Eledge Open Learning Management System version 3.0.0
Copyright (C) 2002, University of Utah
Distributed freely, but with NO WARRANTY whatsoever, under the terms of the
GNU General Public Licence. See http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html
General Description:
Eledge is an open source electronic course management system consisting of about 34
Java servlets backed by a MySQL database. Eledge provides the functionality required to
create online courses and instructional web sites including student registration, quizzes,
exams, homework grader, email directory, calendar, password management, class gradebook,
file uploads, student peer review, syllabus, content creation tools, and course navigation.
Requirements:
Hardware: nearly any type of computer connected to the Internet or local intranet
Software:
Java Compiler/Interpreter - a program that creates Java byte code and converts
it to instructions that your particular computer understands.
Servlet runner - a program that launches a Java servlet in response to a
request from a remote machine over the network.
MySQL Database - a program that maintains tables of information that can be
accessed by the Java servlet programs.
JDBC Driver - a Java program that makes the connection between the servlet
and the MySQL database program.
All of the required software is available as free downloads for most common
computer architectures at the following locations:
Java 2 Platform Standard Edition - http://javasoft.com/
Servlet engine (e.g., Tomcat) - http://jakarta.apache.org/
MySQL database - http://www.mysql.com/
JDBC Driver - http://www.mysql.com/products/connector-j/index.html
New/changed in version 3.1.0:
In working towards a new way of doing things... the newest database updates for version 3.1.0
are -NOT- done within the servlets themselves. Rather, an updateDB.java is included within the jar
archive. It is a standalone, command line program. It is meant to be run from
$CATALINA_HOME/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/classes directory, or, in otherwords, the webapp directory in
which all of your course directories reside. Running it from there, with no arguments, will
cause it to attempt an update to every course in the classes directory. You may optionally
supply one or more course names to update in the even that you want to update some, but not all,
of the course databases. (Perform just one update, for instance, to a test-course to see how
things go/how you like the new codebase before performing updates to all existing courses).
Please note that any database updates, creations, etc. that were handled up until
Report.java sports several new features, including improved error reporting (attempts at uploading
empty or non-existant files will now be caught), as well as various changes to the actual upload
handling code, backported from Yoon Kyung Koo's servlet version 1.1a. Also new is an "upload status"
window that opens on upload of a report, showing the progress of the upload. (Tested in mozilla
1.x, IE 5,x, 6,x, and Opera 6.x and 7.x).
Optimization of i18n related code.
Calendar servlet throwing an exception on creation of events table bug is fixed
Various key-name fixes with i18n
New logging methods added which provide the ability to print stack traces
Small sql-related buf fixes to ManageReport.java
Section Specific question support added to PeerReview questions
New TA system:
Up until 3.1.0, setting a profile to the status of "TA" has meant, essentially, the same thing
as setting them to "Instructor". 3.1.0 makes it possible to change that. By default, TA's
will still be set to Instructor-like status, so if this functionality was desireable, it,
transparently, still "feels" the same. However, the option is now available to assign
permission sets to TA's, customizing their permission level for nearly every facet of
Eledge. Additionally, TA's can be assigned one or more sections, one or more students,
or anything in between. For example, a TA could be assigned a section of students, and
the permissions set such that they can access the gradebook, but only see their assigned
students, only perform actions on their assigned students, etc.
Some notes... the majority of database updates in 3.1.0 are from this new TA system.
Even if you do not plan on using the system, you -should- still compile and run
updateDB.java. Any questions, comments, etc. regarding the use of the new TA
system may either be posted at the eledge help forum, on the eledge-users mailing list,
or simply mailed directly to robertz@scazdl.org.
Various other bug-fixes and improvements.
New/changed in version 3.0.0:
First, a new naming system. Eledge will now be following a standard naming convention of Major.Minor.Patch.
Typically, patch updates will not require database changes, minor probably will, and major will usually mean
that the code has changed radically from a previous release.
The foremost change between 3.0.0 and 2.0 is i18n. Eledge has been completely gone through and i18n'ed
for easier translation into other languages (spanish language pack is also available).
DiscussionBoard using too many mysql connections at a time has been fixed.
"DeleteMsg" bugs in DiscussionBoard are fixed (formerly, problems occurred when a thread-starting message was deleted.)
An "ArchiveErase" option has been added to ResetCourse allowing instructors to prepare a course for a new semester, without
completely losing previous semester student information.
A new "Template" feature has been added. This feature allows an instructor to set up a basic page template to be
applied to all new pages dynamically created. (For example, an instructor could create a "heading" item,
paragraph separator items, etc. for a page).
PeerReview sql error has been fixed.
Instructors may now choose to "hide" student names in PeerReview, which keeps students from seeing who wrote
the original article and/or the review.
A text-wrap feature has been added to the ManageJournal servlet, allowing instructors to set a desired
screen width for themselves when viewing student entries (in the event that students used "this preformatted
text" and never hit enter, for instance). Note: this feature requries persistent cookies to be enabled.
A summary of journal entries feature has been added to the ManageJournal servlet, allowing instructors to
see at a glance which students have unread entries, how many there are, as well as how many read entries exist.
Error messages have been re-enabled in report.java and in the content uploads feature for instructors.
Also, the error messages, if any, for a given student report upload are now recorded. The latest message
for a given report is displayed to the student, and the instructor may see all error messages/upload comments
via the View Student Reports page (ManageReports->View Student Reports)
The "title" attribute has been added to the cells of the Gradebook page table, making it so that a
"tooltip" will be displayed in Graphical browsers, showing both the student and the assignment name
corresponding to the given cell/score.
Many other changes and bugfixes.
New in version 2.0:
Eledge now supports threaded discussion groups through the DiscussionBoard servlet. Other minor improvements
have been made to the ScoresDetail section of the Gradebook servlet.
New in version 1.8:
Committed several minor bug fixes to achieve upward compatibility between servlets and the underlying database.
Minor changes to support for class sections in Calendar, Quiz, Homework, Exam, and corresponding ManageQuiz,
ManageHomework and ManageExam servle
