Chamilo Admin Guide 1.8.8.4 en

TutorielChamiloAdministrateur
Administratorguide
Chamilo1.8.8.4
11August2011
Page1/105
Tableofcontents
Chapter1.Introduction
.........................................................................................................................
5
1.1Chamilo,whatisthat?
...............................................................................................................
5
1.2Aboutthisguide
.........................................................................................................................
5
1.3Whomisthisguidemeantfor?
..................................................................................................
5
1.4Howtoreadthisguide?
..............................................................................................................
5
Chapter2.Installationandconfiguration
.............................................................................................
7
2.1Server
.........................................................................................................................................
7
2.2Installationwizard
......................................................................................................................
9
2.2.1Launchingtheinstallationwizard
.....................................................................................

10
aStep1of6:Language
.......................................................................................................

10
bStep2of6:Prerequisites
..................................................................................................

10
cStep3of6:License
...........................................................................................................

12
dStep4of6:MySQLdatabaseparameters
........................................................................

13
eStep5of6:Configurationsettings
....................................................................................

14
fStep6of6:Lastcheckbeforeinstallation
........................................................................

15
2.2.2Lastinstallationsettings
...................................................................................................

16
2.3UpdatingChamilo
....................................................................................................................

18
2.3.1Downloadthelateststableversion
...................................................................................

19
2.3.2Replacetheolderversionbythenewone
........................................................................

19
Chapter3.Backups
.............................................................................................................................

20
3.1Externalbackups
......................................................................................................................

20
3.1.1PhpMyAdmin
....................................................................................................................

20
3.1.2Therootdirectory
.............................................................................................................

22
3.2SavingthroughtheChamilointerface
.....................................................................................

23
3.2.1Learningpathexport
........................................................................................................

23
3.2.2Savingacourse
................................................................................................................

24
3.3Recoveringabackup
................................................................................................................

28
3.3.1Learningpaths
..................................................................................................................

28
3.3.2Courses
.............................................................................................................................

29
3.3.3Completerecovery
...........................................................................................................

29
Chapter4.Platformadministration
.....................................................................................................

31
4.1Chamiloconfigurationsettings
................................................................................................

31
4.1.1platform
.............................................................................................................................

31
4.1.2Training(courses)
.............................................................................................................

32
4.1.3Languages
.........................................................................................................................

32
4.1.4User
...................................................................................................................................

33
4.1.5Modules
............................................................................................................................

33
4.1.6HTMLEditor
....................................................................................................................

33
4.1.7Security
.............................................................................................................................

34
4.1.8Tuning
...............................................................................................................................

34
4.1.9Assessments
......................................................................................................................

35
4.1.10LDAP
..............................................................................................................................

35
11August2011
Page2/105
4.1.11Timezones
......................................................................................................................

35
4.1.12Search
..............................................................................................................................

35
4.1.13Stylesheets
.......................................................................................................................

36
4.1.14Templates
........................................................................................................................

36
4.1.15Plugins
.............................................................................................................................

37
4.2Specialexports
.........................................................................................................................

38
4.3platformnews
...........................................................................................................................

38
4.4Languages
................................................................................................................................

39
4.4.1Creatingasublanguage
...................................................................................................

39
4.4.2Defineyourownterms
.....................................................................................................

40
4.4.3Assignthenewsublanguage
...........................................................................................

41
4.5Editplatformhomepage
...........................................................................................................

42
4.6Settingtheregistrationpage
.....................................................................................................

42
4.7Statistics
...................................................................................................................................

42
4.8Globalagenda
..........................................................................................................................

43
Chapter5.Usermanagement
..............................................................................................................

44
5.1Userroles
.................................................................................................................................

45
5.1.1Learner(orstudent)
..........................................................................................................

46
5.1.2Thecourseassistant
..........................................................................................................

46
5.1.3Thehumanresourcesmanager(orsupervisor)
.................................................................

47
5.1.4Thecoursecoach
..............................................................................................................

47
5.1.5Thesessioncoach(orsessiontutor)
.................................................................................

48
5.1.6Teacher(ortrainer)
...........................................................................................................

48
5.1.7Sessionsadministrator
......................................................................................................

48
5.1.8platformadministrator
......................................................................................................

49
5.1.9Globaladministrator
.........................................................................................................

49
5.1.10Particularcase:theanonymoususer
...............................................................................

49
5.2Userlist
....................................................................................................................................

51
5.2.1Learner
..............................................................................................................................

51
5.2.2Teacher
.............................................................................................................................

51
5.2.3Administrator
...................................................................................................................

52
5.2.4Anonymous
......................................................................................................................

52
5.3Addusers
.................................................................................................................................

53
5.4ExportalistofusersasXML/CSVfile
...................................................................................

54
5.5ImportalistofusersasXML/CSV
.........................................................................................

54
5.6Addsocialgroups
....................................................................................................................

55
5.7Groupslist
................................................................................................................................

56
5.8Profiles
.....................................................................................................................................

57
Chapter6.Coursemanagement
..........................................................................................................

58
6.1courselist
.................................................................................................................................

58
6.1.1Updatecoursedetails
........................................................................................................

59
6.1.2Trackingandbackup
.........................................................................................................

59
6.2Createacourse
.........................................................................................................................

59
6.3Coursesexport
.........................................................................................................................

60
6.4Createcoursesinbatch
.............................................................................................................

61
6.5Coursecategories
.....................................................................................................................

61
11August2011
Page3/105
6.6Subscribeuserstocourses
.......................................................................................................

62
6.7Subscribeuserstocoursesinbatches
......................................................................................

62
Chapter7.Sessionmanagement
.........................................................................................................

63
7.1Usecases
..................................................................................................................................

64
7.1.1Theacademicyear
.............................................................................................................

64
7.1.2Personaltutoring
...............................................................................................................

65
7.1.3Corporateinductioncourses
.............................................................................................

65
7.2Managingthesessions
.............................................................................................................

65
7.3Addasession
............................................................................................................................

66
7.4Sessioncategories(orperiods)
................................................................................................

68
7.5Exportsessionlist
....................................................................................................................

69
7.6Copyfromcourseinsessiontoanothersession
.......................................................................

69
7.7Moveusers'resultsfrom/toasession
.......................................................................................

70
7.8Careersandpromotions
............................................................................................................

70
7.8.1Careers
..............................................................................................................................

71
7.8.2Promotions
........................................................................................................................

73
7.8.3Copy
..................................................................................................................................

74
7.8.4Usecase
............................................................................................................................

74
7.9Classes
......................................................................................................................................

75
Chapter8.Globalfeatures
..................................................................................................................

78
8.1MultiURL
................................................................................................................................

78
8.1.1UsecaseUniversityfaculties
.........................................................................................

78
8.1.2UsecaseCorporatebranding
.........................................................................................

78
8.1.3Thesolution
......................................................................................................................

78
8.1.4Installation
........................................................................................................................

79
8.2Videoconference
.....................................................................................................................

79
8.3ChamiloRapid
.........................................................................................................................

80
8.4Updatestylesheets
...................................................................................................................

81
Chapter9.Appendix
...........................................................................................................................

82
9.1Frequentlyaskedquestions
......................................................................................................

82
9.1.1Sendingemailsfromtheplatformdoesn'twork
..............................................................

82
9.2Configurationsettingslist
........................................................................................................

82
9.3Documentlicense
.....................................................................................................................

97
9.4Documenthistory
.....................................................................................................................

97
9.5Index
........................................................................................................................................

