In Claroline v1.6 beta 2, a new configuration interface has been implemented, allowing Claroline elearning administrators to set a lot of parameters on a campus such as upload limits and acessibility settings.

Lead developer Hugues Peeters has also finalized the Claroline external authentification system and the Single Sign On (SSO) system, allowing Claroline to be integrated with external systems, such as human resources, finance and other enterprise systems.

Following is a summary of the updates and new features in Claroline v1.6 beta 2 elearning software:

- The assignment tool interface has been totally redesigned with a new user interface that supports planned work sessions, automatically close or open assignments uploads, time planning, including start date and end date, give personalized or automatic feedback to any work session submission, and work content can be text, file or text and file.

- The Claroline Document tool offers new functionality including a new image gallery and internal search functionality.

- The Claroline Exercise tool that helps with time planning such as start date, end date and duration, optional attempts limit for each user, support for multimedia files (pictures,documents, flash animations, videos and sounds) as well as a built in flash mp3 player.

- The Claroline Campus elearning administration tool supports classes and import csv files. Classes organise elearning users by groups (classes) and subgroups on your campus. Classes also create a whole class tree that fits to your organizational structure. Administrators can allow users to subscribe a whole class to a course at once.

- The Claroline Massive import permits large CSV files to be imported in the user list of the administration tool. Claroline also allows administrators to create a new class right from the CSV file. Additionally, the Massive import allows the import of users in a specific course within the user tool.

- Configuration files edition. The new configuration files editor allowing easy customization of the campus and tool parameters. Configuration files now define which values are required for the creation of new courses and set the disk space limit of the documents and links tool. Administrators can select which values are required in user profiles and choose the number of posts displayed per forum page. Using a new architecture to deal with the configuration files, Claroline is now able to integrate new configuration parameters (or hide any) in this interface. According to the Community test, parameters could be added or deleted in this place for the forthcoming Claroline 1.6 stable version.

- Improved Tracking including extensive elearning statistics.

- Claroline Exercises enable forum (records messages) or the option to erase all statistics of a course.

- New translation files simplify the process to add or update language interface of the Claroline system. In the development version, administrators can now use a single file with all the translations. In the stable version, the development file is split into many files to increase performance.

- Layout personalisation. The Claroline code has been adapted to a more extensive use of a CSS stylesheet. This makes it easier, and without any code change, for anyone to modify the appearance (color, style, logo,..) of new Claroline campus elearning installation.

- A view mode switcher has been added allowing teachers to see their courses as elearning students do.

- A new external authentication system provides methods to authenticate user from a significant number of systems (LDAP servers, 14 databases from Oracle to ODBC, POP3 servers, IMAP servers, vpopmail accounts, RADIUS, SAMBA password files and SOAP). This feature improves the integration of Claroline into existing computer network environments.

- Single Sign On (SSO) system enabling users, once logged into Claroline, to connect to all other websites session without the need of physically enter repetitive usernames and passwords. This feature allows a smooth integration of Claroline into your institution Portals.

Claroline is an Open Source elearing software system based on PHP/MySQL. It's a collaborative elearning environment allowing teachers or education institutions to create and administer elearning courses through a simple browser. The system provides group management, forums, document repositories, calendar, chat, assignment areas, links, user profile administration on a single and highly integrated package. Claroline is translated in 28 languages and used by hundreds of institutions around world. The elearning software was initially started by the University of Louvain (Belgium) and released under Open Source licence (GPL). Since then, a comunity of developpers around the world contributes to its development. Downloading and using the Claroline elearning system is completly free of charge. See http://www.claroline.net/ for more information.