[LON-CAPA-admin] LON-CAPA Version 2.9.0
James Mueller
mueller at pitt.edu
Wed Jun 2 08:37:35 EDT 2010
Stuart,
One other question. The release notes refer to "Course/Community
Management". I haven't found any documentation on "Communities",
although I notice you gave a talk at the May workshop on portfolios
and communities. Did you have slides for that talk, and if so, could
you please post them on the website. I see Gerd's talks there.
thanks,
Jim
On May 27, 2010, at 3:07 PM, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
> Jim,
>
>> Are there any issues with mixing versions?
>
> Installation of the 2.9.0 release on an access server in a domain in
> which the library server is running 2.8 or earlier is a supported
> configuration.
>
> The networked character of LON-CAPA means that user sessions can
> potentially be hosted on servers (both access and library servers)
> belonging to a different domain from the home domain of the user. In
> such cases it is possible that a user session will be hosted on a 2.9
> server, while the user's home server is running a version of LON-CAPA
> which predates this.
>
> Some of the features customarily available to a Domain Coordinator in
> 2.9 will not be displayed if the primary library server for the domain
> is not also running 2.9. For example, the DC's option to create
> communities, or to configure who may request courses/communities, will
> not be offered by a 2.9 access server, if the primary library server
> is 2.8 or older.
>
> That said, the consensus so far from postings to this list seems to be
> that update to LON-CAPA 2.9.0 on a production server is painless, so
> you may wish to consider updating your library server (on your
> existing hardware) now, regardless of your planned hardware upgrade
> later this summer. There are only very minor interface changes
> between 2.8.1 and 2.9.0.
>
>> or just wait on everything until August?
>
> Note: LON-CAPA 2.10 (which includes a redesign of the user interface
> is scheduled for release at the start of August).
>
> See: http://loncapa.org/presentations/redesign-msu.pdf
> for information about the 2.10 redesign project.
>
> Stuart Raeburn
> MSU LON-CAPA group.
>
> Quoting James Mueller <mueller at pitt.edu>:
>
>> Stuart,
>> Are there any issues with mixing versions? The purchase order
>> for a
>> new library and access server went out yesterday, but we don't want
>> to
>> switch the library server until after the end of summer session in
>> August; at which point we could put 2.9 on the new one. We could
>> bring
>> up the access server as soon as it arrives, but should we install 2.9
>> on it and have a mixed environment, or just wait on everything until
>> August?
>>
>> -Jim
>>
>> On May 25, 2010, at 5:34 PM, Stuart Raeburn wrote:
>>
>>> New Version 2.9.0 Released
>>>
>>> Changes from 2.8.1:
>>>
>>> Authoring Resources
>>>
>>> - CSS, javascript and plain text files (.css, .js, and .txt
>>> extensions) can be edited.
>>> - Assistant Co-authors can browse directories in the repository of
>>> published resources
>>> belonging to author(s) to whom they are assigned as assistant co-
>>> author.
>>> - The "Edit Math" button (which launches a pop-up Math expression
>>> editor) is available
>>> when editing HTML files.
>>> - Adaptive hints are available for reactionresponse and
>>> organicresponse types.
>>> - The R statistics package can be used in place of Maxima as a
>>> Computer Algebra
>>> system (CAS) in mathresponse and formularesponse problems. R can
>>> also be used to
>>> generate data sets in problems by using calls to appropriate cas
>>> routines within a
>>> script block. Example templates are provided.
>>> - Custom Response problems can award partial credit for problems
>>> containing multiple
>>> answers.
>>> - In dynamic plots (GNUplot) - x and y axis zero lines can be
>>> displayed as regular lines,
>>> thick lines, or as dotted lines.
>>> - Checkbox attribute for simple two-option optionresponse type
>>> allows
>>> checkboxes to be
>>> used instead of two item select box (e.g., for True/False). See:
>>> SimpleTrueFalse
>>> problem template.
>>>
>>> Student Interface
>>>
>>> - Information about resources for which access is controlled by
>>> reservation (i.e., slots)
>>> is displayed on the "Table of Contents" page (renamed from
>>> "Navigate Contents").
>>> - Students within a course can access a "Manage Reservations"
>>> utility
>>> from the Main Menu.
