News
Google Summer of Code Applications
[March 9, 2010] Students who would like to work with the IDI on one of its open source projects for the summer (including ATutor), can submit a resume and cover letter, and choose from the suggested Google Summer of Code projects. Or, if you have another project you'd like to work on, also submit a 1 or 2 page description of your project, and how you would go about developing the software. Google will fund student work on open source projects over the summer, contributing $5000 USD to each student accepted into the program. For more information visit the Google Summer of Code 2010 Web site, and review the ATutor GS0C Ideas Page for a list of potential projects.
Register for Understanding Web Accessibility
[March 9, 2010] Registration is now open for the April offering of the Understanding Web Accessibility course. This online course teaches both beginning and advanced Web users and content authors about the WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines, and what it means to develop accessible Web content. To learn more about the course, and to register, visit the course registration page.
ATutor 1.6.4 Released
[December 17, 2009] ATutor 1.6.4 is now available. Current users should upgrade as soon as possible. Some of the new features in this release include conformance with IMS Common Cartridge 1.0 Lite content interoperability standard, prerequisite tests for content access, and further enhancements to the user interface. Try the ATutor 1.6.4 Demo to see how the new Common Cartridge features work. Or, Download ATutor to install a version of your own. See the ChangeLog for a list of changes in this release. See the SourceForge news release for more details.
ATutor 1.6.3 Released
[July 22, 2009] ATutor 1.6.3 has been released. Current users are encouraged to upgrade to take advantage of some significant new features. ATutor can now be used as social networking software, as a learning management system, or for both social networking and elearning. Go to the Demo Site site to try ATutor, and Download ATutor to get a copy of your own.
ATutor 1.6.3 RC1 Released
[July 2, 2009] We are getting closer to a stable release of ATutor 1.6.3. We still need help from the community to test the new features, and report bugs. Please take a little time to download and install the latest version, and do some testing. For details see the ATutor 1.6.3 RC1 Forum Post http://www.atutor.ca/view/7/17937/1.html
AChecker 1.0 Released
[June 5, 2009] AChecker is a free Open Source Web Content Accessibility Checker. Web content authors, webmasters, and Web application developers can use AChecker to ensure the information they post to the Web will be accessible to everyone. Try the demo (login:demo,password:demo) to see how it works, download AChecker to install your own version, and visit the AChecker forum to find help and to participate in the developing community of users. Use the Public AChecker to evaluate the accessibility of your Web site if you do not have a place to install your own version. Learn more about AChecker.
W4A Web Accessibility Award
[April 24, 2009] ATutor received the delegates Web Accessibility Challenge award at this year's W4A conference in Madrid.
ATutor Social and AChecker
[April 16, 2009] *Introducing ATutor Social*
ATutor Social is now available for testing and feedback. This Beta version can either be downloaded from the atutor.ca Web site, or for those using ATutor 1.6.2+. it can be installed directly from the Module Repository using the administrator's Module Manager. The final release of the module should come about the same time as the next major ATutor release (June 09).
*Download ATutor Social Beta*
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/modules/index.php
ATutor Social is an implementation of the Google OpenSocial Container Specification. In addition to introducing basic social networking capabilities, such as keeping contacts, group participation, and social graphing, ATutor Social can leverage thousands of existing social applications that can be added each person's social networking environment with the click of a button. All of a sudden there are thousands of new modules for ATutor.
*To learn more about ATutor Social, visit the Web site*
http://www.atutor.ca/social/
*Try the ATutor Social Demo*
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo.php
*Post feedback to the ATutor forums*
http://www.atutor.ca/forums/
*Introducing AChecker*
AChecker accessibility reviewer is now available for testing and feedback. AChecker is used to evaluate the accessibility of Web sites to a variety of international standards, including W3C WCAG, Section 508 (U.S.), Stanca (Italy), and BITV (Germany). Administrators can customize standards, edit existing accessibility checks, and create new checks. Try the demo on your own Web site to see how it fairs. Download a copy to install your own version of AChecker.
*AChecker Demo*
http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/demo.php
*Download AChecker Beta*
http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/download.php
*AChecker Details*
http://www.atutor.ca/achecker/
*Post feedback to the ATutor forums*
http://www.atutor.ca/forums/
Join us in Spain April & May 09
[February 27, 2009] ATutor is being presented at both WWW/W4A conference in Madrid April 20 & 21, and at the IMS Learning Impact conference in Barcelona May 11 to 14. Visit the conference sites for details on attending. Hope to see you there.
http://www.w4a.info/
http://www.imsglobal.org/learningimpact2009/
ATutor 1.6.2 Released
[December 11, 2008] ATutor 1.6.2 is now available. This is a significant release, with the addition of quite a number of new features, and further support for accessibility and interoperability standards. See the SourceForge News Release for details. Download ATutor, Try the Demo. See the ChangeLog for a list of new features.