98
11August2011
Page4/105
Chapter1.Introduction
1.1Chamilo,whatisthat?
Chamiloisanelearningsystem(i.e.itmanageslearning)developedinacollaborativewayby
severalcompanies,associationsandpeople,throughanopenmodelcalledfreesoftware(asin
freedom).
You can download and use Chamilo freely, given you accept its licence (GNU/GPLv3) which
essentiallygrantsyoufouressentialfreedoms,givenyoucommittomaintainthosefreedoms:the
freedomtouse,study,modifyanddistributethesoftware.
Chamiloisnotonlydevelopedcollaborativelybydozensofpeoplearoundtheworld;itisalso
supportedbyanonprofitassociationwhoseobjectiveistopromotetheplatformandensureits
continuity.Inthissense,Chamiloistheonlyfreeelearningplatformsoftwarethatgeneratesso
manyguaranteesofopenaccess.
YoucancontributetoChamilotoo,promotingitsuse,reportingerrors,suggestingimprovements,
translatingit(oritsmanuals)toyournativelanguage,orevendevelopingextensionsorfixesby
yourself.
1.2Aboutthisguide
Thisguidehasbeenwrittenthroughthecollaborativeactionofseveralcompaniescontributingin
theirownwaytotheimprovementofeducationaroundtheworld.SeetheDocumenthistorysection
onpage101.
You can contribute to the writing and improving of this guide too. Just drop us an email at
info@chamilo.organdsendusbackthemodifiedversion.It'sjustthateasy!
1.3Whomisthisguidemeantfor?
Thisguidehasbeenwrittenespeciallyforthemanypeoplewhohaveorwillhavetheresponsibility
tomaintainandmanageanelearningsystembasedonChamilo.Generally,wearetalkingabout
systemornetworkadministrators,aboutteachersparticularlyversedintheuseofnewtechnologies,
orsimplyindividualsinterestedinthetopic.
Sodon'tbeafraid,ifyoufitoneoftheseprofiles,thisguidehasbeenwrittenforyou.
Ifyoualreadyareanexperiencedwebapplicationsadministrator,thisguideshouldhelpyouasa
quickreferencethankstoitsalphabeticalindex.
11August2011
Page5/105
1.4Howtoreadthisguide?
This book has been written as a stepbystep tutorial. It will guide you through the Chamilo
installationprocess.IfyouhavealreadysuccessfullyinstalledChamilo,youcangodirectlytothe
Platform administration chapter on page 31, which will explain how to manage the Chamilo
configurationsettings.
Finally,thisguidecanalsobeusedasaquickreference,thankstoits Frequentlyaskedquestions
sectiononpage86anditsalphabeticalIndexonpage102.
Ifthisguidedoesn'tansweryourquestions,youcanstillusetheChamiloforum1,wheremanyother
users,teachersoradministrators,butalsoapplicationdevelopers,willbeabletohelpyoufinda
solution.
Finally,ifallthiswasn'tenough,youcouldstillusetheservicesofourofficialproviders 2,agroup
ofcompaniesandinstitutionsprovidingprofessionalservicesaroundChamiloandhaveproventheir
reliabilityandtakenanactiveparticipationintheproject,hencesupportingitscollaborativemodel.
1 http://www.chamilo.org/forum
2 http://www.chamilo.org/en/providers
11August2011
Page6/105
Chapter2.Installationandconfiguration
2.1Server
ToinstallChamilo,youwillneedawebserver,adatabaseandan FTP3client(oranyotherway,
preferablysecure,touploadfilestotheserver,suchasFTP 4 forexample,toavoidriskingthe
securityofthefutureChamiloserver).
Theplatformworksonmostoperatingsystems:
GNU/Linux,BSD,UNIX
Windows(XP,Vista,7)
MacOSX
Asforaserver,itisrecommendedtoinstallaWamp(Windows)orLampserver:
Linux
Apache
MySQL
PHP5
ThisserverisrequiredtosupportPHPandMySQL.
Duringthecreationofthesiteanddatabase,beitonlineorlocal,thehostingprovidermustprovide
theparametersthatwillbeaskedduringtheinstallation,i.e.:
theFTPservername,
theusernameforthisserver,
thepasswordforthisserver,
thenameoftheSQLserver(ifdifferentfromtheFTPserver),
thenameofthedatabase,
thepasswordforthisdatabase.
UnderGNU/Linux,mostdistributionsallowyoutoeasilyconfigureaLAMPserver.Inthistutorial,
wewillusetheGNU/LinuxUbuntudistribution,version10.04LTSasanexample.
InstallingApache(initsversion2):
user@server:sudoaptgetinstallapache2mpmprefork
3 FileTransferProtocolisanunsecuredprotocolbutveryefficientforfilestransfers
4 SecureFileTransferProtocol,basedonSSH(SecureShell)andallowingforthetransmissionoffilesinasimilar
waytoFTP,butwithstrongtransfersecurity.
11August2011
Page7/105
InstallingMySQL:
user@server:sudoaptgetinstallmysqlserver
InstallingPHP5withbindingsforApacheandMySQL:
user@server:sudoaptgetinstalllibapache2modphp5php5mysqlphp5pear
php5gd
Youcouldalsoinstallalltheseapplicationsinonegousingthefollowingcommand:
user@server:sudoaptgetinstallapache2mpmpreforkmysqlserverlibapache2
modphp5php5mysqlphp5pearphp5gd
Theinstallationprocesswillaskyousomeinformationabouttheconfigurationofyoursystem.
Pleasereadtheinstructionscarefullyandanswerknowingly.Ifyouarenotsure,youcanprobably
leavethedefaultvalueenabled.
For those of you planning to use Chamilo locally to run tests or updates, we recommend the
installationoftheXdebugmoduleandtheWebdevelopertoolinFirefox:
modphp5php5mysqlphp5pearphp5gdphp5xdebugphp5dev
Be aware that using Xdebug might have very serious consequences on the efficiency of your
platform,soitisreallyrecommended,incaseyou did installit,todisableitwhenmovingto
production(seePHPconfigurationinphp.iniorinyourVirtualHost).
Finally, on a fairlyloaded production server, we recommend the use of a PHP cache memory
managementsystemlikeXcacheandthequickreadingoftheoptimisation5guideincludedintothe
documentationdirectoryofyourChamilopackage.
modphp5php5mysqlphp5pearphp5gdphp5xdebugphp5devphp5xcache
ConsiderusingMemCached6tostoresessions,butbeawarethiscanleadtotrickyproblemswith
lossofsessionsifbadlyconfigured.
5 http://chamilodev.beeznest.com/documentation/optimization.html
6 http://memcached.org/
11August2011
Page8/105
2.2Installationwizard
DownloadthesourcefromChamilo'sdownloadpageandunpackit(withatoolsuchas7zip 7under
WindowsortarunderLinux/MacOS).
Ifitisaremoteserver(i.e.youarenotdirectlyconnectedtothecomputerbyakeyboardand
ascreen),sendthearchivethroughFTP(orSSH)totheonlinespace(sendallthefilesyou
findunderthechamilodirectorybeware,sometimestheFTPtransferisinterruptedandthe
installationcannotbecompletedsafelymakesureallthefileshavebeentransferredby
checkingthelogandsendingthemagain,checkingtheoptionDon'toverwriteexistingfiles
inyourFTPclient).
Ifitisalocalinstallation,justcopythefilesintherootwebfolderonyourserver(on
Ubuntu,thatisinside/var/www).
Ex.:user@server:(sudo)mv/home/user/Bureau/chamilo/var/www
Note:Youmightwanttorenamethedirectoryonceunpacked.
Chamilocanbeinstalledtowhateverdirectoryyoulike.Choosetherootdirectoryofthesitesothat
the platform is directly accessible through the http://www.mydomain.com/ address, for
example.
Thedirectorytowhichthefilesarecopiedmustbewriteablebythesamesystemuserrunningthe
webserver(i.e. wwwdata onUbuntu,or httpd or nobody onsomeotherUNIXbasedoperating
systems).Remotely,youmustbeabletochangethepermissionsonthefilesandfoldersthrough
FTP,SSHoranyothertypeofaccess.
7 http://www.7zip.org/
11August2011
Page9/105
2.2.1Launchingtheinstallationwizard
Once the files are copied to the server, point your browser at
http://www.mydomain.com/chamiloor,locally,atthehttp://localhost/chamilo,dependingon
whereexactlyyouputthedirectory.
IfyouwereabletoconfigureaVirtualHostinyourwebserver'sconfiguration,youprobablymayas
well load directly an address such as this: http://www.virtualhost.com/ without the chamilo
suffix.
Illustration1:InstallationWelcomescreen
Youmustthenfollowaseriesofstepstoindicatethedifferentplatformparameters.Thesestepsare
almostidentical,betheyexecutedlocallyorremotely.
aStep1of6:Language
Thisscreenpromptsyoutochoosetheinstallationlanguage.Sinceversion1.8.8,yourlanguageis
automaticallydetectedviayourbrowserparameters,andthisscreensimplyrequiresyoutoconfirm
whetherthedetectedlanguageiscorrect.
Bewarethatthisisnotthefinallanguageoftheplatform,butratherjusttheonefortheinstallation
procedure.
Illustration2:InstallationChoosingthelanguage
11August2011
Page10/105
bStep2of6:Prerequisites
Thisstepchecksthatyourserverhasallrequiredelementsforacompleteandcorrectinstallationof
Chamilo.
Illustration3:InstallationPrerequisites
Theprerequisitesalreadyfulfilledbyyoursystemaremarkedin green,themandatorybutnon
satisfiedonesaremarkedinredandtheonesnonsatisfiedbutnotmandatoryeitheraremarkedin
orange.
Near all prerequisites relate to the PHP installation and offer links to more details. The
recommended parameters represent variables that you can modify in your PHP configuration
(php.ini8)orinsidetheVirtualHostconfiguration.
Attheendoftheprerequisitespage,youwillfindaPermissionsondirectoriesandfilessection.
Illustration4:InstallationPrerequisites(end)
8 http://php.net/manual/en/ini.core.php
11August2011
Page11/105
By default under GNU/Linux, writing is not authorized on directories. You must change file
accessestooptimisethesecurityandgivethesufficientpermissionstotheuserrunningtheweb
server.Theseensureconfinementofpermissionsduringtheexecutionofaservice(inthiscase
Apache)andkeepacrackerfromtakingcontrolofyourservertooeasily.
UnderWindows,thisisgenerallyeasierbydefault(butmuchlesssecure)andthepermissionsare
alreadysufficient(buttoopermissive).
Note:Chamiloisfrequentlyreviewed(atleastonceayear)forsecurityflawsthatwouldendangeryour
server.Youcanbekeptinformedofthelatestsecurityflawsfoundandfixedbysubscribingtoourdedicated
securitymailinglist:http://lists.chamilo.org/listinfo/
security
oronhttp://support.chamilo.org/projects/chamilo
18/wiki/Security_issues.Alternatively,wehaveaTwitterfeedforChamilo'ssecurityrelatednews:
http://twitter.com/chamilosecurity
Locally on Ubuntu, go to the directory where the Chamilo directory is. Give it sufficient
permissionstouser wwwdata (thewebserveruserunderUbuntu)andreloadthepageinyour
browser.Ifyouuseanotheroperatingsystem,youmightneedtoupdatethefollowingcommanda
littlebit.
Ex.:user@server:/var/www$chownRwwwdata:wwwdatachamilo/
Clickon+Newinstallation.
Note:ifyourunanupdateofapreviousversionofChamilo,thischapterisnottherightoneforyou.You
shouldrathercheckoutchapter2.3:UpdatingChamilo.Wealsorecommendyoutoreadtheinstallation
andupdateguideofChamilo,availableinsidethedocumentationdirectoryofyourChamilopackage.
cStep3of6:License
ChamiloexplainshereitisafreesoftwaredistributedunderthetermsoftheGNUGeneralPublic
Licence(GPL)(version3)andthatpartofitscontentsisreleasedunderBYSA
CreativeCommons
.
To go to the next step, you'll have to read the license and approve it (otherwise you are not
authorizedtousethissoftware).Youwillfindotherversionsofthislicense(probablyinyourown
language)ifyouneedone,connectingtotheFreeSoftwareFoundation9,whichistheorganisation
publishingthislicense.
9 Http://www.fsf.org/
11August2011
Page12/105
Illustration5:InstallationLicense
Note:Startingwithversion1.8.8,youwillalsofindanoptionalformbelowthelicenseapproval.Thisform
allowsustogetyourcontactdataandletyouknowofanyeventorganisedbytheChamiloAssociationorits
members,happeningnearyourlocation.Wewilltreatyourcontactinformationwithcareandwillnotprovide
ittothirdparties.Itwillbekeptwithintheassociationitself.Aspermostprivacylaws,youareentitledto
haveyourdataremovedorupdatedinourdatabasebysendinganemailatinfo@chamilo.org
dStep4of6:MySQLdatabaseparameters
In this step, we will check the database management system (DBMS) works and is configured as
expected :
Illustration6:InstallationMySQLsettings
Toallowforthesettingscheck,youwillhavetofillintherequiredfields.Theseelementshave
probablybeengiventoyouwhenyouoriginallyrentedyourhostingservice,oryoucreatedthem
yourselfwhenconfiguringyourLAMPserverlocally.
11August2011
Page13/105
Databasehost:thenameoftheSQLserver.Ifthisisalocalinstallation,theMySQLserver
isprobablylocaltoo,anditsnamewillbelocalhost.
Databaseuser:thenameofthedatabaseuser.Ifthisisalocalinstallation,thenamewill
probably be root by default, but we recommend the creation of another user for your
Chamilodatabases,becauseusing root representsasignificantsecurityriskforyourother
databasesonthatserver.
Databasepassword:thepasswordthathasbeengiven/createdduringthehiring/creationof
thedatabase,atthesametimeastheuser.Locally,thepasswordisgenerallyemptyby
default, but once again we recommend defining your own password here, for security
reasons.
Databasesprefix: youcanchangetheprefixforthenamesofthedatabasesthatwillbe
createdbyChamilo.Thisisusefulwhenusingthemultipledatabasesmode(whichisthe
defaultsetting).
Databasessplittingmode
In Optionalparameters,youwillbe abletochoosetodistribute the3maintable groups in3
databasesorleavethedefaultoption(recommended)tousethesamedatabaseforallthesetables.
Note:TheUsesingledatabaseormultipledatabaseoptionletsyoudecidetocreateonedatabasefor
eachcourse.Shouldyoudecidetogoforthesingledatabasemode,donotforgettoemptythedatabases
prefixfieldbeforemovingtothenextstep.
Forhistoricalreasons,noneofthesemodesarereallyoptimal,butitispreferable,forintensiveuse
systems,tousethedefaultmodeofmultiple10databases.
Thesingledatabasemode,althoughnotcreatinganewdatabaseforeachcourse,doeshowever
create80newtablesforeachone,whichhastheunwantedconsequenceofoverloadingthedatabase
managementsystem.Thissingledatabasemodeis,however,oftennecessarytoaccommodatethe
limitationsofsomefreehostingservices,whichallowonlyonesingledatabaseperuser.
Finally,thissingledatabasemodeisrarelyusedbyChamilodevelopersthemselves,soitisgenerally
takenlesscareof,itislesstestedandconsequentlyprobablylessstable.
Inotherwords,youareurgedtoleavethedefaultoptiontoinstallChamilobecauseofthevarious
issuesthiscouldcause.Itcouldhoweverbeusefulincertainlimitedcases.
Checkthedataenteredintheform,thenclickthe Checkdatabaseconnection button.Ifanerror
messageappears,checkthedataagain.Youmayhaveenteredthewrongpassword...
OnceeverythingisOK,moveontothenextstep.
eStep5of6:Configurationsettings
EverysettingofthisstepcanbemodifiedaftertheinstallationthroughtheChamiloAdministration
page,exceptfortheEncryptionmethodandtheplatformURL.
Encryptionmethodisalmostimpossibletochangeafterwardsasitwouldimplyregeneratingnew
passwordsforallusersandsendingthembyemail.
platformURLcouldbeupdatedbutonlythroughtheconfigurationfile,whichcouldprovetricky.
10 Basicallycreatinganewdatabaseforeachcourse.
11August2011
Page14/105
Pleaseselectthesetwowisely.
Illustration7:InstallationGeneralconfigurationsettings
Mainlanguage:defaultlanguageonyourplatform.
ChamiloURL:URLofyourChamiloplatform(locally:http://localhost/chamilo;remotely:
http://www.mydomain.com/chamilo).
Admin'semail:platformadministrator'semailcontactaddress(orsupportteam)
Admin'sfirstnameandlastname:willbeshowninthefooterasthelinktotheadmin'se
mailaddress.Youcanputanyinformationthere,likeSupportteamforexample.
Admin'sloginandpassword:IMPORTANTwillallowyoutoconnecttoyourplatform
asadministratorlateron.Oneoptionistosetaglobalfunctionaladminaccounthere(named
admin)andhavemultiplepeopleusethataccount.Itis,however,recommendedtocreatea
morepersonalizedaccountforeachadministrator(sotheformershouldbeyoursonly),tobe
abletokeeptrackofalltheactionstakenbyotheradministrators.
platform'snameandorganisation'sshortname: willbevisible,onlyinspecificvisual
themes,inthetopleftcornerofthepage(onallpages).
Encryptionmethod: hashingandcryptographicfunctionsthatwillbeusedtosecurethe
userspasswordsinyourdatabase.WerecommendthemostsecureoneavailableinChamilo:
SHA1.
Selfregistration:willallowuserstoregisterbythemselves;settoNoforaprivateplatform.
Selfregistrationasteacher: willallowuserstoregisterbythemselvesasteachers;only
takenintoaccountiftheprevioussettingissettoYes.Thiswillallownewuserstoregisteras
teachers,andthustocreatenewcourses.
Note:Theuserdefinedonthisscreenwillhavefulladministrationpermissions.Hewillbeabletoupdate
thesettingsonthispageafterwards.
11August2011
Page15/105
fStep6of6:Lastcheckbeforeinstallation
Here,you'llbeabletocheckallyoursettingsonelasttimebeforelaunchingtheinstallation.We
recommendyoutakeascreenshot(orprintit)andkeepitinasafeplace.Itmightbeusefulwhen
reportingabugtotheChamilocommunity,orincaseyouforgotyouroriginalsettings.Ifyouspota
mistakeinthesettings,justgobackandupdatethem.Alternatively,justclickontheInstallChamilo
buttonandproceed...
Illustration8:InstallationReminder
Oncetheinstallationisover,justgotothesitebyfollowingthelinkgivenandconnectwiththe
accountyoujustcreated.
2.2.2Lastinstallationsettings
OnceChamiloisinstalled,thesuccessmessagealsobringsashortwarningmessage
Securityhint:Toprotectyoursite,pleasechangepermissionson
main/inc/conf/configuration.phpandmain/install/index.php(nottheir
directories)toreadonly(CHMOD444).
11August2011
Page16/105
Illustration9:InstallationInstallationreport
Itispreferable,infact,toremoveallaccessestothemain/install/directory(theconfirmationtextis
notreallyclearaboutthis):
user@server:/var/www/chamilo$sudochmodR0000main/install/
Thiswillpreventanybody(excepttherootuser)fromseeingthisdirectory,andthusfromusingit.
Toremovetheindex.phpfile(whichisalsoagoodalternative),dothefollowing:
user@server:/var/www/chamilo/main/install$sudormRfindex.php
Forfileconfiguration.php,0444aretheappropriatepermissionstoassign:
user@server:/var/www/chamilo/$cdmain/inc/conf/
user@server:/var/www/chamilo/main/inc/conf$sudochmod0444configuration.php
Whenthisoperationiscompleted,youcanstartusingChamilosafelybyclickingontheGotothe
newlycreatedplatformlink.
11August2011
Page17/105
2.3UpdatingChamilo
If you already have a Chamilo installation (any previous version) and a new version has been
released, we strongly suggest you update yours to benefit from the new features, but more
importantlyfromthesecurityupdatesthatmightbefixingflawsdetectedinpreviousversions11.
BeforeupdatingChamilo,bearinmindthatanysoftwareupdate,consideringthegreatnumberof
contexts in which it can run, may generate new bugs or regressions. Therefore, it is highly
recommendedyoutakeafullbackupofyourcompletesystem(Chamilofolderanddatabases).
Asanadmin,youcanenabletheversionupdatenotificationfromtheAdministrationtab,Chamilo
block.
Illustration10:AdministrationChamiloblock
JustclickontheEnableversioncheckbuttononcetoenablethefeature.
Illustration11:AdministrationChamiloblock(continued)
11 Checkhttp://support.chamilo.org/projects/chamilo18/wiki/Security_issuesfrequentlyifyouareparanod
11August2011
Page18/105
Wheneveranewversionispublished,anotificationofavailabilitywillappearintheinterface.Note
thatthisfeatureatthesametimesendsussomestatisticalinformationaboutyourplatform:the
publicemailaddressofitssupportteam,itspublicplatformURL,itsnumberofusersandcourses.
Thatway,wecaneasilycounthowmanypeopleareusingChamiloaroundtheworld.
2.3.1Downloadthelateststableversion
GoanddownloadthelatestpackagefromChamilo'swebsite.Onceyou'vegotit,uncompressitand
movetothenextchapter.
2.3.2Replacetheolderversionbythenewone
TherearetwopossiblewaystoupdateyourChamiloversion.Thefirstoneisasfollows:
1. Don'tdeletethepreviousfolder,otherwisetheolderconfigurationfileswillbelost.
2. SimplycopythenewChamilodirectoryovertheoldone.
ifyouuseaGNU/Linuxdistribution,you'llhavetocopytheentirenewdirectorytotheold
one,i.e.:
user@server:sudocprchamilo1.8.8/*/var/www/chamilo/
or,withSSH:usethecommandscpcheminordinateurcheminssh
3. Thengothroughthestepsfrom2.2.2Lastinstallationsettings.
4. Connecttoyoursiteandcheckthateverythingisthere.
Thesecondoneisasfollows.
1. Renametheolddirectory:mvchamilochamiloold
2. Copythefilesfromthepackagetochamilo/
3. Copythefiles*.conf.phpfromtheoldsitefromdirectory chamiloold/main/inc/conf/to
directorychamilo/main/inc/conf/
4. Starttheupdate(itshouldsuggesttoreusethecontentsfromthechamiloolddirectory)
5. Iftheupdateissuccessful,removethechamiloolddirectory
11August2011
Page19/105
Chapter3.Backups
3.1Externalbackups
3.1.1PhpMyAdmin
DatabasescanbesavedfromtheP
hpMyAdmin
interface,connectingusingtheloginandpassword
createdduringtheLAMPserverinstallation,thedatabaseinstallation,orinthedatatransmittedby
yourhostingprovider.
Illustration12:AdministrationPHPMyAdmin
OnceinthegraphicalinterfaceofPhpMyAdmin,gototabExportandselectthedatabasesyouneed
to save. There's only one by default, but if you have selected several databases during the
installation,therewillbethreeofthem:
prefix_main
prefix_stats
prefix_users
ThecoursescreatedbyChamilowillberepresentedbydatabaseswithanamecomposedbyaprefix
and thecode ofthe course. Forexample,acourse called OpenOffice.org andusingthe prefix
chamilo_,wouldgiveadatabasenamedchamilo_OPENOFFICEORG.
11August2011
Page20/105
Illustration13:AdministrationExportthroughPHPMyAdmin
Youmaywanttochangetheoutputformatofthebackupfile.Tosave,choosethedesiredformat
belowthedatabasestoexport.InthepresentexamplewechoseSQL.
Thenameofthesavedfilecanalsobechangedatthebottomofthepagein Transfer.Itcanbe
compressed using one of the three offered formats. Do not forget to select the Transfer file,
otherwiseitwilljustprintthebackupresultonscreen,whichwillbeoflittlehelp.
Illustration14:AdministrationExportthroughPHPMyAdmin(continued)
Allyouhavetodonowistodownloadthefile.Itwillbesavedbydefaultinyour Downloads
directoryoronyourdesktop,dependingonyourbrowserconfiguration.
Savingthedatabasesthrough PhpMyAdmin isover.Thesavedfilewillbein SQL format(.sql
11August2011
Page21/105
extension)andwillbeimportablelateron,incaseofanyproblem,throughPhpMyAdmin
3.1.2Therootdirectory
The root directory is (in this context) the directory which contains the Chamilo files. For the
exampleinthistutorial,let'sconsiderithasbeeninstalledin /var/www/chamilo andisavailable
throughhttp://localhost/chamilo/(foraremoteserver,wewillneedtouseFTPoSSH/SFTP).
Tosave,youwillhavetocompressthefilethroughyourterminalgoingtothe/var/www/directory.
user@server:cd/var/www
Compressthedirectoryusingthetarcommandtogenerateatar.gzfile:
user@server:/var/www$sudotarcvfjbackup_chamilochamilo/
Nowmovethisbackuptothedesiredfolder.Todoso,usethemvcommand:
user@server:/var/www$sudomvbackup_chamilo/home/user/Desktop/
Itcanbeconvenienttogiveanameincludingthecurrentdate,like 20100507backupchamilo.
Thatway,ifyoustoreaseriesofbackupfiles,itwillbeeasytosortthembydate.
Illustration15:TerminalMovingfiles
This backup copy will contain all the information from the Chamilo database and all its
configurations.Itwillbeusefulincaseofdatalossoranundesiredintrusiononyourserver.Itisthe
onlyreliablewaytorebuildyourChamiloserverifanymajorproblemoccurs.
Generally, this backup is made automatically by a scheduling system (cron process under
GNU/Linux)ontheserver,butitcanbeexecutedmanuallyincasetheserverdoesn'tdoitrightthe
firsttime.
Ifyoudonothaveaccesstoaterminal,youmightneedtoexecuteabackupcopythroughFTP.This
operation,however,(withoutcompression)canbemuchlonger.
11August2011
Page22/105
3.2SavingthroughtheChamilointerface
Chamilooffersvariouswaystosavedata.Itispossibletosaveacompletecourse(oralmostso)or
justacourseelement,butonlyasanadministratororteacher.
3.2.1Learningpathexport
Toexportalearningpath,gototheMycoursestab.
Illustration16:Interfacecourselist
Here,youcanseethecoursesofwhichyouaretheteacher(thankstothepencilicon).Tocontinue,
clickononeofthesethenentertheLearningpathtool.
Illustration17:InterfaceListofcoursetools
Onceinthelearningpathslist,clickontheCDicontogenerateabackupfile.
11August2011
Page23/105
Illustration18:InterfaceLearningpathsexport
Atthisstage,youjusthavetoselectwheretosavethefileonyourdisk.Theexportisavailableas
a.zipfile.
NotethisexportisgeneratedinSCORM1.2format(whichalsodefinesitmustbecompressedas
a.zipfile),shouldyouwanttoreuseinanotherLMSlateron,beitChamilooranyother,asfaras
itisSCORM1.2compatible(whichmeansmoreorlessanyotherelearningplatform),butthis
formatmakestheeditioncomplex,nottosayimpossible.Assuch,itisanonmodifiablebackup,in
mostcircumstances.
3.2.2Savingacourse
Theplatformadmincansaveanycoursefromtheadministrativeinterface(amongothermethods).
1. Goto:Administrationcourselist:
Illustration19:AdministrationCoursesblock
2. ClickontheCDicon,forthecourseyouwanttoexport.
Illustration20:AdministrationcourselistBackup
3. ChamilothensuggeststoGeneratea backup or Import backupinformation from
11August2011
Page24/105
backup.ClickonGeneratebackup.
Illustration21:AdministrationBackup
4. Youcanchoosebetweenacompletebackupandaspecificselection(dependingonyour
needs).Let'spickCompletebackupfortheexample.
Illustration 22: Administration