>>> This may be used to view and change reservations, and also display
>>> a log of reservation
>>> transactions.
>>> - When a user initiates the reset password process for an internally
>>> authenticated
>>> account, the e-mail address entered in the web form can now be any
>>> of: permanent email,
>>> critical notification email or regular notification email.
>>> - Courses with access start dates which were in the future when the
>>> student logged in,
>>> will become selectable from the courses screen, once the start date
>>> has been reached,
>>> without the need for logout/login.
>>> - Course Configuration for "Grading" includes a mode to not show
>>> total
>>> parts when a
>>> student displays his/her grading information.
>>>
>>> Communication
>>>
>>> - When rendering discussion posts and other feedback for the web,
>>> new
>>> lines will no
>>> longer be automatically converted to <br /> tags if HTML block
>>> elements are detected
>>> (suggesting the author had used HTML originally during composition).
>>>
>>> Course/Community Management
>>>
>>> - A "Course/Community requests" icon is included in the "My Roles"
>>> or
>>> "My Courses"
>>> category if the user has rights to create courses or communities in
>>> their home domain,
>>> and/or in another domain.
>>> - Course Configuration (previously "Set Course Environment") has
>>> been
>>> moved to the top
>>> level ("Main Menu") and divided into separate sections, with
>>> permitted user input
>>> constrained by radio buttons, select boxes, checkboxes, etc., in
>>> place of unrestricted
>>> entry via textboxes.
>>> - The Course Owner can assign the Course Coordinator role in a
>>> course
>>> to other users.
>>> - The Course Owner can declare other Course Coordinators as
>>> "Co-owners", who can choose
>>> to accept or deny co-ownership assignment. (Your institution may
>>> use co-ownership to
>>> permit access to institutional course rosters by the automated
>>> enrollment process).
>>> Co-owners are listed in the Course/Community Catalog, and can be
>>> used as a filter when
>>> searching for courses.
>>> - Alternative titles may be specified for standard role titles
>>> (e.g.,
>>> Teaching Assistant
>>> etc.) in a course.
>>> - HTML documents uploaded directly to a course can be edited by a
>>> Course Coordinator.
>>> - The template displayed when creating custom roles depends on
>>> course
>>> type (Course or
>>> Community).
>>> - Coordinators can require all self-enrollment requests to be
>>> approved, and can specify
>>> which Coordinators should be notified when a self-enrollment
>>> request needs approval.
>>> - Coordinators can set an enrollment limit, which when reached will
>>> prevent new
>>> self-enrollments.
>>> - A link to the course request page is displayed after log-in if a
>>> user has no active
>>> roles, and has rights to request creation of courses/communities.
>>> - Slot reservation transactions are logged, and
>>> Coordinators/Instructors can view the
>>> history of reservation changes for a particular slot from the
>>> "History" link in the
>>> slots table.
>>> - "External" documents which may be included in a course (and
>>> display
>>> a web page from
>>> an external site in a frameset within LON-CAPA) are now more robust
>>> (e.g., trailing
>>> "&" trimmed from query string etc.).
>>> - Coordinators/Instructors are warned if there is a version
>>> discrepancy if the same
>>> resource is used more than once in a course, and the versions are
>>> different.
>>> - When a Coordinator uploads a file to a course, a check to
>>> determine
>>> if it is an HTML
>>> file will occur if the option to look for embedded objects was
>>> checked.
>>>
>>> Grading
>>>
>>> - Problems including randomlists are now supported for Bubblesheet
>>> grading
>>> (and verification).
>>> - When grading Bridge Tasks an additional check is made for
>>> consistency of username,
>>> domain and resource identifier between the grading key and the data
>>> to be submitted.
>>> - The Bubblesheet Data Uploader's upload screen now includes a
>>> link to
>>> the syllabus
>>> for the course selected to receive the data file. A comparison is
>>> made between the
>>> student populations in the course roster and in the bubblesheet
>>> data (based on
>>> student/employee ID), to try to detect uploads to the wrong course.
