Chamilo 1.9.0 - Features¶

See http://chamilodev.beeznest.com/documentation/changelog.html.
The present document is a cumulative list of features, including features already present in previous versions of Chamilo, but excluding features present in 2.* only

• Table of contents
• Chamilo 1.9.0 - Features
  • Suggestions
  • Commercial version
    • Global features
    • Course features
    • Advanced features
  • Benchmarking
  • In comparison with Doke0s(TM), Chamilo...
  • Technical version (more complete)
  • French commercial version

Suggestions¶

Suggest any feature missing from the list below to be added. These features will be reviewed and added to the official features list below by a specialist:

• example: makes coffee

Commercial version¶

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

Global features¶

• Courses management
• Users management
  • 9 pre-defined user profiles*
    • students
    • tutors (student with special permissions)
    • teachers
    • coaches
    • session coaches
    • session managers
    • HR director
    • portal administrator
    • global administrator
  • extend users data with extra fields
  • sort students by classes and subscribe to courses and sessions new

Course features¶

• 20 pedagogical tools
  • document management
    • upload, download, show, hide, organize, search titles
    • record locutions from your browser
    • generate speech from text from your browser
    • create and edit diagrams from your browser
    • upload and edit pictures from your browser
    • download directory as zip
    • upload zipped directory
    • drag&drop upload
    • text indexing (requires Xapian app on server)
    • use documents as templates
    • use default templates
    • use media library to illustrate documents (including audio, video, images)
  • assignments
    • assign tasks with or without deadline
    • enable document upload or online answer
    • automatically close at certain date (+ hidden secret acceptable date)
  • tests
    • create/edit/delete questions
    • import and re-use questions from other tests, other courses, other sessions
    • sort questions by categories. Use tags to recognize types of questions
    • import questions in Excel format
    • 9 question types:
      • multiple answers, single right answer
      • muliple answers, multiple right answers
      • fill-in the blanks
      • matching answers
      • open question
      • image areas
      • exact combination (multiple answers, multiple right answers, selected without error)
      • single right answer with "don't know"
      • multiple right answers t/f/dunno
      • exact combination t/f/dunno
      • oral expression (audio answer) new
  • survey
    • create/edit/delete surveys
    • invite users
    • use as anonymous survey
    • send to non-subscribed users
  • wiki
    • create/edit/delete pages
    • let students create/edit/delete pages
    • score the contribution of students
    • include the scored contribution into evaluations new
  • forum
    • create forum categories, forums and forum threads, search content
    • get notified when a new answer is posted
  • chat
    • personal (facebook-like) (new) and course-based chat sessions
  • agenda
    • create/edit/delete events
    • google-like agenda new
  • announcements
    • create/edit/delete announcements and send them by e-mail to all or selected users
  • pedagogical description
    • create/edit/delete descriptions for your course
  • links
    • create/edit/delete links to external resources
    • embed linked pages inside learning paths
  • documents sharing (dropbox)
    • upload private documents
    • send to all or selected users
  • working groups
  • certificates/learning objectives
    • generate automatic course-completion certificate
    • show certificates publicly ("demo" your skills acquisition) new
    • define several certificates per course new
    • QR codes on certificates
    • public certification URL can be added to certificate new
  • glossary
    • create/edit/delete glossary terms for your course
    • allow glossary terms to be highlighted in any text in documents, learning paths and exercises
  • user tracking
    • follow the student's progress inside your course
  • attendance
    • register attendance to your in-class course easily
    • show students pictures so you can identify them more eeasily
    • create recurring events
  • course progress
    • show the structure of the course to be taught and mark progress

Advanced features¶

• Social learning network
  • Mark friends
  • Form or join interest groups
  • Publish your portfolio
  • Link to your blog's last post (or any RSS feed)
  • Publish links to your other social networks profiles
• Standards implementations
  • SCORM 1.2
  • AICC
  • IMS/QTI
  • HotPotatoes
  • iCal
  • other standards supported
• Training sessions/cycles management
  • possible later access to courses in read-only (allows graduates to get access to their previous courses)
  • group courses together to give learners a feeling of "academic cycle" (a group of learners
  • Special access screen for learners to sessions, time-based
• Tracking export for external statistica tools (Jasper reports, Excel, etc)
• Terms and conditions management
  • Multilingual terms & conditions
  • Users have to accept to register on the virtual campus
  • Updates of terms requires re-acceptation to maintain access
• Customizable appearance (upload new stylesheets through the interface)
  • 15 pre-defined styles shipped with the software
• Covered by 1000 unit tests (see http://testing.beeznest.com)
• Glossary terms can be enabled inside documents, exercises and learning paths
  • Various modes of inclusion, allowing to "hover" a term to get its definition
• Automatic alerts to the trainer on students' delivery of assignments or online tests
• Real-time limit for tests/exams
• Availability timeframe 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
  • Score any course to show your support
  • Check how many people connect to the course
• 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

On a spread server (one database, 12GB RAM, one web 10GB RAM), the current simultaneous users number has shot to 1650 and it is believed it could get to 2500 with a few tweaks.

Current http://campus.chamilo.org has ...

• 118,00 registered users (13% teachers)
• up to 450 simultaneously connnected users (120 seconds timeframe)
• 13,000 courses
  ... and runs on ...
• 2 x Intel Xeon Dual-Core 5130
• 12GB RAM
• 500GB SATA HDD
• 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 dual XEON 5620 processor with 32GB of RAM and a XFS-type file system for the database disk would be:

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

In comparison with Doke0s(TM), Chamilo...¶

• has 19 active developers (against 2)
• has the previous Dokeos project leader (2004-2010)
• is actively present in Belgium, Spain and Peru
• is using the Dokeos 1.8.6.2 code base + two years 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
• attractive and searchable course catalog
• themable homepage
• better tracking for sessions resources

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