Backupsettings
5. Thebackupisgeneratedandyoujusthavetoclickthezipfilebuttontodownloadit.
Illustration23:AdministrationBackup,resultsofbackupgeneration
6. Onclickingthe Generatebackupbutton,Chamilocreatesabackupfilewhich,bydefault,
endsupinits chamilo/archive directory.Youcanthusrecoveritbydirectaccess,butthat
meansotherpeoplecanalsohaveaccesstoit(iftheycanfigureoutthebackupfilename
whichisthecodeofthecourse+atimestamptothenearestsecondithasbeengenerated,
soitmighttakealongtimetojustguessit).Thismeans,asanadmin,thatyoushould
both have a regular process to clean this directory (we propose one in the main/cron
directorybutyouhavetoexecuteit) and thatyoushouldsetyourconfiguration(through
.htaccess or VirtualHost config) to avoid directory navigation inside the main/archive
directory.
Youcanalsogenerateacoursebackupthroughanotherpath...
Asadminorteacher,clickontheMycoursestab,thenononeofthecoursesavailable.Thenitis
possibletogenerateabackupprettymuchthesamewaybyclickingontheMaintenancetool.
11August2011
Page25/105
Illustration24:InterfaceCourseadministrationtools
Theinterfaceisslightlydifferent...
Illustration25:InterfaceCoursebackupoptions
Withthecoursebackupoptions,youcanstillexecutethreemorefunctions:
Coursecopyallowsyoutoduplicateallorpartofacourseintoanother(preferablyempty)
one.Theonlyrequirementbeforedoingthisistohaveafirstcoursewithsomethingtocopy,
andanothercoursewhichdoesn'tcontaintheelementsofthefirstone.
Emptycourse allowsyoutoemptythewholecontentsofacourse.Let'ssayyouwantto
startafreshcourseinsidethesameshellasthepreviousone...justclickthislinkandall
the resources previously created will be gone, with no possibility to recover them.
Obviously,beforeyoudothat,youmightwanttosavethecourseelementthroughaCourse
backupoperation.
Deleteallowsyoutodeletethewholecourse,thisalsomeansremovingitsemptyshell.A
confirmationisrequired,butonceit'sremoved,don'texpectittobeavailableasasafecopy
11August2011
Page26/105
anywhere...
Note:whenopeningthebackup.zipfile,youwillfindaclosesimilaritywiththeDocumentstool
documentshierarchy.
Foryourinformation,thedefault.zipfileforacourseinitiallycreatedwithexamplecontentsweighs
around8.9MB.
Itcontains:
oneinternalstructurefilenamedcourse_info.dat
onedirectorycalledDocument
aseriesoffilesandfolderscontainingthecoursedocuments,anythingnotlinkedtothe
users(assignmentsandotheruserrelatedstuffarenotsaved)
The Document directory has a similar structure to the one presented in illustration 26, which
reproducesthedocumentstoolstructureasshowninillustration27.
Illustration26:BackupBackupfilesstructure
11August2011
Page27/105
Illustration27:InterfaceDocumentslist
Thesedocumentsarethedefaultcontentsofthecourse.
Furthermore,thebackupwillonlyrecoverdocuments(images,videos,etc.)relatedtothecourse.
3.3Recoveringabackup
3.3.1Learningpaths
Afterexportingthelearningpaths,youmightwanttoknowhowtoimportthembackintoanother
(orthesame)Chamiloplatform.
IntheMycoursestab,createanemptycoursematchingtheonewhichhastobeimported(orreuse
anexistingcourse).Onceinthecourse,clickLearningpaths.
Inthelearningpathstool,youhavethreeoptions(thelastoneappearsifyouenabled Chamilo
Rapidsee8.3ChamiloRapidonpage84formoreinfo):
Createnewcourse(1sticon),
ImportSCORMcourses(2ndicon),
ChamiloRapid(3rdicon)
11August2011
Page28/105
Illustration28:InterfaceLearningpathsimport
Toimportthelearningpathpreviouslyexported,clickonImportSCORMcourse(2ndicon).
Illustration29:InterfaceSCORMlearningpathsimport
ThebackupmustobviouslybecompatiblewithSCORMand,somethinglessobvious,SCORM1.2,
whichisaparticularversionofSCORM.ChamilodoesnotfullysupportSCORM2004,soyouwill
probablyhaveavalidlearningpathimport,butitwillnotremainfullyfunctional,mostofthetime.
YourlearningpathpackagecanalsobeAICCcompatible,butthat'sanotherstory.
Notethe Authoringtool fieldisonlyaninformationalfieldanddoesn'tgenerateanybehaviour
modification.
3.3.2Courses
TherearetwowaystoimportacoursebackintoChamilo:
importapreviouscoursebackupfilefromyourcomputer
importabackupfiledirectlyfromtheserver
Thetwooptionsareveryeasytousefromthe Importbackup toolinsidethe backup toolofany
course.
3.3.3Completerecovery
This recovery procedure has been tested a few times, but your configuration might vary
considerablyfromthisexample.Herewewillusealocalinstallationcase,usingPhpMyAdminand
11August2011
Page29/105
abackupoftheChamilorootdirectory.Foraremoteserver,SSH/SFTPorFTPaccesstotheserver
wouldberequired.
This recovery might be necessary in case you mistakenly deleted some or all of the Chamilo
databases,orafterseriousdamagehasbeencausedonyourserverbyacracker.
1. Copythebackupfileintotherootdirectory(/var/www)andunzipit.Keepingthesame
directoriesstructureallowsyounottoloosesomeofthepreconfiguredaccesspathtosome
data.
2. ImportthedatabasebackupfromPhpMyAdmin(afterremovingthepreviousdatabasesif
someofthemarestillpresent).
3. Connecttoyoursiteandcheckeverythingisinorder.
The backup contains users, passwords, courses, learning paths, and all the resources of your
platform.
Weactivelyrecommendtakingautomaticbackupsonanotherserveratleastonceadayforcritical
Chamiloservers.
11August2011
Page30/105
Chapter4.Platformadministration
Illustration30:Administrationplatformblock
TheplatformconfigurationisdonethroughtheAdministrationtab,platformblock.
4.1Chamiloconfigurationsettings
Thesesettingsgatherseveralcategories,showninthefollowingillustration.
Illustration31:Administrationplatformsettingscategories
Chamilooffersadefaultconfiguration,whichisnotnecessarilytheoneyouwouldprefer.Evenif
alltheoptionsareworthbeingexplained,asanadminshouldknowhisenvironmentperfectly,we're
onlygoingtoseeheretheonesweconsiderthemostimportantormorelikelytobechangedfrom
thedefaultsettings.YoucanalwaysfindacompletelistofsettingsintheAppendixonpage86.
4.1.1platform
Thiscategoryallowsyoutoconfiguregloballyvisibleinformation,usersregistration,or
otheroptionsthatdonotfitinanyothercategory.Someofthisinformationcanbeleft
empty.Inthatcase,itwillnotbeshown.
Registrationallowsyoutoauthorizethecreationofaccountsbyexternalusers,toonlyallowthe
admintocreatethem,ortorequiretheadmin'sapprovalforthecreationoftheuseraccounts.
Registrationastrainerallowsyoutoletanynewuserchoosetobeateacher(andassuchtocreate
newcourses).Yougenerallydon'twantthisoptionon.
11August2011
Page31/105
Enablelearnerviewallowsyoutoletteachershaveapreviewofwhattheircoursewouldlooklike
fromastudent'sview.Itisahighlyusefultoolandwedon'trecommendyouremovethisfeature.
Pageafterlogin allowsyoutoselectwhetheryouwanttheuserstogetbacktoyourplatform
welcomepage(Homepage)ortogodirectlytotheircourselist(Training).
Usetrainingsessionsallowsyoutodecidewhetheryouwanttoallowforusingthesessionsornot.
Thisisalegacyoption,whichallowedyoutousea(legacy)featuretogroupstudentsinclasses.
Startingfrom1.8.8,younowhavebothsessionsandclassesavailableinthesessionmode,sothe
otheroptionwillprobablydisappearinthenextversions.
Allownonadmintocreatetrainingallowsteacherstocreatetraining.Itisallowedbydefault,but
inastronglystructuredorganization,you'llwanttheadmintosetupthecoursesandtheirteachers,
sothisoptionmightbebetterturnedoff.
Learnersaccesstotrainingcatalogue letsyoudecidewhetherthestudentscanseethecourse
catalogue(availableasalinkontheircourselistpage)ornot.Thecoursecataloguegiveslinksto
course subscription, so removing the access will also prevent the students from registering by
themselves.
Enabletermsandconditionsenablesthespecialtermsandconditionsfeature(thatyouwillthen
havetoconfigurefromtheadministrationpage).Termsandconditionsdealwithlanguagesand
versions,andensureyourstudentshaveaccesstoyourplatformonlyiftheyagreetothelatest
version.
4.1.2Training(courses)
Thistaballowsyoutoconfiguretheoptionsrelatedtothecourses(training),betheyin
relationtothecourseuser,itscreatororeventhepurelytechnicalside.Checkeachoption
carefullytomatchyourneeds.
Somechoicesareavailablethatinfluencetheusabilityoftheplatform,suchasthewayyoudisplay
thehomepageorthetoolshortcutbar.
Defaultharddiskspace isthespaceallowedfordocumentsinthedocumenttoolofaspecific
course.Itissetto100,000,000bytesbydefault,whichisaround95MB.Youcanchangethisoption
onacoursebasisthroughthecourselistintheadministrationpage.Howeveronlyanadmincando
that.
Allowcoachestoeditinsidetrainingsessionswillletteacherseditthecontentsofcourseswithin
thesessioncontext(modifydocuments,learningpaths,exercises,links,etc.).SeechapterChapter7.
Sessionmanagementonpage67.
11August2011
Page32/105
4.1.3Languages
Inthiscategory,youwillfindalllanguagerelatedoptions(onelinkpointstotheexternal
Languagesentryontheadministrationpage).
Allowdefinitionanduseofsublanguages makesthedefinitionofvariationspossibleforeach
languagetermusedintheplatforminterface,asalanguagebasedonanexistinglanguage.This
optioncanthenbefoundinthelanguageslist(followtheChamiloPlatformLanguages).
4.1.4User
Thiscategorypresentstheoptionsrelativetouserspropertiesandpermissions.
Profile defines whichpartsoftheprofilewillbemodifiable.Bydefault,theemailcannotbe
modifiedbytheusersthemselves.
Personalagendaletsyoudecidewhetheruserscanregisterpersonaleventsintheircalendar.
4.1.5Modules
Thiscategorydefinesthepropertiesofthecourseandglobaltools,globally(influencesall
courses).
Modulesactiveupontrainingcreationarethetoolswhichwillbevisiblebydefaultinanewly
createdcourse.Teacherscanthenupdatethesesettingstofittheirneeds.
Deletedfilescannotberestoredifafileisdeleted,youhaveachoicewhetheryouwantthesystem
todeleteitcompletelyortokeepasecretbackupfilewitha_DELETEDsuffix.Deletefileswillnot
bevisiblethroughthesystemanymore,butyou'llbeabletofindthemondisk.
Onlineemaileditorenabledletsyoudecidewhetheryouwanttoofferyourusersawaytosende
mailstootherusersoftheplatform(byemail)withoutrequiringanexternalemailclient.Tryitby
enablingthefeaturethenclickingontheadmincontactlinkintheplatformfooter.
Bookingisatoolthatlacksalotoflove(meaning:hasaverybadinterface)buthaspotential:once
well configured, you can set resources up inside your platform to book them and show their
availability.
4.1.6HTMLEditor
Thissectioncontainsallthesettingsrelatedtowhatyoucandothroughtheonlineeditor.
Thisincludessettingupmathematicalexpressionseditorsandotheronlineeditorextensions.
AdvancedfilemanagerforWYSIWYGeditor letsyouchoosebetweenthesimple&easyfile
11August2011
Page33/105
managerandanextendedandsomewhatmorecomplicatedfilemanager.Changetheoptions,goto
anycourseintroductioneditionsection,choosetheicontouploadanimage,clickBrowseserverand
seethedifference.
Note:WYSIWYGisanabbreviationofWhatYouSeeIsWhatYouGet,anotherwaytosaytheeditorallows
youtoeditthingsvisuallyonscreenwhileitissavedinamorecomplexformatwithouthavingtoworryabout
it.
Mathematicaleditors: MimeTeX, ASCIImathML or ASCIISVG: theseare3separateoptions