>>> - For Bubblesheet Data Uploaders picking a destination course, the
>>> institutional code
>>> textbox is replaced with linked select boxes (e.g., year, semester,
>>> department, number),
>>> as used in Course Catalog (if configured in the domain). The course
>>> owner/co-owner" row
>>> is replaced with "Course personnel includes: " row which can be
>>> used to search for
>>> courses where a specified username:domain has active non-student
>>> role.
>>>
>>> Domain Coordination/Domain Settings
>>>
>>> - Firewall configuration for traffic between LON-CAPA servers now
>>> restricts
>>> port access to IPs for servers currently in the LON-CAPA cluster.
>>> The nightly cron
>>> process which checks LON-CAPA connections will update the firewall
>>> for any
>>> changes in membership of the cluster.
>>> - Display of the log-in page for specific servers in a domain can be
>>> replaced by
>>> automatic redirection to a different server (e.g., to a LON-CAPA
>>> load balancer server,
>>> used solely for authentication and session switching).
>>> - Domain Coordinators can modify institutional status for users in
>>> their domain.
>>> - A new configuration is available to set which users may request
>>> creation of:
>>> (a) official courses, (b) unofficial courses, or (c) communities.
>>> - Communities are similar to courses except the Coordinator may only
>>> browse areas
>>> of the shared LON-CAPA repository for which he/she has an author or
>>> co-author role.
>>> - Course/Community requests may be set to be processed
>>> automatically,
>>> queued for approval
>>> by a Domain Coordinator, or (for official courses) validated
>>> against the institutional
>>> instructor of record.
>>> - Domain Coordinators can permit course requests to be made by users
>>> from other domains,
>>> on a user-by-user basis.
>>> - A Domain Coordinator can set which affiliations within the
>>> institution (e.g., Faculty,
>>> Staff etc.) may create his/her own account (applies to
>>> institutional login/SSO only).
>>> - The course creation menu includes additional links: (a) display
>>> course requests queued
>>> pending approval by a Domain Coordinator; (b) display requests for
>>> official courses
>>> queued pending institutional validation; (c) display a log of
>>> course creation history.
>>> - The "Edit this resource" link is displayed to a Domain Coordinator
>>> in course context,
>>> if the domain of the resource author is the domain of the current
>>> role.
>>> - The aggregate database of courses in a domain used when searching
>>> for a course (e.g.,
>>> when selecting an ad hoc role, choosing a course to clone etc.) is
>>> rebuilt nightly
>>> by cron from permanent data stored in each course's environment.db
>>> file.
>>> - Domain Coordinators may filter by time elapsed since course
>>> creation
>>> when using the
>>> course picker (e.g., to select an ad hoc role, assign a Course
>>> Coordinator role etc.).
>>> - A domain may be configured to automatically assign co-ownership
>>> status when a Course
>>> Coordinator role becomes active in an official course, if the
>>> Coordinator is official
>>> course personnel (requires customization of localenroll.pm).
>>> - Domain Coordinators may delete entries in personal information
>>> fields (i.e., name,
>>> permanent e-mail address) if a value has been set previously.
>>> - Domain Coordinators may allow users to choose (via a User
>>> Preference) to prevent
>>> updates to information fields by a nightly automated update which
>>> synchronizes LON-CAPA
>>> with institutional directory data.
>>> - Nightly removal of stale files in /home/httpd/perl/tmp will
>>> descend
>>> into sub-directories
>>> and also remove stale files from them.
>>>
>>> Printing
>>>
>>> - Printouts of PDF files within a folder (both in a course and in
>>> Construction Space)
>>> can be generated.
>>> - The default font size in printouts can be set by Course
>>> Coordinators and
>>> Authors/Co-authors.
>>> - Composite pages (.page) can be printed in Construction Space and
>>> also printed with
>>> answers.
>>> - Composite pages (.page) containing numerical problems can be
>>> printed
>>> when set to exam
>>> mode.
>>> - Composite pages (.page) can be printed for selected students.
>>> - The syllabus can be printed when generating printouts of resources
>>> for selected
>>> students.
>>> - Printing of tables has been standardized to use the perl
>>> LaTeX::Table module.
>>>
>>> Localization
>>>
>>> - New translations and improvements are provided for both the German
>>> and Spanish
>>> interfaces.
>>> - UTF-8 encoding is used for all browsers (including Internet
>>> Explorer).
