLearning Impact 'Lead-ership Award' 2009 for OLAT for best open sourcelearning platform.[4]

4 SpecicationOLAT runs without modication on Unix, Linux,OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Windows, and Mac OS X.The requirements for OLAT are basically:

Java SDK Tomcat Servlet Engine Database such as MySQL or PostgreSQL Ant for developers and installing from source

The project was initiated in 1999 but later rebuilt usingJava and released as open source in 2004.

5 See also Learning management system List of applications with iCalendar support

6 References[1] http://www.checkpoint-elearning.de/article/6450.html

[2] http://www.medidaprix.org/mdd_2000/orga/preistraeger.html

[3] http://ossaward.ch-open.ch/awards-2008/

[4] http://www.imsglobal.org/pressreleases/pr090514.html

7 External links http://www.olat.org

38 Text and image sources, contributors, and licenses8.1 Text

OLAT Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OLAT?oldid=656565343 Contributors: Den fjttrade ankan~enwiki, SEWilco, Android79,CanisRufus, Stesmo, Kelly Martin, FlaBot, Ian Pitchford, Ysangkok, CarolGray, NSR, Tavilis, SmackBot, Where, Iridescent, Fisler,Neustradamus, MER-C, Dekimasu, Gwern, YUiCiUS, Olak Ksirrin, VolkovBot, Serdelll, Learning dave, Gnaegi, Kramshoej, Mild BillHiccup, Sun Creator, Tahmasp, Addbot, SassoBot, Transmissionelement, ThiemoMD, Diwas, Technetgr, Inevs, Jbo5112, GoingBatty,Bomazi, BG19bot and Anonymous: 33

8.2 Images File:Olat_screenshot_wiki.png Source: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b9/Olat_screenshot_wiki.png License:

Apache License 2.0 Contributors: Universitt Zrich Original artist: Jol Fisler

8.3 Content license Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Features Current status and future development Recognitions Specification See also ReferencesExternal links Text and image sources, contributors, and licensesTextImagesContent license