thatallowyoutoenabletheeditionofmathematicalformulas.Theirsupportmayvarydependingon
theusers'browsers.Totrytheseout,justenablethemandtrytoeditacourseintroductionsection.
4.1.7Security
Thiscategorywillallowyoutoconfigureafewthingsthathavetodowithsecurity.The
default settings are... acceptable, but you might want to restrict a few things toimprove
security.
Typeoffilteringondocumentuploadstherearetwodifferentfilteringtypes:
Blacklist isawaytobanfileswithaspecificextension.Thatallowsyoutospecify,for
example,thatyoudon'twantexecutablefilestobeuploaded(i.e..exefiles).Howeverthis
isconsideredtheweakestfilteringmethod.
WhitelistisawaytosayIonlywantfileswhichmatchmyauthorizedextensions,soitis
reallysafe:nofunnyfilewillsurpriseyouhere.Case(uppercaseorlowercase)doesn'tmatter
here.Thisisthesafestoption,butitissomewhatlimited.
Permissions fornewdirectories setstheaccesspermissionsnewdirectorieswillhave.Thisis
mostlyanoptionforLinuxbasedsystems,andallowsyoutoincreasesecurityagainsthackers.
Warning: thedefaultvalueis0777followingaseriesofproblemsfoundbyuserswithmore
restrictive permissions. This value guarantees greater portability, not greater security, and it
sometimesneedstobemodifiediftheLinuxbasedsystemyou'reinstallingitonrequiresastrict
securitypolicy.Ifthisisthecase,youwillreceiveaservererrorwhentryingtoenteracourseyou
havejustcreated.Inthiscase,trytoupdatethisvalueto0777,0775,0755and0750alternatively,
andcreateanewcourseeachtime.Youcanalwaysdeletethefailedcoursesafterwards.
Register users by coach allows coaches (teachers in sessions) to register new users into the
platform(thisisnormallylefttotheadminsortheusersthemselves).
4.1.8Tuning
Thiscategoryallowsyoutoconfigureonlyonesettingsofartoimproveefficiencyalittle.
11August2011
Page34/105
Splitusers'uploaddirectoryallowyoutoimprovespeedalittleforveryhighloadplatformsby
splittingtheusersdirectories(butthisrequiresamanualoperationondiskaswell).
Since version 1.8.8.4, you can also find optimisation hints in
chamilo/documentation/optimization.html.
4.1.9Assessments
Theseareglobalparametersfortheassessmentstool,whichcanberedefined(inmostcases)
atthecourselevel.
Marksthresholdscolouringenablesthecolouringofmarksintheassessments.Itisalsonecessary
todefinethemarksthatwilleffectivelybecolouredred.
Markslevelslabelling enablessettingdifferentlevelsofmarksaslabels(Elevelforlessthan
50%).
4.1.10LDAP
ThiscategoryallowsyoutoconfigurethesynchronizationwithanLDAPserver.Itcontainsa
longseriesofsettingswhichallrequireagoodknowledgeofLDAP.
For more information, we invite you to refer to LDAPspecific documentation. Note that an
ActiveDirectoryservercanbeusedasanLDAPserverthroughenablingitsLDAPcompatibility
mode.
4.1.11Timezones
Thiscategorydefinesgeneralsettingsfortimezones.
Enableuserstimezoneswillletusersdefinetheirowntimezones,andthusgetallthetimesonthe
platformdisplayedintheirowntimezones.Thiswillletthemknowmoreaccuratelywhentosubmit
aassignment,forexample.Notethatthissettinghastogoalongwiththeactivationofthetimezone
fieldformodificationbytheuserintheuserprofilefields(seechapter5.8Profilesonpage61).
Timezonevalueisusedtodefinethetimezoneoftheplatform.Thisallows,incaseswherethe
serverishostedandconfiguredinadifferenttimezonethanthecustomer's,tosetthingsrightand
havetimevaluesshowingappropriately.
4.1.12Search
ThiscategoryallowsyoutoconfigurethefulltextindexingfeatureofChamilo.Itrequires,
however,thephp5xapianmodule(aswellasafewadditionalapplications)tobeinstalledon
theserverinordertowork.Thisfeaturewaspreviouslyavailableonlyinthemedicalversion,but
11August2011
Page35/105
wasaddedtomainstreamChamilo1.8.8.4inagreementwiththecommitmentfromtheChamilo
officialproviders.
Don'thesitatetoaskfordedicatedhostingfromoneoftheChamilo'sofficialproviders 12ifyou've
gotissuessettingitallup.
4.1.13Stylesheets
Thestylesheetsallowyoutodefinetheglobalvisualstyleofyourplatform.
Illustration32:AdministrationStylesheetsconfiguration
Sinceversion1.8.7,itispossibleforyoutocreateyourownstylesheetsandsendthemtotheserver.
Inordertodothis,recoveracopyofoneoftheexistingstylesinchamilo/main/css/andchangethe
nameoftherecovereddirectory(onyourcomputer,notontheserver).Modifythestyletoyour
taste.Onceyou'rehappywiththechanges,sendthedirectorytotheserverasa.zipfileandgiveita
namethatcorrespondstoyourplatform.Then,selectthestyleinthedropdownlist.Ifyou'rehappy
withit,clicktheSavesettingsbuttontoapplyitasadefaultstyleforyourplatform.
4.1.14Templates
DocumenttemplatesallowyoutospeedupthecreationofcontentsinChamilo.Creating
newtemplatesinthispartoftheplatformwillaffectthewholeplatform.
Create,editandremovetemplateseasily.Itisclosetothedocumentseditiontoolsinsidethecourse.
Don'thesitatetotryitoutandcreateanewtemplate.Youcanalwaysdeleteafterwardsifyou'renot
happywithit.
Thisfeatureisparticularlyusefultosetyourowntemplatestoyourorganization'sstandards.
11August2011
Page36/105
11August2011
Page37/105
4.1.15Plugins
Thistaballowsyoutoenablethepluginspresentintheplugin/folderontheserver.
Illustration33:AdministrationPluginsinstallation
Sinceversion1.8.8.2ofChamilo,thepluginsystemshasbeenimprovedandyoucannowcreateand
enable plugins that will appear as new course tools. This is the case of a new plugin called
BigBlueButton.Thisplugin,onceenabled,willallowyoutoconnectyourChamiloplatformtoa
videoconferenceserver.Theinstallationofavideoconferenceserver,however,isnotincludedin
Chamilo.Youwillhavetoinstallitbyyourselforaskanofficialprovidertodothatforyou.
Note:Inordertoavoidanystrongdependencyonourproviders'services,wehaveselectedavideo
conferenceserverparticularlyeasytoinstall(30minutesonafastandappropriateserver).Avideo
conferenceservercan,however,causeissuesatanotherlevel:itisacostlyservicetomaintain,asit
requiresconstantcaretobeavailableatalltimes,watchedoverbydedicatedstaff.Thisisoneofthe
reasonswhywecannotincludeitinChamilo:itwouldsimplynotstanduptothequalityofChamilo
asastandaloneplatform.
11August2011
Page38/105
4.2Specialexports
Thespecialexportsfeaturehasbeendesignedtohelptheacademicalinspector.Itallowshimto
exportalldocumentsfromallcoursesinonesingle(thoughveryheavy)operation.Asecondoption
allowshimtochoosethedocumentsfromthecourseshewants.
Illustration34:AdministrationSpecialexports
4.3platformnews
Allowsyoutoaddaglobalannouncementonthehomepageoftheplatform(andabovethecourse
list).
11August2011
Page39/105
11August2011
Page40/105
Illustration35:AdministrationGlobalannouncements
Itispossibletochoosethevisibilityoftheannouncement(bystartandenddate),therolesthis
announcementismeantfor,andtosenditbyemail.
Thistoolisparticularlyusefultosendinformationaboutamaintenance,anupdateortermsand
conditionschangesontheplatform.
11August2011
Page41/105
4.4Languages
Thistoolallowsyoutodefinewhichlanguagesarevisiblebytheusersduringtheirsubscriptionto
theplatformorduringthecoursecreationprocess.
Illustration36:AdministrationLanguagesmanagement
Whenenablingthesublanguagesfeature,thistoolalsoallowsyoutoredefinecertaintermsofthe
platforminterface.Todothat,enabletheoptioninthelanguageconfigurationpage(see 4.1.3
Languages),thenopenthelanguagelistpage.Youwillfindanadditionaliconwhichallowsyouto
addasublanguagetoanyexistinglanguage.
Illustration37:AdministrationSublanguagecreationicon
Thedefinitionofasublanguageisquiteeasy:youjustindicatethenameofthesublanguage,its
ISOcode(2letters,likefr,en,es)anditsEnglishname(thenamethedirectorywilltake
whichcannotbethesameasanexistinglanguage).
Let'ssayyouwanttoredefinethetermsoftheinterfacebecauseyouworkinthemedicalsectorand
thattheEnglishtermsproposedarenotsatisfyingtoyou(notethatitis much morepracticalto
define this sublanguage before new courses are created). For example, you think the term
ReportingshouldreallybecalledEvaluation...Hereishowtoproceed:
4.4.1Creatingasublanguage
ClickonthesublanguagecreationiconontheextremerightoftheEnglishlanguageline.Fillinthe
11August2011
Page42/105
formbystatingacommonnameforthelanguage(e.g.MedicalEnglish)andanEnglishname
withoutspacesnoraccents(e.g.medical_english),andanISOcodethatisthesameasthefather
language(inthiscaseen).
Illustration38:AdministrationSublanguagecreation
Select Visibility to make it selectable, and click on the Create sublanguage button. The
confirmationmessagesuggestsyoucomebacktothelanguagelist.Justfollowthelink...
11August2011
Page43/105
Illustration39:AdministrationListoflanguages,withsublanguages
Theresultspageshowsoneslightlydifferentline.Clickthedoublearrowicontodefineyourown
terms.
4.4.2Defineyourownterms
Thenewpageisasearchpage.IfyouwanttomodifythetermReportingtoEvaluation,justsearch
forReporting.
Illustration40:AdministrationSublanguagetermsredefinition
Oncethesearchhasgeneratedresults,redefineanyofthetermsappearinginthe Originalname
columnbygivinganothertranslationinsidetheSublanguagecolumn.Onceyou'resatisfied,click
onthe Save button,onceforeachredefinedterm.Notethatsometermsappearquitealotinthe
interfacetranslations,soitmighttakeawhiletoprocess...
4.4.3Assignthenewsublanguage
Finally,youhaveredefinedyourtermsinyoursublanguage.Theonlyremainingstepistoassignit
bydefaulttoallthenewusersandallthenewcourses.Todothis,gobacktothelanguagelistand
disablealltheotherlanguages.
11August2011
Page44/105
Illustration41:AdministrationSublanguagesVisibilityanddefaultusage
Foryoursublanguage,clickonthethirdicontomakeitthedefaultlanguageontheplatform.That's
it,yourplatformisnowpersonalisedinagreementwithyourfieldofactivity.
Note:Thisadvancedfeatureanswersadoubledemandfromourusersandcustomers:
allowfortheedition,fromthewebinterface,oftheinterfaceterms
allow to reuse these terms without loss, after an update of the platform and without
affectingthedefaultlanguagepackages
4.5Editplatformhomepage
Fromthispage,youcanconfigureseveralthings
editthehomepage,
editcategoriesofcourses,
insertlinks
editthenoticeblock
1
2
Illustration42:AdministrationHomepageconfiguration
Notethatthisfeaturedependsonthelanguageselected.IfyoudefineawelcomepageinFrench,it
will only be visible if French is the selected language. This allows you to configure different
welcomemessagesdependingonyourusers.
11August2011
Page45/105
4.6Settingtheregistrationpage
Thisfeatureallowsyoutoaddamultimediaintroductionatthetopoftheregistrationpage.For
example,youcouldaddavideoexplaininghowtoregisterandwhatthetermsandconditionsofthe
platformare.Fieldsoftheformcanbeconfiguredthroughthe Users parametersoftheplatform
configurationsettings.
4.7Statistics
Thistoolallowsyoutogeneratesmallstatisticalchartsforfourcategoriesofdata:
courses,
users,
system,
social.
Illustration43:AdministrationGlobalstatistics
Althoughthestatisticaldataisprettysummarised,itwillgiveyouagoodideaofthegeneraluseof
theplatform.
Important activities group all the platform administration activities: creation and removal of
courses, of users, of sessions; edition of configuration settings and some other... important
activities.
4.8Globalagenda
Theglobalagendaallowsyoutoaddeventsthatwillbevisiblefromtheagendaofanyuserofthe
platform.
11August2011
Page46/105
Illustration44:AdministrationGlobalagenda
Thefeatureiscompletelysimilartotheoneyoucanfindinthecoursesspace,buttheadditionofan
eventtherehasaglobalreach,asalluserswillseeitintheirowncalendars.
11August2011
Page47/105
Chapter5.Usermanagement
Theusermanagementisdonethroughgenericandfamiliaricons,andsomemorespecificicons.
Icons
Features
Modifythestatusoftheuserbyclickingtheicon(enabled/disabled)
Clicktoshowthelistofcoursestheuserissubscribedto
Connectas...allowstheadmintotaketheidentityofaspecificuser
tocheckabugtheyreportedontheplatform(ortohelpmakinga
quickdemonstrationusingseveraluserroles)
Assign courses to admins or supervisors to follow them up
(dashboard)
Assigncoursesessionstoadminsorsupervisorstofollowthemup
(throughthedashboard)
Givesalltheinformationabouttheuser,hissessionslist,courselist
andotherdetails,plusmanywaystoknowmorefromthere
Assignuserstoadminsorsupervisorstofollowthemup(throughthe
dashboard)
Givesadetailedreportontheuser(disabledforteachersandadmins)
Updateuser'sinformationandsettings
Showthefree/busycalendaroftheuser
Removeauser(afterapproval)
Showswhetherauserisadminornot.Onlyadministratorsaccounts
(orsessionsadministratorsaccounts)haveayellowstar.Othersshow
agreystar.
Table1:AdministrationUsersadministrationicons
11August2011
Page48/105
5.1Userroles
UserrolesareafundamentalpartintheusermanagementofaChamiloplatform,andtheirdeep
understandingallowsyoutogofurtherthanaprivateuse,intoacompleteacademicalmanagement
whereeverypersonhastheirplaceandresponsibility.
Fortheaverageadministrator,itwillseemthereareonlyfourrolesinChamilo:thoseappeardirectly
intheusercreationformintheadministrationsection.However,somerolesactuallyoffersubroles,
onecanonlygainknowledgeofafteradeeperuseoftheplatform.
Inordertoguideyouthroughthediscoveryoftheseroles,wewillusethefollowingdiagramasa
reference,asitrepresentsmostoftherolesandalsothenotionofsessions(aswewillseeitin
chapterChapter7.Sessionmanagementonpage67).
Illustration45:Rolesandsessions
Inthisdiagram,wecanseethemainadministrator(ontop),thesessionadministrator(ontheright),
thesessioncoach(atthetopofthesessionblock),thecoursecoaches(atthetopofthecourses),the
teacher(ontheleftofacourse),thestudents(connectedtothesession)andthehumanresources
manager(connectedtothestudents).
Let'sreviewtheserolestogether,fromthelesspowerfuluptothemostpowerful.
11August2011
Page49/105
5.1.1Learner(orstudent)
Description Thelearneristhetypicalroleofthepersonwhoattendsoneorseveralcourses.They
have access to the contents of the courses they subscribed to (if that was made
possible)ortowhichsomeoneregisteredthem.
Permissions Bydefault,theycan:
inacourse
followalearningpath
checkoutvisibledocuments
contributetothewiki
communicatewiththeirpeersthroughtheforumandthechat
doexercisesorexams
handinassignments
Ifauthorized:
createcoursecalendarevents
publishcourseannouncements
bepartofaworkinggroup
sharedocuments
Global
Bydefault,theycan:
permissions
communicatewiththeirpeerswithintheplatformthroughthesocialnetwork
messaging
Ifauthorized:
createinterestgroupsinthesocialnetwork
createpersonaleventsinsidetheiragenda
5.1.2Thecourseassistant
Description Theassistantisanextendedlearnerrole.Theyarenormallylearners,buttheteacher
can assign them the role of assistant in one of his/her courses through the user
edition, through the list of users in the users tool in the course (checkbox
Assistant).
Illustration46:Courseassistant
11August2011
Page50/105
inacourse
doanythingalearnercando
seetheanswersofotherlearners,theirassignmentsandtheirglobalresults
Global
Bydefault,theycan:
permissions
5.1.3Thehumanresourcesmanager(orsupervisor)
Description Thehumanresourcesmanagerisarolegivenduringthecreationofauser(orlater
onintheusereditionscreen,butthismightaffectotherpermissionsuseduntilthen).
Itisanexclusiverole(itcannotbecombinedwithanotherrole).Theaimofthisrole
istofollowusers,coursesorsessionsinparticular,likeahumanresourcesmanager
woulddowithanemployeetheyhavebeenassignedto.Itisanobservationrole.As
such,theycannotmodifyanything.
Permissions Seetheirstudents'results
inacourse
Global
Bydefault,theycan:
permissions
followthepersonaldevelopmentoftheusers(learnersorteachers)they've
beenassignedto,throughthecontrolpanel
follow the development of courses they've been assigned to, through the
controlpanel
follow the development of sessions they've been assigned to, through the
controlpanel
reviewusers,coursesorsessionsdetails,butnotmodifythem
5.1.4Thecoursecoach
Description Thecoursecoachisateacherwhogivesacourseonthebasisofagenericcontents
thatothershavepreparedforthem,butonwhichtheycanextendwiththeirown
contents.
inacourse
accompanyausersgroupinsideacourse(insidetheirsession)
followtheresultsoftheirstudentsintheircourse(insidetheirsession)
markandaltertheresultsorassignmentshandedindeliveredtotheminside
thecourse
Ifauthorized,theycan:
create new contents in the course (documents, exercises, learning paths,
assignments,)whichwillonlybevisibleinsidethesession
11August2011
Page51/105
subscribenewusersintheircourse(insidetheirsession)
Global
Bydefault,theycan:
permissions
doeverythingalearnercando
5.1.5Thesessioncoach(orsessiontutor)
Description Thesessioncoachisateacherwhohasacoordinationrolewithinasession.She
communicateswithothercoachesinthesessionandcannavigateintoallthecourses
ofthesessioninordertoobservetheusersresultsandtakethebestdecisionsonhe
basisofmorecompleteinformation.
Permissions Bydefault,hecan:
inacourse
doanythingacoursecoachcando,inallthecoursesofthesession
Ifauthorized:
register/unregisterusersinto/fromhersession
createcontentsineachcourse(thisfeatureisprobablyneverreallyused,by
respectfortheactivecoaches)
Global
Samepermissionsasacoursecoach
permissions
5.1.6Teacher(ortrainer)
Description Theteacheristhecreatorofcoursesbyexcellence.Hecreatescontentswithinabase
course,andthiscontentsiseitheruseddirectly(ifyoudon'tusesessions)orcanbe
usedinmanysessionsatthesametime(inthecaseofsessionsusage).
inacourse
doadministrativetasksinsidehiscourses(copy/delete/rename/update)
createallthecontentsofacourse
followlearnersupinsidehiscourse
registernewlearnerstohiscourse
makesomecoursetoolsvisible/invisibletolearners
Ifnecessary:
onecanremovehisrighttocreatecourses
onecanremovehisrighttoregisternewuserstohiscourses
Global
Bydefault,hecan:
permissions
createacourse
11August2011
Page52/105
5.1.7Sessionsadministrator
Description Thesessionsadministratorisanexclusiverole(itcannotbecombinedwithanyother
role) and is determined during the user creation or its later edition from the
administrationinterface.Thisroleisdedicatedtotheacademicalmanagementofthe
sessionsofcourses:hesetswhowillteachwhichcourse,atwhattimeandtowhich
learners.
Permissions Samepermissionsasasessioncoach
inacourse
Global
Bydefault,hecan:
permissions
create/edit/removesessions
assign/unassignteachersassessioncoachesorcoursecoaches
followtheprogressofusers/courses/sessionsthroughhiscontrolpanel
Ifauthorized,hecan:
registernewstudentsontheplatform
5.1.8platformadministrator
Description Theplatformadministratoronlymakessenseifweusethemultiurlmode(see8.1
MultiURL onpage 82).Inthiscase,theadministratorwhoisnotauthorizedto
modifyalltheportalsisaplatformadministrator(asopposedtoglobaladministrator)
Permissions Allthepermissions
inacourse
Global
Bydefault,hecan:
permissions
UpdateallparametersrelatedtohisownURL
Create/edit/deleteallresourcesonthisplatform
5.1.9Globaladministrator
Description Theglobaladministratoristheallmightyuser.Hecansimplydoanything.Hehas
accesstoalltheinterfaces.
Permissions Bydefault,hecandoanything.
inacourse
Global
Bydefault,hecandoanything(onalltheportalsinthecaseofmultiurl),including
permissions creatingotherusers,courses,sessionsand...otherportals.
11August2011
Page53/105
5.1.10Particularcase:theanonymoususer
Description Theanonymoususerisaveryparticularcase:thisuseronlyexiststomaketracking
possibleforuserswhodonothaveanaccountontheChamiloplatform.Thanksto
thismechanism,the anonymous usercandomostoperationsalearnercando,but
onlywithincoursesmarkedaspublic
in a public
followlearningpaths
course
checkvisibledocumentsout
doexercisesortakeexams(resultswillnotbeshowntotheteacher)
Global
Bydefault,hecan:
permissions
openpubliccourses
seethelistofpublicandprivatecourses(buthecan'tofficiallysubscribeto
anyofthem)
11August2011
Page54/105
5.2Userlist
Heretheadministratorcanmanagealltheusers simpleclickingonaniconthatwehaveseen
previously.
Illustration47:Administrationuserlist
Inordertovisualisetheuserlistmoreclearly,hereisareducedlistofrolesandtypesofoptionsthe
administratorofwhichhasaccesstoregardingeachoftheseroles.
Illustration48:AdministrationUsersOptionsbyrole
5.2.1Learner
Active/Inactive:alearnercanbeenabled/disabledatwill
courselist:alearnercanbesubscribedtoseveralcourses
Loginas...enabledforthelearner
Statistics:thelearneristheonlyuserrolethatcanbetracked
Edition:thelearneraccountcanbeeditedbytheadmin
Administration:thelearnercanneverbetheadministrator
Free/busycalendar:showstheavailabilityofthelearner
Removal:thelearneraccountcanberemoved
5.2.2Teacher
Active/Inactive:ateachercanbeenabled/disabledatwill
11August2011
Page55/105
courselist:ateachercanbesubscribedtoseveralcourses
Loginas...enabledfortheteacher
Statistics:theteachercannotbefollowedanyotherwaythanthroughthecontrol
panel
Edition:theteacheraccountcanbeeditedbytheadministrator
Administration:theteacherwhowouldbeadministratorisadministratorfirstbefore
anythingelse
Free/busycalendar:showstheavailabilityoftheteacher
Removal:theteacheraccountcanberemoved
5.2.3Administrator
Active/Inactive:anadministratorcannotbedisabled
courselist:anadministratorcanbesubscribedtoseveralcourses
Loginas...disabledforanadmin
Statistics:theadministratorcannotbetrackedapartfromthecontrolpanel
Edition:theadministratoraccountcannotbeeditedexceptbythesameadministrator
Administration:thisuserisanadministrator,asshownbythecolourofthestar
Follow users:onlyadministratortypeusers canfollowtheusers' progress(learners,
teachersoradministrator)throughthecontrolpanel
Followcourses:onlytheadministratorscantracktheprogressofacoursethroughthe
controlpanel
Followsessions:onlyadministratorscanfollowtheprogressionofthesessionsthrough
thecontrolpanel
Free/busycalendar:showstheavailabilityoftheadministrator
