History

Chamilo 1871 - Features

Suggestions

The following features will be reviewed and added to the official features list below by a specialist:
  • *

Commercial version

(meaning commercial "wording" of this list - there is no official "commercial version" of Chamilo)

  • Courses management
  • Users management
  • 9 pre-defined user profiles
    • students
    • tutors
    • teachers
    • coaches
    • session coaches
    • session managers
    • HR director
    • portal administrator
    • global administrator
  • 20 pedagogical tools
    • document management
      • upload, download, show, hide, organize, search titles
    • assignments
    • tests
    • survey
    • wiki
    • forum
      • create forum categories, forums and forum threads, search content
    • chat
    • agenda
    • announcements
    • pedagogical description
    • links
    • documents sharing (dropbox)
    • working groups
    • certificates/learning objectives
    • glossary
    • user tracking
    • attendance
    • course progress
  • Dynamic Certificates generation (through templates)
  • Social learning network (including creation of interest groups)
  • Standards implementations
    • SCORM 1.2
    • AICC
    • IMS/QTI
    • HotPotatoes
    • iCal
    • other standards supported
  • Training sessions/cycles management, with possible later access to courses in read-only (allows graduates to get access to their previous courses)
  • Tracking export for external statistica tools (Jasper reports, Excel, etc)
  • Terms and conditions management
  • Customizable appearance (upload new stylesheets through the interface)
  • Covered by 2000 unit tests (see http://testing.beeznest.com)
  • Glossary terms can be enabled inside documents, exercises and learning paths
  • Automatic alerts to the trainer on students' delivery of assignments or online tests
  • Real-time limit for tests/exams
  • Private-, group-, course- or session-specific chatrooms
  • Varied exports of course and session content
  • Timezones management (for international organizations)
  • Asian, Russian, Nordic, Arabic characters management (alsp complete support of English, Dutch, French, Spanish and German interface, plus partial support of more than 40 languages)
  • Dashboard for the training manager
  • Attendance sheets
  • Import of external results into scoring for delivery of certificates
  • Shared calendar (with import/export from iCal format events)
  • Defining additional fields for users profile
  • Platform-wide announcements
  • Course catalog
  • CSV/Excel data import/export
  • Developer's API (Web Services): integrate with ERP, CRM, CMS and KM systems
  • Compatible with HTTPS to secure your portal
  • Security filters on file extensions
  • WCAG/WAI accessibility standard support
  • Connectors to other software
    • LDAP/ActiveDirectory connector available
    • CAS connector available
    • Shibboleth connector available
    • OpenID connector available
    • Drupal connector available
    • Joomla connector available
    • Oracle connector available (through modified SOAP)
    • IBM DB2 connector (available soon)
  • Internal messaging tool
  • Online e-mail editor (replaces the necessity of a separate e-mail editor)
  • Extensible through plugins
  • Open Source (GNU/GPLv3 license and compatible licenses for components)
  • Online users page
  • Editable document templates (allowing for the use of a common branding in newly created documents)
  • Editable homepage
  • Editable registration page
  • Flexible new tabs definition
  • Social learning network platform
    • Create interest groups
    • Link to other social network platforms
    • Register links to "friends"
    • Send messages, images, videos to other platform users

Benchmarking

Chamilo 1.8.7 or its close predecessors have been tested without major influence on the server load with:

  • 800 simultaneously connected users (in a 240 seconds timeframe)
  • 32,000 courses
  • 229,000 registered users
  • 35,000 connexions per day
Current http://campus.chamilo.org has ...
  • 19,600 registered users
  • 300 simultaneously connnected users (120 seconds timeframe)
  • 3,500 courses
    ... and runs on ...
  • 2 x Intel Xeon Dual-Core 5130
  • 2GB RAM
  • 250GB SATA HDD
  • X7DBN Motherboard
  • 5TB / month bandwidth

The videoconference tool has been tested on a virtual machine with 300MB of RAM with 20 people connected simultaneously and has shown no defect or excessive load.

It is also evaluated that the practical limits for a cuad-core processor with 8GB of RAM and a ZFS-type file system would be:

  • 1 000 000 users registered
  • 5000 simultaneously connected users (with a time window of 60 seconds)
  • 32 000 courses
  • unlimited sessions
  • unlimited hard disk space

In comparison with Dokeos(TM), Chamilo...

