ATutor

ATutor

Original author(s)	Greg Gay
Developer(s)	ATutor development team
Initial release	December 4, 2002 (2002-12-04) (1.0)
Stable release	2.2.4  (June 19, 2018 (2018-06-19)) [±]
Preview release	2.2.3 B1  (Unknown) [±]
Written in	PHP
Operating system	Cross-platform
Available in	Multi-lingual
Type	Learning management software
License(s)	GNU General Public License v2.0
Website	ATutor.ca

ATutor is free web-based open-source learning management software.

Product history

ATutor is based upon a graduate school project of primary developer Greg Gay. Following research in 1999 and 2000 by the Adaptive Technology Resource Centre (ATRC) at the University of Toronto regarding the accessibility of e-learning environments, Gay further developed his learning management ideas in an adaptive, accessible, open-source environment. On February 23, 2001, Gay started an open-source SourceForge project for ATutor, and a stable 1.0 release arrived on December 4, 2002.

By 2004, the source code was made publicly available in a Subversion repository, signaling a move towards distributed development. On July 6, 2010, version 2.0 was released, featuring restructured code and a new look and feel among other improvements.

Blackboard Inc. patent dispute

On January 17, 2006, the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted learning management software developer Blackboard Inc. U.S. patent 6,988,138 for "Internet-based education support system and methods." The patent established Blackboard's claims to certain features of course management systems.

The Software Freedom Law Center filed a request on behalf of ATutor and two other clients with the U.S. Patent Office to re-examine Blackboard's patent in November 2006, and in January 2007 the request was approved on the basis of prior art cited by the Center raising "substantial" questions. In February 2007, Blackboard addresses the concerns raised within the education software and academic communities, announcing it had made a pledge to not assert its patent rights against open-source and non-profit software projects like ATutor.

Blackboard would eventually go on to abandon U.S. patent 6,988,138 in early-2010, and in November that year the company's legal counsel announced the patent's "official termination" and stated that Blackboard had ended its appeals.

Awards and recognition

In 2007, ATutor won a $50,000 prize in the Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration.

In 2008, ATutor won a Gold Learning Impact Award from the IMS Global Learning Consortium, a recognition of using "technology in context."

In 2009, Greg Gay and others received a Delegates Award for a Microsoft-sponsored W4A Web Accessibility Challenge.

Features

The main features of ATutor include:

• IMS/ISO AccessForAll support
• support for SCORM 1.2 LMS-RTE3
• social networking support
• current events
• password encryption
• course management
• enrollment management
• messaging system
• student and work groups
• document management
• blog and chat tools
• content tracking
• testing
• glossary
• query tools
• reporting

Hardware/software requirements

Installation requirements for Dokeos 1.8.6 (sadly installation guides for 2.0 and 2.1 don't seem to exist) include:

• Apache web server
• PHP 5.0.2 or greater with specific libraries installed
• MySQL 4.1.10 or greater

Consult the documentation for more information on necessary PHP libraries.

Videos, screenshots, and other media

• Video tutorials for ATutor can be found on YouTube.
• Screenshots of ATutor can be found on SourceForge.
• A demo of ATutor is available via the ATutor site.
• Documentation for ATutor can be found here.

Further reading

• Gay, Greg (6 October 2009). "ATutor LMS: a case study". University of Oxford. http://www.oss-watch.ac.uk/resources/cs-atutor. 

External links

• ATutor on SourceForge
• ATutor on Ohloh
• ATutor on GitHub
• ATutor on Freecode