5.2.4Anonymous
Theanonymoususerisaparticularcasewhichonlyservesthepurposeofallowingoneofthenon
subscribed users to benefit from the courses made publicly available. The number of tracking
opportunitiesisthusreduced.Notethatifnocourseismadepublic,thisuseraccountisuselessand
couldbedisabled(althoughthisfeatureisnotofficiallysupported).
Active/Inactive:theanonymoususercanbeenabled/disabledatwish
courselist:theanonymoususercannotbesubscribedtocourses
Loginas...disabledfortheanonymoususer
Statistics:theanonymoususerdoesn'tshowstatistics
Edition:theanonymoususercannotbeedited
Administration:theanonymoususercanneverbeanadministrator
Free/busycalendar:theanonymoususerdoesn'thaveafree/busycalendar
Removal : the anonymous user account cannot be removed (to avoid system
11August2011
Page56/105
incoherences)
Additionallytothesemanagementoptions,itispossibletoremoveallorsomeoftheusersby
selectingthecheckboxontheleftoftheuserandremovinghimbelow,asintheusersmanagement
ofacourseforateacher.
5.3Addusers
Theadministratorcanaddusersbycreatingthemfromablankform.Hewillonlyneedtoenter:
firstname
lastname
email
login
Thereare,however,advancedoptionsoneshouldpayattentionto.
Illustration49:AdministrationUsercreation
Thepasswordcanbeautomaticallygeneratedorcanbeassignedbytheadministrator.Dependingon
theneedsofthesituation,don'tforgettheoptionSendanemailtothenewuser.
Theuserprofile(orrole)isveryimportant.Seechapter5.1Userrolesonpage49formoreinfo.
Theuseraccountcanhaveanexpirationdate.Inthiscase,theendofthesubscriptionperiodmust
11August2011
Page57/105
beset.
Finally,theuseraccountcanbecreatedasactiveorinactive,forexamplependingthestartofanew
session.
Three new fields have been added to Chamilo 1.8.8. These fields allow you to configure the
frequencyatwhichpersonalmessagessentfromtheChamilosocialnetworktoyouraccountare
senttoyoubyemail.
IftheuserpicksNo,thennomessagewillbesenttohisemailtonotifyhim.Thisoptionrequires
theconfigurationofachronologicalscriptlaunch(cron).
5.4ExportalistofusersasXML/CSVfile
InChamilo,itispossibletoexportallorjustsomeoftheusers.
Illustration50:AdministrationUserexport
Youcanchoosebetweentwooutputsavefileformats: XML or CSV.MostuserswilluseCSV,
whichcanbereadbyMSExcelandOpenOffice.orgCalc.
Onceyou'vechosentheformat,itisrecommendedtochecktheYes,addtheCSVheaderoption.
Thenyoucanpickalimitedlistofstudentstoexport(bycourse)orleaveitasistoexportallthe
studentsoftheplatform.ClickonExporttolaunchtheexport.
Anewwindowopenstoletyoudecidewhattodowiththefile.
5.5ImportalistofusersasXML/CSV
Whetheryouhaveexportedalistofusersornot,youmightwanttoimportusersintotheplatform...
Chamiloallowsyoutoimporttheusersusingthesameformatinwhichitexportedthem,obviously,
butyoucanalsodownloadtwosamplefilesbyclickingonthelink(bluelinkinthefollowing
screenshot).Ifyouwishtoimportusersfromanexternalsource,theCSVformatisgenerallyan
easyoptionasyoucangenerateitwithasimplespreadsheettool.
Just
downloadtheexampleCSVfile,
openitwithMSExcelandOpenOffice.org(orLibreOffice)CalcasaCSVfile
choosethesemicolumnasafieldseparator
adjustyouruserlisttothespreadsheetformattomatchtheCSVexample
11August2011
Page58/105
saveinCSVformat
uploadittotheserverusingtheformwhereyoufoundtheexamplefiles
ToimportaCSV/XMLfile,followthesesteps:
Illustration51:AdministrationUserimport
inBrowse,searchforthefile,
choosethefileformat(CSVorXML),
choosewhethertosendawelcomemailtothenewuserscreatedthroughthisimport,
clickonImport
Illustration52:AdministrationUserimportreport
Thereportmessageshowsconflictsthatmighthaveoccurred,andthelistofusersthatmightnot
havebeenimported.
5.6Addsocialgroups
ChamilointegratesaSocialnetworktoolwhichallowsyoutocreatecommoninterestgroupswhere
userswillbeabletodiscussbetweenthemasonaforum.Youcanchoosetocreategroupsthatcan
beeitheropenedorclosed.
Throughtheconfigurationsettings,youcanalsodecidetoletuserscreatetheirowninterestgroups.
11August2011
Page59/105
Illustration53:AdministrationSocialgroupcreation
5.7Groupslist
Inthissection,youcanupdateorremovegroups,andadduserstoagroupthankstotheiconswe
havealreadyusedpreviously.
Illustration54:AdministrationSocialgroupslist
Ifyouclickthelinkofthegroupname,you'llberedirectedtotheSocialnetworktabandthegroup
page.
11August2011
Page60/105
5.8Profiles
Thistoolallowsyoutoaddextensionstotheprofileofallusers.Eachfieldcreatedthroughthistool
givesyouaseriesofoptions:
Visibilityallowsyoutodecidewhetherthefieldmustappearontheextendedprofilepageof
theuser(sothathecanseeandmaybeupdateithimself)
Modifiableletsyoudecideifthefieldcanbeupdatedbytheuserhimself,oriftheadmin
assignsaspecificvalueforthisfieldforallusers
Filterallowsyoutodecidewhetherthefieldcanbeusedasafilterandifitcanbeexported
throughexerciseresultexports
Youcanusuallycreatefieldsinvisibletotheuserbutwhichareusefuladministrativelytoorganise
orsynchronisethesystemwithothersystems(commonuniqueidentifier,forexample).Otherfields
aresubmittedtotheuser,likehisdateofbirth,country,mothertongue,etc.,whichwilllaterallow
youtogeneratebetterstatisticsdependingontheage,culture,previousknowledge,etc.
ForusersfamiliarwithDrupal,thisisequivalenttoaminiCCKmoduleforChamilo.
Illustration55:AdministrationUserprofilefieldslist
Icons
Features
Update/Deletefield
Makemodifiable/nonmodifiableorenable/disablefilter
Organisethefields
Show/hideafieldtotheuser
2:AdministrationProfilefieldmanagementicons
11August2011
Page61/105
Chapter6.Coursemanagement
Coursesarespaceswithinwhichteachersgeneratecontentsusingthe20orsotoolsavailableto
teachthiscontents(andmuchmore)totheirstudentsinamemorable,dynamic,multimediaandif
possibleentertainingway.
Coursescanbeusedastimelessresources(andtheyare,mostofthetime),buttheycanalsobe
insertedintoatimebasedcontextthroughtheuseofsessions(seeChapter7.Sessionmanagement
onpage67).
Coursesmanagementcanbedonewithiconsyoushouldalreadybefamiliarwithatthispoint
Icons
Features
Givesalltheinformationontheuseofthecourseanditsusers
Givesadetailedtrackingoftheusers,thecourseandresourcesreport
Updatetheparametersorcoursedetails
Removeacourse(afterapproval)
Generateorimportabackup
Gotothecoursehomepage
Table3:AdministrationCoursemanagementicons
6.1courselist
Thistoolallowsyoutovisualiseallthecoursesontheplatform.
Illustration56:Administrationcourselist
11August2011
Page62/105
This list gives us a great deal of information about the courses. Note the colours of the dots
prefixingthecoursestitles:theyrepresentthevisibilityofthecourses:
blue:public
green:openedtoplatformusers
orange:private,usersaresubscribedbyteachersoradmins
red:closed(formaintenanceorexpiration,generally),thecourseisnotavailableexceptfor
courseteachersandadministrators
Italsoallowsustomodifyinformationinoneclickonanactioniconontherighthandside.
6.1.1Updatecoursedetails
Toupdatethedetailsofacourse,clickonthepenciliconontheright.Asanadmin,itispossibleto
changeasmuchinformationastheteacher/creatorofthecourseinthecoursesettings.
However,theadmincanalsoupdatethealloweddiskspaceforthecourseandmarkitasa Special
course,whichmakesitvisibleatthetopofthecourselistforalltheusersoftheplatform.
6.1.2Trackingandbackup
Thetrackingandbackuparethesamefortheadminasfortheteacher(seeTeacherguide).
TheseiconsareshortcutsthatsendtheadmininsidetheMycoursestab.
6.2Createacourse
Asanadministrator,onlythetitleismandatoryduringthecoursecreation.
Illustration57:Coursecreation
11August2011
Page63/105
Apartfromthismandatoryfield,thefollowingoptionsareexclusivelyavailabletotheadmin:
assignateacherinchargeofthecourse
addone(ormore)teacher(s)tothecourse,
giveadepartmentandadepartmentURL,
manageitsvisibility,
managetheregistrationandunregistrationsettings
6.3Coursesexport
ThisfeatureallowsyoutoexportdetailsofsomeorallthecoursesoftheplatformtotheCSV
format.
Illustration58:AdministrationCourseexport
11August2011
Page64/105
6.4Createcoursesinbatch
ThisfeatureallowsyoutoimportaCSVfiletocreatecourses.Ifyouusecategoriesandyouare
importingthecoursesintoadifferentplatformfromtheoneyouexportedthemfrom,youwillneed
toensureyouhavethesamecategorycodesonbothportals.
Illustration59:AdministrationCreatingcoursesbybatches
Onceimported,youwillonlyneedtofillinlearningpaths.
6.5Coursecategories
Youcancreate,updateorremovecoursecategoriesthroughcommonactionicons.Itispossibleto
createmanycategoriesandsubcategories.
Illustration60:AdministrationCoursescategories
Itisalsopossibletoorganisethesecategoriesthankstothearrowicons.Thesecategoriesarenot
11August2011
Page65/105
internationalised,soifyouuseamultilingualplatform,makesurethenameorthecategorisationof
yourcoursesiseasytounderstandforallusers.
6.6Subscribeuserstocourses
Theadmincansubscribeanyonetoanycoursehewants:
selectoneorseveralusersinthelistontheleft(useCTRLorSHIFTtoselectmultiple),
Choosethecourse(s)tosubscribetheseusersto,
clickSubscribeuserstocourse.
Illustration61:AdministrationSubscribeuserstocourses
6.7Subscribeuserstocoursesinbatches
Thisfeatureallowsyou,afterauserexport,tosubscribetheuserstoanothercoursedirectlywitha
CSVorXMLfile.
Illustration62:AdministrationSubscribeuserstocoursesinbatches
Thisimportallowsyoutoexecutetwoactionswhichwillchangesomehowthebehaviourwhile
importing.
11August2011
Page66/105
Chapter7.Sessionmanagement
A session is a mechanism which hovers above one or several courses and allows groups of
studentstofollowthesamegroupofcoursesduringthesameperiod,inseparatevirtualspaces.
Sessionscangroupseveralcoursesofdifferentcategories.
Thefollowingdiagramhasalreadybeenusedintheuserschaptertoexplainroles,butwewillnow
useitinthecontextofSessions.
Illustration63:GlobalSessionsdiagram
11August2011
Page67/105
Asyoucansee,thesessionisdefinedbyasessionadministratorandhasageneralcoach(also
calledthesessioncoordinator,or sessiontutor inthediagram)whowatchesoverthesessionand
assiststeachersandstudentswhoneedhelp.
Severalcoursesareregisteredtothesession,eachofthembeingtaughtbyoneormorecourse
coaches(sessioncoursetutoronthediagram).
Althoughnotclearlyrepresentedonthisdiagram,asessionallowsyou(optionally)toestablishtime
limitsforthecoachesandlearnersofthissession.
7.1Usecases
Thereareseveralcaseswhensessionscanbearealtimesaver...butthewholeconceptrevolves
aroundonemajoradvantage:contentsrecycling.
7.1.1Theacademicyear
Let'simagineyouworkinauniversityinEurope.Everyyear,teachersteachnewcourses,butevery
yearthereisalsoagreatnumberofcourseswhichdonotevolvemuch.Thesecoursesfromlastyear
couldberecycledandusedwiththenewgroupoffreshstudentscominginthisyear.
Withoutsessions,you'dhavetwooptions.Thefirstoneistocopythecourse:
copythecoursetoanewcourse,duplicatethe50MBofspace(overandover),
assignmaybeanotherteacherand
findanewcoursecodethatfitsthefactthatit'snotentirelythesamecoursebutit'snot
reallydifferenteither
haveyourpreviousstudentsremainwiththepreviouscourseintheirlistingbecauseit'snot
beenexpired
Theotheroptionistocleanthecourseup:
removeallstudentsfromcourse
removealluselessforums
removealluselesswikipages
haveyourpreviousstudentsremainwithoutanyaccesstothecoursetheytooklastyear
Withasession,youchangehowitworksalittle:
youdefineasessionthatspansthewholesemesterfromJanuary2011toJuly2011
youregister10coursestoit
youregisterteachersresponsibleforthesecourses
youregisterstudentsinthesession
Thisbringsthefollowingadvantages:
teacherscanaddcontentstothebasiccoursesregistered,buttheycannotremovefromthem,
andwhattheyaddisonlyvisibletotheirstudents
studentsmustonlyberegisteredoncetothewhole10courses
11August2011
Page68/105
students will still have access to these courses after the semester is finished, but these
courseswillappearintheirsessionhistory,whichisonanotherpage
whenyouchecktheresultsortheforums,youwillneverhavetodifferentiategroupsof
studentsmixingupinsideyourcourse,becauseyouselectedaspecificsessiontoreview
7.1.2Personaltutoring
Let'ssayyouworkinaprivatecollegeandmoststudentshavearighttopersonaltutoring.Theycan
followprerecordedaudiocoursesattheirpaceandhaveanassignedtutorwhichisavailableto
thematanypreagreedtime.
Withoutsessions,youwouldhaveonecoursesharingseveraltutorsandseveralstudents,andeach
tutorwouldsharethespacewithothersandwouldseetheresultsofstudentsheisn'tinchargeof.
Worst,hecouldevenmodifytheresultsofastudentsheisn'tinchargeof...
Withthesessions,simplydefineonenewsessionperstudent.Registerthecourseshehasaccessto
andhisowncoachtothesession.Bothstudentandcoachwillnowbeabletoworkinanisolated
virtualspace.
7.1.3Corporateinductioncourses
Youworkasacompany'shumanresourcesmanager,andthenewguys(5newemployees)come
inandhavetofollowtheinductiondrill,whichconsistsof7small,4hvideocourses,followedby
anexam.Someofthem,however,aregoingtoworkonthefactoryfloor,wheresecurityregulations
differ from office regulations. This means 5 courses out of 6 will be identical for the 5 new
employees,while3willhaveafactoryfloorsecuritycourse,and2willhavetheofficefloor
securitycourse.
Inaddition,thisisrepeatedeverymonth...
Becauseyour6coursesareallset,youjusthavetoassignthenewbiestothesecourses.However,
yourmanagementalsorequiresyoutobeabletogeneratestatisticsonhowwellthenewemployees
passedthetests.
Inanormalsituation,youwouldstackupstudentsintothe7differentcourses,andrepeatthe
followingmonth.However,asyourrequirementsaretokeeptrackoftheprogressofthewhole
employeedatabaseovertime,youwanttoinsertatimeelementhere.Also,becausesomeemployees
arefactoryworkers(well,notreally,buttheydoworkalotonthefactoryfloor)andothersare
officeworkers,you'llwanttoconfigureasessiondedicatedtofactory,andanothertooffice.
Justcreateafactory20117andanoffice20117sessions,addyourcoursestoit,thenregister
theemployeesand...you'redone.Youcanevenusethe promotions feature(inthenextpages)to
copythissessioneverymonth.Thisreducesmanagement,improvesreadabilityoftheresultsand
allowsyouremployeestoaccesstheinductioncourseswhenevertheywant,withjustasingleclick,
whilestillattendingnewcoursesevery3monthswithouthavingtheseoldcoursesintheway.
11August2011
Page69/105
7.2Managingthesessions
Managingthesessionscanbedonewithmostlyfamiliaricons,andafewnewones...
Icons
Features
Updatethesettings/detailsofasession
Removeasession(afterconfirmation)
Subscribeuserstoasession
Addcoursestoasession
Addasessiontoacategory
Table1:AdministrationSessionmanagementicons
7.3Addasession
Toaddasession:
gotoadministration,
coursesessionsAddacoursesession,
giveanametothesession,
assignacoachwhowillhavepermissionstoenterandfollowallthecoursesandlearners
insidethissession,
giveasessioncategory(optional),
definewhetherthereisanexpirytimelimit,
giveafewdaysofadditionalaccessforthecoachestothesession,
definethevisibilityofasessiononceexpired:
readonly(canaccessresourcesbutnotpassexams,answerforums,etc.anymore),
accessible(canbeaccessedfreely,throughthesessionshistorylinkonthecourselist),
notaccessible,
11August2011
Page70/105
Illustration64:AdministrationSessioncreation
clickonNextstep.
Thesecondsteprequiresyoutoregistercoursestothesession.Selectone(ormore)course(s)and
clickonthebluearrowbuttontoaddit(orremoveit)thenclickontheNextstepbuttontoproceed.
Singleregistration allowsyoutonotgetlostwithinexistingcoursesontheplatform.Youmust
writethebeginningofthecoursetitleinsidethesearchfieldandthecorrespondingcourseswill
appear.
Illustration65:AdministrationRegisteringcoursesintoasession
Thelaststepallowsyoutosubscribelearnerstothesession(othercoachescanbeassignedlater,
thisisjustalearnersubscriptionatthispoint).
11August2011
Page71/105
Choosetheusersand,likeforthecourses,addthemwiththebluearrowbutton.
Singleregistrationallowsyoutosearchforoneuser(byfirstnameorlastname).
Enrolmentbyclassesallowsyoutoregisterlearnerstoyoursessionbyclasses.Classesaredefined
inthenextsectionsofthischapter.
Illustration66:AdministrationSubscribingstudentstosessions
Becauseofthespecialbehaviourofcoursetoolswhenusedthroughsessions,wehavewrittena
technicalreportabouthowtheseshouldbehaveinthecontextofasessiononourtechnicalwiki:
http://support.chamilo.org/projects/chamilo18/wiki/Tools_and_sessions
7.4Sessioncategories(orperiods)
Session categories are to be considered as any possible type of session categorisation. In our
experience,however,theyaremostlyfittogroupsessionsgroupedbyperiodsoftime(forexample,
thefirstsemesterof2011).Ofcourse,thetypeoftimeperiodsdependsontheorganisationusing
Chamilo.Sometimesquarter,sometimessemester,sometimesmonthoryear.
Themanagementofsessioncategoriesisverysimilartothemanagementofcoursecategories,so
wewon'tgetintothedetailshere.Theonlythingtoknowisthatthedatesofsessionscategoriesare
purelyinformationalanddonotbearanysignificanceintermsofbehaviouroftheplatform.
11August2011
Page72/105
7.5Exportsessionlist
Chamiloallowsyoutoexportalistofsomeorallofthesessionsdefinedontheplatform.
Illustration67:AdministrationExportingsessions
Choosetheexportformat,chooseafilterforthesessions,clickExportsession(s)anddownloadthe
file.
7.6Copyfromcourseinsessiontoanothersession
Giventhepossibilitytodefinecontentsinacoursethroughasessionandgiventhefactthatthis
contentswillonlybevisiblewithinthissession,youwillsometimesneedtocopythatsession
specificcontentstoanothersessioncontainingthesamecourse...andthisisexactlywhatthistool
does.
Touseit,youmusthaveanoriginandadestinationsession,inwhichyoucanfindthesamecourse,
fromandtowhichyouwishtocopythecontentsofthesession.
11August2011
Page73/105
Illustration68:Copyingcoursecontentsfromsessiontosession
Oncetheseconditionsaremet,you'lljusthavetoselectthesessionoforigin,thecourseoforigin,
thesessionofdestinationandthecourseofdestination,thendecidewhetheryouwantallsession
specificcontentstobecopiedoronlysomeofthem.
Note:thistoolisstillinbetaversion.Werecommendyouuseitwithcautionandyoucountercheckitdoes
whatyouexpected.
7.7Moveusers'resultsfrom/toasession
In the case you wanted to move from a sessionfree mode to a session mode, you might (in
exceptional cases) want to move a specific students' tracking data from a coursecontext to a
sessioncontext.This(stillunstable)toolhasbeenwrittenexactlyforthat.
Itsinterfaceiscomplexbutrelativelyselfexplaining.Ifyouhavedoubts,werecommendyoutake
backups,actcautiouslyandmaybecontactanofficialChamiloprovidertotakecareofit...
7.8Careersandpromotions
CareersandpromotionsaretwonewconceptsinChamilo1.8.8.Theyallowyoutomanagecareers
(likeMedicineorSoftwareengineering)andpromotions(likeMedicine,graduationof2017)
almostthesamewayyouwouldmanagetheminaregularacademicalinstitutiononceyoucombine
themwithsessionsandperiods(i.e.categoriesofsessions).
Theinterfaceofthetoolisstillabitroughontheedges,anditwilltakeyousometimeatfirstto
findyourway,butitisstableandyoushouldbeabletouseiteasilyafterafewminutesofpractice.
Let'sseehowit'sdone...
11August2011
Page74/105
Illustration69:Listofcareersandpromotions
Thefirstpagegivesusalistofcareers(greybackgroundline),ofpromotionsthateachcareer
contains(firstcolumn),ofsessionsregisteredtothesepromotions(secondcolumn)andofcourses
includedintothesesessions(lastcolumn).
7.8.1Careers
Toaddanewcareer,clickonthetricolourfoldersicon.Thefollowingpageappears.
Illustration70:Careercreationform
11August2011
Page75/105
Onlythecareernameismandatory.Addanewcareer(e.g.Medicine)andsave.Thelistofcareers
appearswithanentryforthecareeryoujustcreated.
Illustration71:Careerslist
Thislisthighlightsadoublewhitepageiconthatallowsyoutocopyacompletecareerandcreatea
newone.Thecopyofacareeralsocopiesthewholeunderlyingstructure(promotions,sessionsand
courses)silently,whichmakesitahugelypowerfultoolforadministration.
To better understand the complete structure, including careers and promotions, let's try and
representthemonthefollowingdiagram.
Illustration72:Courses,sessions,promotionsandcareers
Ofalltheentitiesatplayhere,onlyperiods(categoriesofsessions)andpromotionsaddatthesame
level(theygroupsessionstogetherunderaspecificconcept).Ifyoutakeperiodsoutoftheequation
forawhile,thediagramisprobablyeasiertounderstand.
11August2011
Page76/105
7.8.2Promotions
Theonlytwodifferencesbetweencareersandpromotionsisthatapromotioncanbeincludedtoa
career,whileacareercannotincludesessionsdirectly.Creatingapromotiononceyouhavecreated
acareeristhenveryeasy.
Illustration73:Promotioncreationform
Thecreationofpromotionsisfollowedbytheregistrationofsessionswithinthesepromotions,
usingthesessionsiconforeachpromotioninthelistofpromotions.
Onethenobtainsalistsimilartothefollowing(alreadyshowbefore).
Illustration74:Careersandpromotionslist
Onthispage,weseeour Medicine career,withits3promotions,onesessionineachpromotion
previousto2015andthelistofcoursesofeachsession.Eachelementisalinktothecorresponding
resource.
11August2011
Page77/105
7.8.3Copy
Copyingpromotionsorcareersismadebyusingthelistsofcareersorpromotions,byusinga
doublepapersheetshapedicon.
Note:fornow,thecopyofcoursesisahardcopy,whichmeansyoumightlooseconsiderablediskspaceby
copyinganentirecareer.Anothermodeisavailable(notyetenabled)tosoftcopythecoursesthroughthe
sessions(useofthesamecoursesthroughanothersession,whichisjustwhatsessionshavebeen
designedfor).
7.8.4Usecase
Let'simagineyourinstitutionofferstwocareers:medicineandveterinary.Thesetwocareerslast5
yearseach.YouareinAugust2011,preparingtheclassesthatwillstartinSeptember2011.
From year one (2011), you create promotion 2016 for both medicine (PROMMED2016) and
veterinary(PROMVET2016).
Let'sreusethepreviousdiagramasareference:
Illustration 75: Courses, sessions,