>>> - The time zone of the local server is cached, and translations of
>>> phrases are also
>>> cached to improve performance.
>>>
>>> Accessibility
>>> - An alt attribute (which includes the raw TeX) is supplied for
>>> use by
>>> screen readers
>>> when MimeTex images are used to render math expressions.
>>> - Raw mode (will output raw TeX) is available as an additional
>>> option
>>> for rendering
>>> math expressions.
>>>
>>> Appearance
>>> - More interface standardization using the following display
>>> elements:
>>> - Data tables with rows of alternating light/dark background
>>> colors, and a
>>> colored header.
>>> - Two column data tables with a colored left column, and light
>>> gray right column.
>>> - Boxes with a thin border used to group similar items together.
>>> - More muted colors, and standard data table used for Roles/
>>> Courses screen.
>>>
>>> Installation Notes:
>>>
>>> To use this release you need to have version 1-18 of LONCAPA-
>>> prerequisites
>>> installed.
>>>
>>> To install this update:
>>>
>>> 1) You will need to be running Fedora Core 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 or 12,
>>> RHEL (AS|ES) 4 or 5, SUSE 10.2, 10.3, 11.1 or 11.2, SLES 9, 10 or
>>> 11,
>>> CentOS 5, or Scientific Linux 5.
>>> (Fedora Core 5 should continue to work but is deprecated.)
>>>
>>> 2) Update LONCAPA-prerequisites to 1-18.
>>>
>>> (a) Fedora
>>> yum update
>>>
>>> (b) RedHat Enterprise 4
>>>
>>> up2date -u LONCAPA-prerequisites
>>>
>>> (c) Red Hat 5/Centos 5/Scientific Linux 5
>>>
>>> yum update
>>>
>>> (d) SuSE/SLES
>>>
>>> Use yast-> Installation Source to refresh the LON-CAPA repository
>>> Use yast->Software Management->Search to update LONCAPA-
>>> prerequisites
>>>
>>> On all distributions, it is recommended that you check that you have
>>> the correct versions of LONCAPA-prerequisites installed before
>>> proceeding.
>>>
>>> rpm -q LONCAPA-prerequisites
>>>
>>> should report:
>>> LONCAPA-prerequisites-1-18.X
>>>
>>> (where X is a distro identifier e.g., fc12.lc)
>>>
>>> 3) Download the new LON-CAPA tarball from
>>> wget http://install.lon-capa.org/versions/loncapa-2.9.0.tar.gz
>>>
>>> and untar it
>>>
>>> tar xzvf loncapa-2.9.0.tar.gz
>>>
>>> 4) stop the LON-CAPA system services
>>>
>>> /etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol stop
>>>
>>> 5) stop the webserver:
>>>
>>> Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
>>> /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd stop
>>>
>>> SLES 9:
>>> /etc/init.d/apache stop
>>>
>>> SUSE 10.2,10.3,11.1,11.2/SLES 10,11:
>>> /etc/init.d/apache2 stop
>>>
>>>
>>> 6) Run the UPDATE script as root
>>> cd loncapa-2.9.0
>>> su
>>> ./UPDATE
>>>
>>>
>>> 7) restart the LON-CAPA system services
>>> /etc/rc.d/init.d/loncontrol start
>>>
>>>
>>> 8) restart the webserver:
>>>
>>> Fedora/RHEL/Centos/Scientific Linux
>>> /etc/rc.d/init.d/httpd start
>>>
>>> SLES 9:
>>> /etc/init.d/apache start
>>>
>>> SUSE 10.2,10.3,11.1,11.2/SLES 10,11:
>>> /etc/init.d/apache2 start
>>>
>>>
>>> ----NOTES
>>> 1) Many questions are answered at http://help.lon-capa.org
>>> 2) Defects reports, and enhancements requests can be entered at
>>> http://bugs.lon-capa.org
>>> 3) Mailing lists can be joined and left at http://mail.lon-capa.org
>>>
>>> Stuart Raeburn
>>> MSU LON-CAPA group
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> LON-CAPA-admin mailing list
>>> LON-CAPA-admin at mail.lon-capa.org
>>> http://mail.lon-capa.org/mailman/listinfo/lon-capa-admin
>>
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