ATutor Community Development

ATutor Community Development
October 13, 2004
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*Community Discussions*
*Vote For New Features*
*Localizing ATutor*
*Sharing ATutor Themes*
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*Community Discussions*
The ATutor Community Discussions forums has been opened on atutor.ca to allow ATutor users to share stories and learn from each other's experiences. Some of the early experiences described include:

1. A PostNuke/ATutor integration used to offer high school courses in Nova Scotia Canada 
2. ATutor used to teach English to over 7000 students through more than 100 courses in Thailand
3. Experiences training teachers to use ATutor in the US
4. Courses in the UK directed at teaching business and IT skills to women.

Visit the Community Discussions forum to read these stories, and to post your own story. We want to hear about your experiences with ATutor.

Community Discussions Forum 
http://www.atutor.ca/forum/16/1.html

These are just the beginnings of what we hope will develop into a large collection of stories or topics that ATutor users, skilled or novice, can use to better understand the flexibility available in an ATutor learning environment. Community Discussions is an open forum: a place to share ideas, or just a place to socialize with other ATutor users.

*Vote for New Features*
With the introduction of our open development site, we have created a voting feature that allows non-developers to get involved with the development process. Features that receive the most requests, or the most votes, end up at the top of the new features list. So, if you have a particular feature you would like to see added to ATutor, post your vote. Get others to vote too. If a feature is not listed in the Proposed Features list, make the suggestion to the Feature Requests Forum.

Proposed Features (vote)
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/features_list.php

Feature Requests Forum 
http://www.atutor.ca/forum/2/1.html

*Localizing ATutor*
ATutor is now available in more than 20 languages, with many others in various states of completion. There are more than 300 registered translators. Before we make the official switch to the new ATutor translation system prior to the December 2004 release, we would like to encourage atutor.ca members who are not already assisting with translation, to register themselves, and assist with finishing the partially completed language packs. If you can assist with translating any of the following languages (every little bit helps), you can contribute. These language packs are already partially translated, and in some cases can be completed with just a hour or two of work:

Arabic, Basque, Canadian French, Catalan, Chinese Simplified, Chinese Traditional Croatian, Czech, Farsi, Indonesian, Japanese, Latvian, Lithuanian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Swahili, Swedish, Thai, and Vietnamese.

To become a translator login to MyATutor (http://www.atutor.ca/my/) and request a translator account. Also be sure to review the translator documentation before requesting your account, and be sure to include the required URL to your ATutor server when requesting a translator account.

ATutor Translator Documentation
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/docs/translate.php

ATutor Translation Site 
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/translate/index.php

*Sharing ATutor Themes*
ATutor administrators now have a great deal of control over how their ATutor installation appears. In addition to creating an institutional look for an ATutor installation, themes can be applied to particular course categories, so for example, all course in a similar topic area can look the same. To demonstrate the flexibility available we have created a number of themes that can be installed on an ATutor system to give it a whole new look. Users are encouraged to take these themes and modify them to create a look of their own.

If you have created a theme of which you are particularly proud (and we've seen a few nice ones), submit it to the ATutor themes archive to share with others. If you need  help creating or installing a theme, see the themes_readme file included in the themes directory of your ATutor installation, or see the ATutor HowTo documentation.

Download ATutor Themes
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/themes/index.php

Submit an ATutor Theme 
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/themes/submit_theme.php

ATutor HowTo Create Themes
http://www.atutor.ca/atutor/demo/?cid=1240

Received on Wednesday, 13 October 2004 19:37:13 UTC