promotionsandcareers
Thesetwopromotionswillbetheresultof5yearsofstudy(let'sagreethattheminimumperiodof
courseisoneyear).Youwillthushave5periodsofoneyeareach,whichleadtoapromotionin
2016.
Theseperiodsarefixedandcanthusbesharedbetweenthetwocareers.Inyourplatform,theseare
categoriesofsessions,whichyouwillnamerespectively20112012,20122013,20132014,2014
2015,and20152016.
Ofcourse,youcangivethemothernames,asyouwouldprefertoseethemappear.Periodsare
simplyclassificationsbasedontimeinformation.Nothingmore.Theyaren'tusedtosortanything
either.
11August2011
Page78/105
Within each period, your teachers will teach classes. Some courses are common to both the
medicineandtheveterinarycareers,suchasthegeneralbiologycourse(BIOGEN),butthecourse
coacheswhowillbeteachingstillteachthesestudentsinseparategroupsdependingonthecareer
(that'sjustamatterofspaceintheclassroom,really).
Ifacourseistaughtseveralyearsinarowwithalmostnomodification,youdon'twantstudents'
resultsfromthepreviousyeartostackintothecoursehistory.You'dliketohaveaclearviewonthis
year'sstudents.
Thisiswhyyouuseasession.Thissessionwillcoveroneacademicyearandgroupofstudentsfrom
the2016promotionofveterinary(PROVET2016),fortheperiod20112012.
Thesestudentswillalsoattendcaninebiology,medicalethicsandmedicallawcourses.Thisiswhy
you'dliketoreusethisstructureinotheroccasions.
Soyouhaveallthevariablesrequiredtoestablishthecompletestructure:
1. createacareer(VET)
2. createapromotion(PROMVET2016)
3. createaperiod(20112)
4. createorselectthecoursesforthis promotionin2011(BIOGEN,BIOCAN,ETHMED,
DROMED)
5. createasessionthatcontainsthesecourses(VET20112AAA)
6. subscribeasessioncoach,whowilldealwithcoordination
7. subscribeacoursecoachforeachcourseinthissession,theywillhelpwithpractice
8. finally,subscribethestudentstothesession
Thisway,youallowyourstudentstohaveaccesstotheircurrentcourses,andalsotohaveaccess
laterontotheirpreviouscourseshistory(visibilitydependsonsessionsettings).
Ontheadministrativeside,youhavethewholeacademicstructureandyou'llbeabletoreplicatethe
wholepromotioninonlyoneclickwhenyoustartthefollowingyear...
7.9Classes
Classesareagroupofusers(usuallystudents).Thesegroupscanbeassignedcoursesorsessions,so
thatallthegroupusersaresubscribedpersonallytothesecoursesorsessions.
Similarly,whenyouunsubscribetheclassfromacourseorasession,eachoftheclassuserswillbe
unsubscribedindividuallyfromthecourseorsession.
Note:before1.8.8,therewasalreadyaconceptofclass(slightlydifferent),whichwasmutuallyexclusive
withthesessiontool.Sinceversion1.8.8,itispossibletouseclassesincombinationwithsessions.
Theclassesinterfaceisprettybasic.Thelistofclassesisemptyatfirst.Toaddaclass,justclickthe
starredicon.
11August2011
Page79/105
Illustration76:AdministrationClassesEmptylist
Thecreationofaclassrequiresonlyanameandanoptionaldescription.
Youthencomebacktothelistofclassestoadduserstothem(throughtheusersicon).
Illustration77:AdministrationClassesAddingusers
Theuserssubscriptionscreenissimilartootheruserssubscriptionscreenyou'veseenbefore.
Oncetheusershavebeenadded,youcansubscribetheclasstooneormorecourses,andtooneor
moresessions.
Illustration78:AdministrationClassesAddingcourses
11August2011
Page80/105
Illustration79:AdministrationClassesAddingsessions
Notethat,asthesessionslogicdictates,aclassshouldneverbesubscribedtoacourse and toa
session(containingthiscourse),otherwiseyoumightendupconfusingthestudent(andprobably
theteacher)withduplicatedaccessesinandoutofasession.
11August2011
Page81/105
Chapter8.Globalfeatures
8.1MultiURL
Chamilohides(withinitsmanytreasures)adiscretebutpracticalfeatureincaseyouuseyour
Chamilo platform for several categories of users, for which you have to consider making the
platformavailablewithaseconddomainname,anothervisualaspectandapreselectionofonlya
fewusersandcourses.Anindependentspacesharingsomeofitscontentsandallofitscode,ifyou
will.
8.1.1UsecaseUniversityfaculties
Imaginethe12collegesofyouruniversitywanttoshowtheirplatformunderadistinctappearance
(eachonewantsitsownvariationofthelogointheheaderandaslightlydifferentbackground
colour).Furthermore,eachoneofthemhasitsownteachers,who,andIquote,sometimeshaveto
giveacourseinmorethanonecollege.Studentsarealsostudentsfromonesinglecollege(onlya
fewexceptionalcasearenot).Finally,coursesaredifferent,exceptinspecificcasesforvery
generalcourses...
8.1.2UsecaseCorporatebranding
Imagineyourcompanyoffershealthandsafetycoursesforseveralcustomers.Imaginethatoneof
yourcustomersisCocaColaandtheotherisPepsi.Maybeyoudon'twantthesetwocustomers
toknowyouaresellingthemthesamecourseorthatyouareusingthesameplatformtoteachthem.
Ofcourse,youwouldliketobeabletoreusethesamecourse(soasnottodoubletheworkload),
butwithoutyourlearnersseeingcontributionsfromthelearnersoftheothercompany...
8.1.3Thesolution
WecallthissolutionmultiURL.ByenablingmultiURL,youenablethefollowingmechanism:
youusethesamesourcecode(solessmaintenance)
youusethesamedatabase(solessduplicationofdata)
onemasterplatform(whichisnotuseddirectlybyyourcustomers)allowsyoutodefine
slaveportals
eachcourseiscreatedinsideaslaveplatform,andisonlyvisibleinsidethisslaveplatform
eachuseriscreatedinsideaslaveplatform,isonlyvisibleinsidethisplatformandhas
onlyaccesstothisplatform
eachslaveplatformusesadifferentdomainname(oradifferentsubdomain)
eachplatformcanuseitsowngraphicstyle
one (or more) administrator can be assigned to each slave platform. This administrator
doesn'thaveaccesstoglobalsettings,neithertotheusersandcoursesofotherportals
onesessioncanuseaglobalcourse,buteachsessiononlyexistsinaoneandonlyplatform
Usingthesamedatabase,youbenefitfromtheseextrafeatures:
11August2011
Page82/105
onecoursecanbemadeglobalandbeusedthroughsessionsonalltheslaveportals
oneuser(learner,teacheroradministrator)canbegivenaccesstootherportalsbytheglobal
administrator
8.1.4Installation
ToconfigurethemultiURLmode,youwillneed
accesstoyourwebserverconfiguration
accesstothedefinitionofyourdomainnames
accesstotheChamiloconfigurationfile
Theinstallationprocessisasfollows
updatemain/inc/conf/configuration.phpbyremovingthecommentsmarkerbeforetheline:
$_configuration['multiple_access_urls']=true;
addSiteAliasdirectivesinsideyourApacheVirtualHost
definedomainorsubdomainnames(DNS)sotheypointtoyourserver
addline1,1inyouraccess_url_rel_usertable
gototheChamiloadminpageandfollowthelinkMultipleURLportals
redefineyourmainURL(replacelocalhost)andaddthedesiredsubportals,thenaddand
enablealocaladministratorineachofthem
Illustration80:AdministrationMultiURLs
8.2Videoconference
Aspreviouslyindicatedinthe plugins sectionofthisguide(seechapter 4.1.15 onpage 38),the
videoconferencetoolisnotdeliveredtogetherwithChamilo.Youcaneasilyinstallitandlink
ChamilotoitthankstotheBigBlueButtonplugin,butthisrequiresadedicatedserver(oratleasta
serverdedicatedtosomethingthatisnotcritical).
Toinstallthe BigBlueButton videoconferenceserver,werecommendyoufollowtheinstructions
fromtheprojecthomepage:http://code.google.com/p/bigbluebutton/wiki/InstallationUbuntu
11August2011
Page83/105
Once the videoconference installed and functional, you will have to know the public URL
(sometimesjustanIPaddress)andthesecretkey.
You will find the secret key in /var/lib/tomcat6/webapps/bigbluebutton/WEB
INF/classes/bigbluebutton.properties(lookforSalt).
Oncethesetwopiecesofinformationareinyourpossession,gototheChamilosettings, Plugins
section. Enable the BigBlueButton plugin and save. Reload the page so that the new Extra
categoryofsettingsappearsintheactionbaratthetopofthepage(amagicwand)andclickonit.
Enteryourvideoconferenceserverinformation.Nowyoujustneedtochecktheintegrationby
goingintoacourseandclickingtheVideoconferencelink.
Courseteachersandcoachesaretheonlyoneswhocan start avideoconferenceroom.Theyare
alsotheonlyonestohavethemoderatorstatusinChamilo.
Learners cannot connect to videoconference if their teacher has previously started a room
(otherwise,clickingonthevideoconferencelinkwilljustreloadthecoursehomepage).
Ifyoucan'tinstallit,don'thesitatetocontacttheChamilo'sofficialproviders 13whowillgladlyrent
youanaccesstotheirpreconfiguredvideoconferenceservers.
8.3ChamiloRapid
ThePowerPointorImpresspresentationsconversiontolearningpathsisrelativelycomplexto
installtherightway.There'sonlyoneknownshortcut:installanOpenOffice.orgversion3andthe
screencommand.
sudosofficenologonofirststartwizardheadlessnorestoreinvisible
accept=socket,host=localhost,port=2002,tcpNoDelay=1;urp;
Anyfinerexplanationwouldlargelybeoutofthecontextofthisguide,butthisrecipeworkswellon
Ubuntuserver.
Note:theinstallationofthevideoconferenceserveralreadyincludestheinstallationoftheOpenOffice.org
serveronport8100,soifyouhaveinstalledit,youwon'tneedthecommandabove.JustconfigureChamilo
tousethepresentationconversionserverfromport8100.
Ifyou'restuckwiththeinstallationofthisservice,don'thesitatetoaskoneofourofficialproviders
togiveyouahandorrentyouoneoftheirpreconfiguredservers.
11August2011
Page84/105
8.4Updatestylesheets
Asmentionedinsection4.1.13Stylesheetsonpage36,theChamilostylescanbeupdatedthrougha
simplecopyofanyoftheexistingstyleslocatedinchamilo/main/css/.You'llfindaseriesofstyle
directoriesinthisdirectory,e.g. chamilo_green,whichcanbecopied,renamedandmodifiedat
wish.Totestthem,justgotothe Stylesheets sectionofyourplatformconfigurationpage,upload
yourstyleasa.zipfileandselecttheuploadedstyle,thensave.
11August2011
Page85/105
Chapter9.Appendix
9.1Frequentlyaskedquestions
9.1.1Sendingemailsfromtheplatformdoesn'twork
UnderWindows,youarerequiredtoconfigurethemain/inc/conf/mail.conf.phpfiletouseanSMTP
server.Thefileisquiteunderstandable.IfyouuseanSMTPserverwithauthentication,configure
smtp_authto1anddefineauserandapassword.IfyouuseanopenSMTPserver,setsmtp_authto
0.
UnderGNU/Linux,youcanchoosetouseanSMTPserverlikeunderWindows.Alternatively,if
yourbrowserallowsit,youcanusealocalmailserver.ToconfigureoneunderUbuntu,youcan
followthedocumentationontheBeezNestblog:http://beeznest.wordpress.com/?s=
exim4
9.2Configurationsettingslist
Title
Description
Default
Platform
Organization
name
Thenameoftheorganization(appearsintheheaderonthe
right)
Organization
The URL of the institutions (the link that appears in the
URL
(web headerontheright)
address)
Elearning
platformname
TheNameofyourChamiloplatform(appearsintheheader)
platform
TheemailaddressofthePlatformAdministrator(appearsin
Administrator: E thefooterontheleft)
mail
platform
Administrator:
LastName
TheFamilyNameofthePlatformAdministrator(appearsin
thefooterontheleft)
platform
Administrator:
FirstName
TheFirstNameofthePlatformAdministrator(appearsinthe
footerontheleft)
Platform
Show the Information of the Platform Administrator in the
Administrator
footer?
Information in
footer
11August2011
Page86/105
Session's tutor's Show the session tutor reference (name and email if
data is shown in available)inthefooter?
thefooter.
Show teacher Show the teacher's contact details (name and email if
information in available)inthefooter?
footer
ServerType
What sort of server is this? This enables or disables some