  • has 19 active developers (against 2)
  • has the previous Dokeos project leader (2004-2010)
  • is present in Belgium, Spain and Peru
  • is using the Dokeos code base + one year of code improvements
  • is fully UTF-8
  • has timezones
  • has assistance sheets
  • has self-defined language terms
  • has thematic advance (course programs)
  • has a director dashboard
  • has advanced social network features
  • has a course assistant role for students
  • supports academic courses cycles as well as corporate training
  • allows survey as a validation criteria
  • is backed up by private companies and a non-profit association
  • is translated to Simplified Chinese
  • provides free access to code
  • provides free access to community support and bug reports (thus saving research time)
  • document search box
  • better sessions access control

Will have in 1.8.8

  • attractive and searchable course catalog
  • themable homepage
  • better tracking for sessions resources
  • mindmapping tool
  • skills/competences management tool

Technical version (more complete)

In the following table, we are using specific abbreviated roles in order to avoid formatting problems:
  • Anonymous User: AU
  • Leaner User: LU
  • Tutor User: TU
  • Teacher User: TE
  • Coach User: CU
  • Session Coach: SC
  • Session Admin: SA
  • RH Manager: RH
  • Portal Admin: PA
  • Global Admin: GA

Also, we will redefine these headers every 20 lines to allow for increased visibility.

The values are:
  • "Y" for Yes,
  • "N" for "No"
  • "O" for optional (meaning there is probably a configuration settings that lets you change this).
  • "[N]" for optional, but default setting is No
  • "[Y]" for optional but default setting is Yes
  • "-" means Non Applicable
  • "?" means not yet documented/unknown
  • "*" generally means "except if he's the owner"
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Common actions
See homepage Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
See online users ? [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y]
Login using password N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Register self as learner [Y] - - - - - - - - -
Register self as teacher [Y] - - - - - - - - -
Register self as admin N N N N N N N N N N
View global announcements
View courses catalog
Subscribe to courses -
Enter public courses Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Enter limited courses N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Enter private courses N N N N* N N N N Y Y
Enter closed courses N N N N* N N N N N N
View platform admin's contact [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y] [Y]
View
Logout N Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y Y
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA
Action AU LU TU TE CU SC SA RH PA GA

French commercial version

  • gestion de cours
  • gestion d'utilisateurs
  • 5 profils d'utilisateurs: étudiants, assistants, formateurs,
    directeurs des ressources humaines (aussi parent, selon le cas),
    administrateurs de cycles de formation (session), administrateur global
  • 20 outils pédagogiques (gestion documentaire, travaux, examens,
    enquêtes, wiki, forum, chat, agenda, catalogue/description, liens,
    annonces, partage de documents, groupes de travail,
    certificats/évaluations, glossaire, suivi, présences, avancement
    thématique)
  • génération de certificats dynamiques (avec modèles)
  • réseau social d'apprentissage (formation de groupes d'intérêt)
  • support de standards SCORM 1.2, AICC, IMS/QTI, HotPotatoes, iCal
  • gestion des cycles de formation et accès postérieur possible en
    lecture seule (ce qui permet aux "anciens élèves" de revenir voir leurs
    cours)
  • export du suivi pour import dans outils statistiques (Jasper reports,
    Excel, etc)
  • conditions d'utilisation
  • apparence adaptable (upload de stylesheets tout web)
  • couverture par 2000 tests unitaires (voir testing.beeznest.com)
  • activation des termes du glossaire dans documents, exercices et
    parcours d'apprentissage
  • alertes automatiques au formateur sur remise de travaux ou
    présentation d'examens par les apprenants
  • limite en temps-réel pour les examens
  • chat privé par utilisateur, par groupe et par session
  • exports variés des contenus de cours ou de sessions
  • gestion des zones horaires (pour organisations multinationales)
  • gestion des caractères asiatiques, russes, nordiques et arabes
    (support complet de l'anglais, néérlandais, français, espagnol, allemand
    et support imparfait de plus de 40 langues et dialectes)
  • panneau de contrôle du gestionnaire de formations
  • feuilles de présences
  • possibilité d'importer des notes externes et de les intégrer dans
    l'obtention des certificats
  • calendrier partagé (avec possibilité d'import/export d'évènements au
    format iCal)
  • définition de champs additionnels de profil d'utilisateurs
  • annonces globales
  • catalogue de cours
  • imports/exports de données au format CSV/Excel
  • services web SOAP permettant la synchronisation avec des systèmes ERP,
    CRM, CMS et KM
  • possibilité d'utiliser HTTPS pour sécuriser l'utilisation du portail
  • possibilité de filtrer les types de fichiers
  • support de standard d'accessibilité WCAG/WAI
  • connecteur LDAP
  • connecteur OpenID
  • connecteur Drupal
  • outil de messagerie interne
  • éditeur de courrier en ligne (évite la nécessité d'un client e-mail
    extérieur)
  • possibilité d'étendre les fonctionnalités via des plugins
  • open-source
  • liste des utilisateurs actuellement connectés
  • modèles de documents éditables
  • page d'accueil et d'enregistrement éditables