KEWL.NextGen

[Jane Weideman]

Hi all,

Please have a look at this when you get a chance. It could be considered
for later versions of edubuntu if it has merit.

(I have the login names and passwords required as relevant, but was
asked not to post them publicly, mail me if you would like them.)


regards
JaneW

-------- Forwarded Message --------
From: Derek Keats <dkeats at uwc.ac.za>
To: janew at hbd.com
Subject: Re: Edubuntu
Date: Mon, 11 Jul 2005 16:32:13 +0200
  
KEWL.NextGen is developed in PHP using MySQL and Apache web server. It follows a MVC 
architecture (as MVC is usually conceived for web applications). It is all object-
oriented PHP, and a completely modular design. Because it is modular, and 
modules can be uninstalled or installed in a web interface, you can use it to
build a system that is as simple or complex as you want. It is also skinnable
and fully multilingualized. We do have some funding for translations, and will
be doing French and Portuguese translations as soon as we are done with the
1.2 release.

See http://avoir.uwc.ac.za/ where the links for download are
available.

To install, make sure you have a mysql database user that has rights to
create database, make sure that the PEAR library is installed, and run
http://localhost/path/to/nextgen/install/

Its a modular system so after install it will take you to the module
installer where you can select the modules to add to it.

It should set up easily as long as PEAR is correctly installed. For some
functionality, PHP needs to use CURL and GD. Otherwise, it should be pretty easy to
setup.

Documentation also on the avoir site or via CVSweb
http://cvs.uwc.ac.za/

You can also try a live demo at http://kngforge.uwc.ac.za/kng_unstable

DO NOT  tick Network login, that is a connection to an LDAP database of
all UWC staff and students.

This site is using the code that will be in the 1.1 release that we
will be doing as soon as the last round of user testing is complete (this month). We have
been doing intensive usability and end user testing for the last 3 weeks.

So .... it is NOT a Windows application :-)
Obviously, we need to improve our marketing materials.

Let me know if there is anything I can do to help, or any other
questions. 

Regards
Derek



>>> Jane Weideman <janew at hbd.com> 7/11/2005 1:36:40 PM >>>
Hi Derek,

I saw the Kewl.NextGen demo at WCCE.

I asked our technical lead, Oliver to look into it.

He picked up that "KEWL is an advanced learning management system that
was developed in ASP and runs on Microsoft servers with MS-SQL server
as
the database . Although running on the proprietary Microsoft
platforms,
the code is open source and freely available for download"
 "ogra JaneW, they started porting it to php in april...
ogra i doubt it will be ready for us in time..."


Can you comment on this?

regards
JaneW

On Mon, 2005-07-11 at 12:47 +0200, Hilton Theunissen wrote:
> Hi Derek meet Jane Weideman ( Canonical Project Manager - Edubuntu
Lead).
> 
> Trust you are well.  Moodle was decision taken by the group that 
> attended the summit and Mark was part of the the group. I think you 
> should chat to Jane about Kewl.NextGen, she is situated at 12Plein. 
> Infact we could do it all-in-one when we meet?
> 
> Regards
> 
> 
> Hilton Theunissen
> Open Source Project Manager
> Tel: +27 21 970 1212
> Fax:+27 21 970 1213
> e-mail: hilton at shuttleworthfoundation.org 
> Linux userid:318170
> Url: http://www.shuttleworthfoundation.org 
> Shuttleworth tuXlab Program : http://www.tuxlab.org.za 
> Schools Linux User Group: http://www.slug.org.za 
> 
> 
> 
> Derek Keats wrote:
> > Hi Hilton,
> > 
> > Joris told me that Mark had decided on Moodle to distribute with
> > Edubuntu. Is there any possibility, do you think, to change his
mind to
> > use KEWL.NextGen. While Moodle is good, KEWL.NextGen is way ahead
of it
> > in just about any area that you can measure, except size of
community,
> > but that is going to change rapidly over the next 3 months. Given
10
> > minutes, I am pretty sure I could explain the logic of why
KEWL.NextGen
> > is a better solution. Do you think tis possible or have suggestions
for
> > how?
> > 
> > Regards
> > Derek
-- 
JaneW
_____________
Jane Weideman
mobile: +27 83 779 7800
Canonical Ltd.