specificoptions.Onadevelopmentserverthereisatranslation
featurefunctionalthatindicatesuntranslatedstrings
Who'sOnline
Displaythenumberofpersonsthatareonline?
Registration
Isregistrationasanewuserallowed?Canuserscreatenew Yes
accounts?
Registration as Can one register as a trainer (with the ability to create Yes
Trainer
training)?
Lostpassword
Areusersallowedtorequesttheirlostpassword?
Display Code in DisplayTrainingCodeintraininglist

Trainingname
Displaytrainerin Displaytrainerintraininglist
trainingname
platform
Administrator:
Telephone
Theplatformadministrator'stelephonenumber
Enable learner Enabletheuserview,whichallowsatraineroradmintoseea Yes

view
trainingasaparticipantoruserwouldseeit
Pageafterlogin
Thepagewhichisseenbytheuserenteringtheplatform
Time limit on Thistimelimitdefinesforhowmanysecondsafterhislast

WhoIsOnline
actionauserwillbeconsidered*online*
Examplematerial Createexamplematerialautomaticallywhencreatinganew
on training course
creation
Accountvalidity
Auseraccountisvalidforthisnumberofdaysaftercreation
Use training Trainingsessionsgiveadifferentwayofdealingwithtraining, Yes

sessions
where training have an author, a coach and learners. Each
coach gives a training for a set period of time, called a
*trainingsession*,toasetoflearnerswhodonotmixwith
otherlearnergroupsattachedtoanothertrainingsession.
Show
addresses
email Showemailaddressestousers
Show training Showthenumberoftrainingineachcategoryinthetraining

11August2011
Page87/105
number
categoriesonthehomepage
Show empty Show the categories of training on the homepage, even if

training
they'reempty
categories
Show back links Showalinktogobacktothetraininghierarchy.Alinkis
from
availableatthebottomofthelistanyway.
categories/trainin
g
Show training Showthelanguageforeachtraining,nexttothetrainingtitle,
languages
onthehomepagetraininglist
Display
This option will display or hide training categories on the
categories on platformhomepage
homepage
Tabs in the Checkthetabsyouwanttoseeappearintheheader.The
header
uncheckedtabswillappearontherighthandsidemenuonthe
platform homepage and my training page if these need to
appear
Noreply email Thisistheemailaddresstobeusedforsendinganemail
address
specifically requesting that no answer be sent in return.
Usually, this email address should be configured on your
servertodrop/ignoreanyincomingemail.
User
selection
theme Allowuserstoselecttheirownvisualthemeintheirprofile.
ThiswillchangethelookofChamiloforthem,butwillleave
intactthedefaultstyleoftheplatform.Ifaspecificcourseor
sessionhasaspecificthemeassigned,itwillhavepriorityover
userdefinedthemes.
Display closed Displayclosedtrainingontheloginpageandtrainingstart

training on login page?Ontheplatformstartpageaniconwillappearnextto
pageandplatform thetrainingtoquicklysubscribetothetraining.Thiswillonly
startpage?
appearontheplatformstartpagewhentheuserisloggedin
andwhentheuserisnotsubscribedtotheplatformyet.
Show session Showtheglobalsessioncoachnameinsessiontitleboxinthe
coach
traininglist
Allownonadmin Allownonadministrators(trainers)tocreatenewtrainingin
tocreatetraining theplatform
Learners access Allowlearnerstobrowsethetrainingcatalogueandsubscribe
to
training toavailabletraining
catalogue
Enabletermsand This option will display the Terms and Conditions in the
conditions
registerformfornewusers
11August2011
Page88/105
Email alert, of Sendanemailtotheadministratoroftheplatform,eachtimea

creation a new teacherregistersanewcourse
course
Show link to Showalinkintheheadertoreportabuginsideofoursupport
reportbug
platform (http://support.chamilo.org). When clicking on the
link,theuserissenttothesupportplatform,onawikipage
thatdescribesthebugreportingprocess.
Training
validation
When"Trainingvalidation"featureisactivated,ateacheris
notabletocreateatrainingbyhimself.He/shefillsatraining
request.The platform administratorreviewstherequestand
approvesorrejectsit.
Thisfeaturereliesonautomatedemailmessages;setChamilo
to access an email server and to use a dedicated email
account.
Training
ThisistheURLtothe"TermsandConditions"documentthat
validationalink isvalidformakingatrainingrequest.Iftheaddresshereisset,
to the terms and before sending a training request the user should read and
conditions
agree with these terms and conditions.
IfyouactivateChamilo'smodule"TermsandConditions"and
ifyouwantitsURLtobeused,thenleavethissettingempty.
Enable
Byenablingthisoption,youcanuploadanimageoratextthat
watermark in willbeautomaticallyaddedaswatermarktoallPDFexports
PDFexport
ofdocumentsonthesystem.
Enable
watermark
definition
course
by
Whenthisoptionisenabled,teachers candefinetheirown
watermarkforthedocumentsintheircourses.
PDF watermark This text will be added as a watermark to the documents

text
exportsasPDF.
Show classes to Showclassestousers.Classesareafeaturethatallowyouto
users
register/unregistergroupsofusersintoasessionoracourse
directly, reducing the administrative hassle. When you pick
thisoption,learnerswillbeabletoseeinwhichclasstheyare
throughtheirsocialnetworkinterface.
Font resize Enablethisoptiontoshowasetoffontresizeoptionsonthe
accessibility
top righthand side of your campus. This will allow the
feature
visuallyimpairedtoreadtheircoursecontentsmoreeasily.
Hide course list Whenshowingthesessionblockinyourcoursepage,hidethe
insessions
listofcoursesinsidethatsession(onlyshowtheminsidethe
specificsessionscreen).
Courses
11August2011
Page89/105
Training
Howwouldyoulikethehomepageofatrainingtolook?
homepagedesign
Toolsshortcuts
Showthetoolshortcutsinthebanner?
Groupcategories AllowtrainerstocreatecategoriesintheGroupstool?
Defaultharddisk Whatistheavailablediskspace?Youcanoverridethequota 100000000
space
for specific training through: platform administration >
Training>modify
Groupdiskspace What is the default hard disk space available for a group 5000000
available
documentstool?
Allow users Canatrainerdefinelearnerprofilefieldstoretrieveadditional
profiling inside information?
training
Display training Displayanavigationmenuforquickaccesstothetools
navigationmenu
Enable tool Enableintroductionsoneachtoolhomepage
introduction
Training
homepage
breadcrumb
The breadcrumb is the horizontal links navigation system

usuallyatthetopleftofyourpage.Thisoptionselectswhat
youwanttoappearinthebreadcrumboncoursehomepages
Default forum Whatshouldbethedefaultoptionwhencreatinganewforum.

view
Any trainer can however choose a different view for every
individualforum
Survey email Shouldthesurveyinvitationsusethecoachemailaddressor
sender(noreply) the noreply address defined in the main configuration
section?
Allow training Allows training graphical themes and makes it possible to
themes
changethestylesheetusedbyatrainingtoanyofthepossible
style sheets available to Chamilo. When a user enters the
training,thestylesheetofthetrainingwillhavepriorityover
theuser'sownstylesheetandtheplatformdefaultstylesheet.
Show session Showsessiondatacomment
datatitle
Show glossary Fromhereyoucanconfigurehowtoaddlinkstotheglossary
terms
in termsfromthedocuments
documents
Showthecourses Show the course descriptions as an integrated popup when
descriptions in clickingonacourseinfoiconinthecoursecatalogue
thecatalogue
Allowcoachesto Allowcoachestoeditinsidetrainingsessionscomment
edit
inside
11August2011
Page90/105
trainingsessions
Show
the Fromhereyoucanconfigurehowtoaddtheglossarytermsin
glossaryterms in extratoolsaslearningpathandexercisetool
extratools
Godirectlytothe Whenauseris registeredinonecourse,godirectlytothe
courseafterlogin courseafterlogin
Minimum score Defineaminimumscore(usually0)foralltheexerciseson
ofexercises
theplatform.Thiswilldefinehowfinalresultsareshownto
usersandteachers.
Maximum score Defineamaximumscore(generally10,20or100)forallthe
ofexercises
exercisesontheplatform.Thiswilldefinehowfinalresults
areshowntousersandteachers.
Enable
scenario
Quiz Fromhereyouwillbeabletocreateexercisesthatpropose
differentquestionsdependingontheuser'sanswers.
Languages
platform
Language
Hide
Markup
Youcandeterminetheplatformlanguagesinadifferentpart
of the platform administration, namely: Chamilo Platform
Languages
DLTT Hidethe[=...=]markupwhenalanguagevariableisnot Yes
translated
Characterset
Thecharactersetiswhatpilotsthewayspecificlanguagescan UTF8
be displayed in Chamilo. If you use Russian or Japanese
characters,forexample,youmightwanttochangethis.Forall
English,LatinandWesternEuropeancharacters,thedefault
ISO885915shouldbefine.
Allow definition Byenablingthisoption,youwillbeabletodefinevariations

and use of sub foreachofthelanguagetermsusedintheplatforminterface,
languages
in the form of a new language based on and extending an
existing language. You'll find this option in the language
sectionoftheadministrationpanel.
Users
Profile
Whichpartsoftheprofilecanbechanged?
Registration:
requiredfields
Whichfieldsarerequired(besidesname,firstname,loginand
password)
PersonalAgenda CanthelearneraddpersonaleventstotheAgenda?
Extendedprofile
If this setting is set to 'True', a user can fill in following

(optional) fields: 'Mycompetences', 'My diplomas', 'What I
amabletoteach'and'Mypersonalopenarea'
Extended profile Whichofthefollowingfieldsoftheextendedprofilehaveto
11August2011
Page91/105
fields
registration
in beavailableintheuserregistrationprocess?Thisrequiresthe
extendedprofiletobeactivated(seeabove).
Required
Which of the following fields of the extended profile are
extended profile requiredintheuserregistrationprocess?Thisrequires the
fields
in extended profile to be activated and the field to be also

registration
availableintheregistrationform(seeabove).
Modules
Modules active Whichtoolshavetobeactivated(visible)bydefaultwhena
upon training newtrainingiscreated?
creation
Useatitleforthe Thiswillallowtheuseofatitlefordocumentnamesinstead Yes
documentname ofdocument_name.ext
Deleted files Deletingafileinthedocumentstoolpermanentlydeletesit. No
cannot
be Thefilecannotberestored
restored
Drop box: Can Can the original document be overwritten when a user or
documents be traineruploadsadocumentwiththenameofadocumentthat
overwritten
already exist? If you answer yes then you loose the
conversioningmechanism.
Drop
box: Howbig(inbytes)canadropboxdocumentbe?
Maximum file
size of a
document
100000000
Dropbox:Upload Allowtrainersanduserstouploaddocumentstotheirdrop
to own drop box boxwithoutsendingthedocumentstothemselves
space?
Drop
box: Allowuserstosenddocumentstootherusers(peer2peer).
Learner <> Usersmightusethisforlessrelevantdocumentsalso(mp3,
Learner
testssolutions,...).Ifyoudisablethisthentheuserscansend
documentstothetraineronly.
Drop box: allow Userscansendfilestogroups
group
Drop box: Allow Withthemailingfunctionenabledyoucansendeachlearnera
mailing
personaldocument
Active online Ifthisoptionisactivated,clickingonanemailaddresswill No
emaileditor
openanonlinemaileditor.
Displaythesmall This settingenables ordisablesthesmallmonthlycalendar
monthcalendarin thatappearsintheleftcolumnoftheagendatool
theagendatool
Display
the This setting enables or disables the upcoming events that

11August2011
Page92/105
upcoming events appearsintheleftcolumnoftheagendatoolofthecourse

intheagendatool
Number of Thenumberofupcomingeventsthathavetobedisplayedin
upcoming events theagenda.Thisrequirestheupcomingeventfunctiontobe
that have to be activatedactivated(seesettingabove).
displayed.
Booking
The bookingsystem allows youtobookresources foryour No

training(rooms,tables,books,screens,...).Youneedthistool
tobeenabled(throughtheAdmin)tohaveitappearintheuser
menu.
Internal
messagingtool
Enabling the internal messaging tool allows users to send Yes

messages to other users of the platform and to have a
messaginginbox.
Social network Thesocialnetworktoolallowsuserstodefinerelationships Yes

tool (Facebook withotherusersand,bydoingso,todefinegroupsoffriends.
like)
Combinedwiththeinternalmessagingtool,thistoolallows
tight communication with friends, within the platform
environment.
Allowstudentsto Allow students to pack and download a complete directory
download
fromthedocumenttool
directories
Allow users to Allowsuserstocopyfilesfromacourseinyourpersonalfile
copyfilesfroma area,visiblethroughtheSocialNetworkorthroughtheHTML
course in your editorwhentheyareoutofacourse
personalfilearea
Allow users to Allowuserstocreategroupsinsocialnetwork
create groups in
socialnetwork
Allow send Allowsendingmessagetoalltheplatformusers
message to all
platformusers
Max upload file Maximum size for file uploads in the messaging tool (in
sizeinmessages Bytes)
Create and edit This option allows you to create and edit SVG (Scalable
SVGfiles
VectorGraphics)multilayeronline,aswellasexportthemto
PNGformatimages.
Allowstudentsto This feature is enabled by default, but in case of server
export web overload,orspecificlearningenvironments,youmightwantto
documents to disableitforallthecourses.
PDFformatinthe
documents and
11August2011
Page93/105
wikitools
Show users This option allows you to show or hide from teachers the
folders in the foldersthatthesystemgeneratesforeachuservisitingthetool
documentstool
documentsorsendingafilethroughthewebeditor.[...]
Show
in Multimedia file folders containing files supplied by default

documents tool organized in categories of video, audio, image and flash
all
folders animations to use in their courses. Although you make it

containing
invisible into the document tool, you can still use these
multimedia
resourcesintheplatformwebeditor.
resources
supplied by
default
Show the history Thiswillshowtheteacherthefolderthatcontainsallthechat
folder of chat sessionsthattookplace,theteachercanmakethemvisibleor
conversations
nottostudentsandusethemasaresource
Enable online Online tool toconverttext intospeech.Uses texttospeech
services
to systemsandtechnologytoprovidevoiceresources.
conversiontextin
audio
Hide tools from Checkthetoolsyouwanttohidefromteachers.Thiswillnot
teachers
prohibitaccesstothetool(nosecuritypurpose),butwillmake
itinvisiblefortheteachersinordertoavoidconfusion(with
toomanytoolsusabilitypurpose).
Enable external Pixlr allow you to edit, adjust and filter your photos with
Pixlrservices
featuressimilartoPhotoshop.Itistheidealcomplementto
processimagesbasedonbitmaps
Activate recorder Nanogongisarecordervoiceplayerthatallowsyoutorecord
voice player yourvoiceandsendittotheplatformordownloaditintoyour
Nanogong
hard drive. It also lets you play what you recorded. The
studentsonlyneedamicrophoneandspeakers,andacceptthe
loadappletwhenfirstloaded.Itisveryusefulforlanguage
learnerstolistentotheirvoiceafterlisteningtothecorrect
pronunciationproposedbyteacherinawavormp3voicefile.
HTMLEditor
Public pages WAI(WebAccessibilityInitiative)isaninitiativetomakethe
compliance to web more accessible. By selecting this option, the public
WAI
pages of Chamilo will become more accessible. This also
meansthatsomecontentsonthepublicpagesoftheplatform
mightappeardifferently.
Advanced file Enable advanced file manager for WYSIWYG editor? This
manager for willaddaconsiderableamountofadditionaloptionstothefile
WYSIWYG
managerthatopensinapopupwindowwhenuploadingfiles
11August2011
Page94/105
editor
totheserver.
mimeTEX
mathematical
editor
EnablemimeTeXmathematicaleditor.Theactivationisnot
fullycompletedifnotpreviouslyinstalledontheserverthe
executableMimeTexfile.SeetheChamiloinstallationguide.
ASCIIMathML
mathematical
editor
EnableASCIIMathMLmathematicaleditor
Mathematical
Activationofmathematicalgraphicseditor(ASCIIsvg).
graphics editor
ASCIIsvg
Load the file Activate this setting if you want to show ASCIIMathML
ASCIIMathML.js based mathematical formulas and ASCIIsvgbased
inallthesystem's mathematicalgraphicsnotonlyinthe"Documents"tool,but
pages
elsewhereinthesystem.
Allowstudentsto EnablethepossibilitythatstudentscaninsertYouTubevideos
insert videos
fromYouTube
Block students BlocktheabilitytocopyandpasteintotheWYSIWYGeditor
copyandpaste
forstudents
Buttons
extended
bar EnablebuttonbarsextendedwhentheWYSIWYGeditoris
maximized
WIRIS
mathematical
editor
EnableWIRISmathematicaleditor.Installingthispluginyou
getWIRISeditorandWIRISCAS.[...]
Spellcheck
Enablespellcheck
Forcing to Wiki Thiswillpreventmanyhidden,incorrectornonstandardtags

to paste as plain copiedfromothertextsfromcorruptingthetextoftheWiki
text
aftermanyissues;butwilllosesomefeatureswhileediting.
Activate Google ActivatethebuttontoinsertGooglemaps.Activationisnot
maps
fully completed if not previously edited the file
main/inc/lib/fckeditor/myconfig.phpandaddedaGooglemaps
APIkey.
Activate Image ActivatethebuttontoinsertImagemaps.Thisallowsyouto
maps
associateURLstoareasofanimage,creatinghotspots.
Allow insertion Thisallowsyoutoembedonyourwebpagesyourfavourite
ofwidgets
videosandapplicationssuchasVimeoorSlideshareandall
sortsofwidgetsandgadgets
Security
Type of filtering Whetheryouwanttousetheblacklistorwhitelistfiltering.
on document Seeblacklistorwhitelistdescriptionbelowformoredetails.
11August2011
Page95/105
uploads
Blacklistsetting Theblacklistisusedtofilterthefilesextensionsbyremoving
(orrenaming)anyfilewhoseextensionfiguresintheblacklist
below.Theextensionsshouldappearwithouttheleadingdot
(.) and separated by semicolumn (;) like the following:
exe;com;bat;scr;php.Fileswithoutanextensionareaccepted.
Lettercasing(uppercase/lowercase)doesn'tmatter.
Whitelistsetting Thewhitelistisusedtofilterthefilesextensionsbyremoving htm;html;jpg;jp
(orrenaming)anyfilewhoseextensiondoes*NOT*figurein eg;gif;png;swf;
thewhitelistbelow.Itisgenerallyconsideredasasaferbut avi;mpg;mpeg;
morerestrictiveapproachtofiltering.Theextensionsshould mov;flv;doc;do
appear without the leading dot (.) and separated by semi cx;xls;xlsx;ppt;
column
(;)
like
the
following: pptx;odt;odp;od
htm;html;txt;doc;xls;ppt;jpg;jpeg;gif;sxw . Files without an s;pdf
extension are accepted. Letter casing (uppercase/lowercase)
doesn'tmatter.
Filtering
behaviour
(skip/rename)
Ifyouchoosetoskip,thefilesfilteredthroughtheblacklistor
whitelistwillnotbeuploadedtothesystem.Ifyouchooseto
rename them, their extension will be replaced by the one
defined in the extension replacement setting. Beware that
renaming doesn't really protect you, and may cause name
collision if several files have the same name but different
extensions.
Replacement
extension
Enter the extension that you want to use to replace the dangerous
dangerousextensionsdetectedbythefilter.Onlyneededifyou
haveselectedafilterbyreplacement.
Permissions for The ability to define the permissions settings to assign to

newdirectories
everynewlycreateddirectoryletsyouimprovesecurityagainst
attacks by hackers uploading dangerous contents to your
platform.Thedefaultsetting(0770)shouldbeenoughtogive
yourserverareasonable protectionlevel.The givenformat
uses the UNIX terminology of OwnerGroupOthers with
ReadWriteExecutepermissions.
Permissions for The ability to define the permissions settings to assign to
newfiles
every newly created file lets you improve security against
attacks by hackers uploading dangerous contents to your
platform.Thedefaultsetting(0550)shouldbeenoughtogive
yourserverareasonable protectionlevel.The givenformat
uses the UNIX terminology of OwnerGroupOthers with
ReadWriteExecutepermissions.IfyouuseOogie,takecare
thatauserlaunchingOpenOfficecanwritefilesinthecourse
folder.
OpenID
Enable the OpenID URLbased authentication (displays an

