OLAT

Short and sweet: How would you describe your project in one or two sentences?

OLAT is an open source Learning Management System offering a flexible online course system along with extensive features to guarantee learning and teaching independent of time and place. It has been created especially for public institutions such as universities, academies or colleges, however, it is also suitable for other businesses since OLAT can easily represent any didactic concept or be used in any kind of learning environment.

When did the project begin?

In 1999, the Learning Management System (LMS) OLAT – an acronym for 'Online Learning And Training' – was originated at the University of Zurich. Since 2004 OLAT is the strategic LMS at the University of Zurich and Open Source.Q. How many active members does the project have?
80 active members, of which about 30 do contribute substantially code.

Why was the project created?

Three tutors at the Institute of computer science at the University of Zurich wanted to support their courses electronically and decided to develop their own solution due to a lack of suitable offers. What began as a student project, became a success story. Over the years, thus a powerful tool was created, not only at its place of origin, but also worldwide.

Why should a CeBIT visitor come to your booth?

Thanks to its course-based architecture OLAT offers a learning environment in accordance with established teaching methods. Piling up files or transparencies can be confusing–OLAT on the contrary provides you with plenty of possibilities to prepare and structure your learning content, to test your students’ knowledge, and to support them during their training. Even social skills can be exercised by using various group tools to enable synchronous as well as asynchronous cooperation. Its Java-based software architecture offers the highest level of security as regards operations and the system’s access. At the same time this technology with its well-structured, coherent source code allows for much flexibility as to its further development. Since version 6.x OLAT relies on scalability and can afford a large amount of users by employing a cluster containing multiple servers.

Who do you make your software for?

It has been created especially for public institutions such as universities, academies or colleges, but it is also suitable for other businesses.

Where do you see your biggest current challenges?

Missing plugin structure for the modular development. Appropriate redevelopment is already underway.

Under which license is the software currently offered?

Apache 2.0 Open Source License

Internet address: http://www.olat.org