ATutor in WCAG 2.0 Implementation Report
[November 3, 2008] The W3Cs WCAG 2.0 accessibility guidelines took one step closer toward being a full recommendation today with the release of its Implementation Report. ATutor was one of Level AA implementers. See the ATutor WCAG 2.0 Compliance Test. If you look closely, the only failed AAA item was on language level.
AChecker 0.1 (PHP) Released
[September 19, 2008] The very first version of AChecker redesigned in PHP is now available. It is fairly basic, but does produce Web accessibility reviews. Over the next several months features such as customizable reviews, saving data from decisions made using checker, Web services, a check authoring tool, translation, and other features will be added. Minor releases will come as significant new features are added, leading up to the first full release 1.0 sometime in early 2009. See the Demo of AChecker or Download AChecker and install it on your own system.
ATutor.no Launches
[July 17, 2008] ATutor.no, out of Norway, was launched recently, and they have been working hard to make improvements to ATutor, and introduce new modules and themes. Some of the new features include a SPAM filter module, an embedded FLV file player, as well as improvements to the ATutor Directory. Visit atutor.no for a full list of features developed by the Norwegian ATutor group.See Contributions
ATutor 1.6.1 Released
[July 2, 2008] ATutor 1.6.1 is now available. ATutor users should upgrade their systems to take advantage of added security and a variety of new features. See the Sourceforge News Release for a list of changes in this release. A demo and download are available.
ATutor Wins Gold IMS Learning Impact Award
[May 14, 2008] ATutor receives a Gold IMS Learning Impact Award. It also received three best in show awards for best personalized learning solution, best open source learning platform, and top vote getter from attendees at the conference. Congratulations goes to everyone who has contributed over the years, once again. We're on a roll! Keep up the good work. (IMS Press Release)
Blackboard Patent Rejected by USPTO
[March 28, 2008] The United States Patent and Trademark Office has announced that it has rejected all 44 claims that Blackboard has attempted to patent in a non-final determination on Patent 6,988,138, also known as the "Alcorn Patent". Though this is not the final decision, which is still likely months, or even years away, it is a significant move toward what most in the online learning industry have suggested from the beginning, that the patent should never have been issued. USPTO has accepted without modification the prior art submitted by the Software Freedom Law Centre (SFLC). This essentially ends ATutor's association with SFLC, though it does not end the association between SFLC and Blackboard, should Blackboard wish to challenge the ruling.
ATutor IMS Awards Finalist
[February 7, 2008] ATutor has been named as one of the finalists in the IMS Learning Impact Awards. The Awards recognize high impact use of technology in support of learning. Judging will take place at this year's Learning Impact Conference, being held in Austin Texas May 12 to 15.
ATutor 1.6 Released
[February 5, 2008] ATutor 1.6 is now available. The most significant change in this release is the conversion from old language character sets to a single character set, UTF-8, which provides universal language support. The other significant change is a new look-and-feel, updating the default themes with a new DIV based layout, and a new appearance for the 1.6 series releases of ATutor. Visit the ATutor 1.6 Demo to try out new features in 1.6 and download ATutor 1.6 to install a version of your own.
ATutor takes Mellon Award.
[December 10, 2007] The ATRC, and the ATutor team, have been honored with one of this year's Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration. The prize was one of 10 "Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration" (MATC) awarded yesterday to honor not-for-profit organizations for leadership in the collaborative development of open source software tools with application to scholarship in the arts and humanities. The prizes were presented at the Fall Task Force meeting of the Coalition for Networked Information by Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, Director of the World Wide Web Consortium and the inventor of the World Wide Web.
ATutor 1.6 Beta Released
[December 7, 2007] ATutor 1.6 is now available for download and testing. The biggest change in this release is the conversion from old characters to a single character set, UTF-8, which provides universal language support. The other significant change is a new look-and-feel, updating the default themes with a new DIV based layout, and a new appearance for the 1.6 series releases of ATutor. Community members should provide feedback on the system's upgrade, particularly for systems using languages other than those found in the Latin1 character set (i.e. ISO-8859-1). Production ATutor systems should not be upgraded with this beta version, but instead upgrade a copy of the production system, or perhaps a second test system. Please report any problems you find to the Bug Reports Forum