11August2011
Page96/105
authentication
additionalloginformonthehomepage)
Register users by Coachusersmaycreateusersontheplatformandsubscribe

Coach
userstoasession.
Extend rights for Activating this option will give the coach the same
coach
permissionsasthetraineronauthoringtools
Extend rights for Activatingthis optionwillallowcoachestocreateandedit
coaches on surveys
surveys
Allow User Activatingthisoptionwillallowthecourseadministratorto
Course
subscribeuserstoacourse
Subscription By
Course
Administrator
SingleSignOn
EnablingSingleSignOnallowsyoutoconnectthisplatform
asaslaveofanauthenticationmaster,forexampleaDrupal
websitewiththeDrupalChamilopluginoranyothersimilar
mastersetup.
Domain of the ThedomainoftheSingleSignOnserver(thewebaddressof

Single Sign On the other server that will allow automatic registration to
server
Chamilo).Thisshouldgenerallybetheaddressoftheother
serverwithoutanytrailingslashandwithouttheprotocol,e.g.
www.example.com
Single Sign On The address of the page that deals with the authentication
server
verification.Forexample/?q=userinDrupal'scase.
authentication
URL
Single Sign On Theaddressofthepageontheserverthatlogstheuserout.
server's logout ThisoptionisusefulifyouwantusersloggingoutofChamilo
URL
tobeautomaticallyloggedoutoftheauthenticationserver.
Single Sign On The protocol string to prefix the Single Sign On server's
server'sprotocol domain(werecommendyouusehttps://ifyourserverisable
to provide this feature, as all nonsecure protocols are
dangerousforauthenticationmatters)
Tuning
Split users' Onhighloadportals,wherealotofusersareregisteredand
uploaddirectory sendtheirpictures,theuploaddirectory(main/upload/users/)
mightcontaintoomanyfilesforthefilesystemtohandle(it
has beenreportedwithmorethan36000files onaDebian
server).[...]
Assessments
11August2011
Page97/105
Competence
thresholds
colouring
TicktheboxtoenableCompetencesthresholds
Competence
levelslabelling
TicktheboxtoenableCompetencelevellabelling
Threshold
Thethreshold(in%)underwhichscoreswillbecolouredred
Display score Ticktheboxtoshowtheupperlimitofthescore

upperlimit
Number
decimals
of Allowsyoutosetthenumberofdecimalsallowedinascore
LDAP
Main LDAP TheIPaddressorURLofyourmainLDAPserver.
serveraddress
Main LDAP The port on which the main LDAP server will respond
server'sport.
(usually389).Thisisamandatorysetting.
LDAPdomain
ThisistheLDAPdomain(dc)thatwillbeusedtofindthe
contacts on the LDAP server. For example: dc=xx, dc=yy,
dc=zz
Replicate server When the main server is not available, this server will be
address
accessed. Leave blank or use the same value as the main
serverifyoudon'thaveareplicateserver.
Replicate server's Theportonwhichthereplicateserverwillrespond.
port
Searchterm
Thistermwillbeusedtofilterthesearchforcontactsonthe
LDAPserver.Ifyouareunsurewhattoputinhere,please
refertoyourLDAPserver'sdocumentationandconfiguration.
LDAPversion
PleaseselecttheversionoftheLDAPserveryouwanttouse.
Using the right version depends on your LDAP server's
configuration.
Tutor
identification
field
AcheckwillbedoneonthisLDAPcontactfieldonnewusers
insertion.Ifthisfieldisnotempty,theuserwillbeconsidered
asatutorandinsertedinChamiloassuch.Ifyouwantallyour
userstoberecognisedassimpleusers,leavethisfieldempty.
Youcanmodifythisbehaviourbychangingthecode.Please
readtheinstallationguideformoreinformation.
Authentication
login
If you are using an LDAP server that does not support or

acceptanonymousaccess,fillthefollowingfieldwiththeuser
loginthatshouldbeused.Donotinclude"cn=".Leaveempty
foranonymousaccess.
11August2011
Page98/105
Authentication
password
If you are using an LDAP server that does not support or

acceptanonymousaccess,fillthefollowingfieldwiththeuser
passwordthatshouldbeused.
Tutor
identification
value
Whenacheckisdoneonthetutorfieldgivenabove,thisvalue
hastobeinsideoneofthetutorfieldssubelementsforthe
usertobeconsideredasatrainer.Ifyouleavethisfieldblank,
theonlyconditionisthatthefieldexistsforthisLDAPuserto
beconsideredasatrainer.Asanexample,thefieldcouldbe
"memberof" and the value to search for could be
"CN=G_TRAINER,OU=Trainer".
Timezones
Use users time Enablethepossibilityforuserstoselecttheirowntimezone.
zones
Thetimezonefieldshouldbesettovisibleandmodifiablein
theProfilingmenuintheadministrationsectionbeforeusers
canchoosetheirown.
Timezonevalue
Thisisthetimezoneforthisplatform.Ifleftempty,itwilluse
the server's time zone. If configured, all the times on the
systemwillbeshownbasedonthistimezone.Thissettinghas
a lower priority than the user's time zone, if enabled and
selectedbythe
Search
Fulltextsearch
This feature allows you to index most of the documents No

uploadedtoyourplatform,thenprovideasearchfeaturefor
users.[...]
Stylesheets
Stylesheets
selection
Templates
Templates
management
Plugins
Search
BigBlueButton
Date
Dashboardplugins
Student Graph Displayinformationaboutstudentsinsideplatformwithgraph
Block
Evaluation Graph Displaymaximum,minimumandaverageevaluations about
Block
linksinsideassessmentstool
11August2011
Page99/105
StudentBlock
Displayinformationaboutstudentsinsideplatform
TeacherBlock
Displayinformationaboutteachersinsideplatform
SessionBlock
Displayinformationaboutsessionsinsideplatform
Teacher Graph Displayinformationaboutteachersinsideplatformwithgraph

Block
Gradebook & AccesstoattendancesinaGradebook
Attendances
Gradebook & Displayinformationaboutcoursesinsideplatform
Attendances
Extra(whenBigBlueButtonisenabled)
BigBlueButton ChoosewhetheryouwanttoenabletheBigBlueButtonvideo No
videoconference conferencetool.Onceenabled,itwillshowasanadditional
tool
coursetoolinallcourses'homepage,andteacherswillbeable
tolaunchaconferenceatanytime.[...]
BigBlueButton
serverhost
This is the name of the server where your BigBlueButton

server is running. Might be localhost, an IP address (e.g.
192.168.13.54)oradomainname(e.g.my.video.com).
Security key of ThisisthesecuritykeyofyourBigBlueButtonserver,which

the
willallowyourservertoauthenticatetheChamiloinstallation.
BigBlueButton RefertotheBigBlueButtondocumentationtolocateit.
server
11August2011
Page100/105
9.3Documentlicense
Allrightsreserved.
Thepermissionsgivenbythecopyleftlicenseareindicatedbelow.
Copyright(c)20072i2LSarl.Permissionisgrantedtocopy,distributeand/ormodifythisdocument
underthetermsoftheGNUFreeDocumentationLicense,Version1.2oranylaterversionpublished
bytheFreeSoftwareFoundation;withnoInvariantSections,noFrontCoverTexts,andnoBack
CoverTexts.Acopyofthelicenseisincludedinthesectionentitled"GNUFreeDocumentation
License".
Thecontentsofthistutorialisavailableunderthecopyleftlicense:
GNUFDL:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.txt
and
CCBYSA:http://creativecommons.org/licenses/bysa/2.0/fr/
InthedynamicofaFreeandOpencommunity,anycorrectionsormodificationsofthistutorialare
welcomeatinfo@chamilo.org.
9.4Documenthistory
Thisdocumentisthefruitofthecollaborationofseveralorganisationsandindividuals.Inorderto
keep a trace of the successive participations of these people and ensure the lasting of their
contribution,wekeepacompleterecordhere.Ifyouimprovethisdocumentinanyway,pleaseadd
your name below and send the updated version (together with a list of changes) to
info@chamilo.org.Thankyou!
Date
Contributor
Contact
Updates
2010
2i2l.fr,AnalBoulier
info@2i2l.fr
Rdaction de base du manuel pour

Chamilo1.8.7
Avril BeezNestBelgiumSPRL, info@beeznest.com Misejourpour1.8.8,correctifs,miseen

2011 YannickWarnier
page,ajoutsdedtails
Juillet BeezNestBelgiumSPRL, info@beeznest.com Mise jour pour 1.8.8.4, ajouts de
2011 YannickWarnier
sections multiurl, videoconf, styles,
conversion ppt, classes, filires et
promotions, copies de sessions, rles
d'utilisateurs, extension de profils, sous
langages, rcriture de l'introduction,
listingdesoptions
July
BeezNestBelgiumSPRL info@beeznest.com Translation to English. Missing

11August2011
Page101/105
2011
YannickWarnier
01/08/ ElisabethBuffard
11
illustrationsandpeerreview.
elisabeth.buffard@ Englishtranslationreviewed.
gmail.com
9.5Index
Alphabeticalindex
0777....................................................................................................................................................34
Apache..................................................................................................................................................7
ASCIImathML....................................................................................................................................34
ASCIISVG..........................................................................................................................................34
BigBlueButton..............................................................................................................................37,79
Blacklist..............................................................................................................................................34
BSD......................................................................................................................................................7
Classes................................................................................................................................................75
course_info.dat....................................................................................................................................27
CreativeCommons.............................................................................................................................12
cron.....................................................................................................................................................54
CSV....................................................................................................................................................54
exim4..................................................................................................................................................82
forum....................................................................................................................................................6
FreeSoftwareFoundation...................................................................................................................12
FTP........................................................................................................................................7,9,22,29
GeneralPublicLicence.......................................................................................................................12
GNU/Linux...........................................................................................................................................7
LAMP...................................................................................................................................................7
LDAP..................................................................................................................................................35
Linux.....................................................................................................................................................7
MacOSX.............................................................................................................................................7
maintenance........................................................................................................................................59
MimeTeX............................................................................................................................................34
MultiURL..........................................................................................................................................78
MySQL.................................................................................................................................................7
optimisation..........................................................................................................................................8
optimization.html................................................................................................................................34
Permissions...................................................................................................................................11,34
PHP5.....................................................................................................................................................7
PhpMyAdmin..................................................................................................................................20s.
Plugins................................................................................................................................................37
Promotions..........................................................................................................................................73
public..................................................................................................................................................59
SCORM1.2........................................................................................................................................24
11August2011
Page102/105
security................................................................................................................................................12
SFTP.............................................................................................................................................22,29
SMTP..................................................................................................................................................82
social...................................................................................................................................................42
soffice.................................................................................................................................................80
SQL.................................................................................................................................................7,21
SSH...........................................................................................................................................9,22,29
Ubuntu..................................................................................................................................................7
UNIX....................................................................................................................................................7
Wamp....................................................................................................................................................7
Whitelist..............................................................................................................................................34
Windows...............................................................................................................................................7
Xcache..................................................................................................................................................8
Xdebug.................................................................................................................................................8
XML...................................................................................................................................................54
/var/www..............................................................................................................................................9
Illustrationsindex
Illustration1:InstallationWelcomescreen......................................................................................10
Illustration2:InstallationChoosingthelanguage...........................................................................10
Illustration3:InstallationPrerequisites............................................................................................11
Illustration4:InstallationPrerequisites(end)..................................................................................11
Illustration5:InstallationLicense....................................................................................................13
Illustration6:InstallationMySQLsettings.....................................................................................13
Illustration7:InstallationGeneralconfigurationsettings................................................................15
Illustration8:InstallationReminder.................................................................................................16
Illustration9:InstallationInstallationreport...................................................................................16
Illustration10:AdministrationChamiloblock................................................................................18
Illustration11:AdministrationChamiloblock(continued).............................................................18
Illustration12:AdministrationPHPMyAdmin................................................................................20
Illustration13:AdministrationExportthroughPHPMyAdmin.......................................................21
Illustration14:AdministrationExportthroughPHPMyAdmin(continued)....................................21
Illustration15:TerminalMovingfiles.............................................................................................22
Illustration16:Interfacecourselist.................................................................................................23
Illustration17:InterfaceListofcoursetools...................................................................................23
Illustration18:InterfaceLearningpathsexport..............................................................................24
Illustration19:AdministrationCoursesblock.................................................................................24
Illustration20:AdministrationcourselistBackup.......................................................................24
Illustration21:AdministrationBackup............................................................................................25
Illustration22:AdministrationBackupsettings..............................................................................25
Illustration23:AdministrationBackup,resultsofbackupgeneration............................................25
Illustration24:InterfaceCourseadministrationtools.....................................................................26
Illustration25:InterfaceCoursebackupoptions.............................................................................26
Illustration26:BackupBackupfilesstructure................................................................................27
11August2011
Page103/105
Illustration27:InterfaceDocumentslist..........................................................................................28
Illustration28:InterfaceLearningpathsimport..............................................................................29
Illustration29:InterfaceSCORMlearningpathsimport................................................................29
Illustration30:AdministrationPortalblock....................................................................................31
Illustration31:AdministrationPortalsettingscategories................................................................31
Illustration32:AdministrationStylesheetsconfiguration...............................................................36
Illustration33:AdministrationPluginsinstallation.........................................................................37
Illustration34:AdministrationSpecialexports...............................................................................38
Illustration35:AdministrationGlobalannouncements...................................................................38
Illustration36:AdministrationLanguagesmanagement.................................................................39
Illustration37:AdministrationSublanguagecreationicon............................................................39
Illustration38:AdministrationSublanguagecreation....................................................................40
Illustration39:AdministrationListoflanguages,withsublanguages...........................................40
Illustration40:AdministrationSublanguagetermsredefinition...................................................41
Illustration41:AdministrationSublanguagesVisibilityanddefaultusage.................................41
Illustration42:AdministrationHomepageconfiguration................................................................42
Illustration43:AdministrationGlobalstatistics..............................................................................43
Illustration44:AdministrationGlobalagenda................................................................................43
Illustration45:Rolesandsessions......................................................................................................45
Illustration46:Courseassistant..........................................................................................................46
Illustration47:Administrationuserlist............................................................................................51
Illustration48:AdministrationUsersOptionsbyrole..................................................................51
Illustration49:AdministrationUsercreation...................................................................................53
Illustration50:AdministrationUserexport....................................................................................54
Illustration51:AdministrationUserimport....................................................................................55
Illustration52:AdministrationUserimportreport..........................................................................55
Illustration53:AdministrationSocialgroupcreation.....................................................................56
Illustration54:AdministrationSocialgroupslist............................................................................56
Illustration55:AdministrationUserprofilefieldslist.....................................................................57
Illustration56:Administrationcourselist.......................................................................................58
Illustration57:Coursecreation...........................................................................................................59
Illustration58:AdministrationCourseexport.................................................................................60
Illustration59:AdministrationCreatingcoursesbybatches...........................................................61
Illustration60:AdministrationCoursescategories..........................................................................61
Illustration61:AdministrationSubscribeuserstocourses..............................................................62
Illustration62:AdministrationSubscribeuserstocoursesinbatches............................................62
Illustration63:GlobalSessionsdiagram.........................................................................................63
Illustration64:AdministrationSessioncreation.............................................................................67
Illustration65:AdministrationRegisteringcoursesintoasession..................................................67
Illustration66:AdministrationSubscribingstudentstosessions....................................................68
Illustration67:AdministrationExportingsessions..........................................................................69
Illustration68:Copyingcoursecontentsfromsessiontosession......................................................70
Illustration69:Listofcareersandpromotions...................................................................................71
Illustration70:Careercreationform...................................................................................................71
Illustration71:Careerslist..................................................................................................................72
Illustration72:Courses,sessions,promotionsandcareers.................................................................72
11August2011
Page104/105
Illustration73:Promotioncreationform............................................................................................73
Illustration74:Careersandpromotionslist........................................................................................73
Illustration75:Courses,sessions,promotionsandcareers.................................................................74
Illustration76:AdministrationClassesEmptylist........................................................................75
Illustration77:AdministrationClassesAddingusers....................................................................76
Illustration78:AdministrationClassesAddingcourses................................................................76
Illustration79:AdministrationClassesAddingsessions..............................................................76
Illustration80:AdministrationMultiURLs....................................................................................79
11August2011
Page105/105

Chamilo Admin Guide 1.8.8.4 en

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Chamilo Admin Guide 1.8.8.4 en

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

TutorielChamiloAdministrateur

Illustration 22: Administration

Mathematicaleditors: MimeTeX, ASCIImathML or ASCIISVG: theseare3separateoptions

Illustration 75: Courses, sessions,

What sort of server is this? This enables or disables some

Display Code in DisplayTrainingCodeintraininglist

Enable learner Enabletheuserview,whichallowsatraineroradmintoseea Yes

Time limit on Thistimelimitdefinesforhowmanysecondsafterhislast

Use training Trainingsessionsgiveadifferentwayofdealingwithtraining, Yes

Show training Showthenumberoftrainingineachcategoryinthetraining

Show empty Show the categories of training on the homepage, even if

Display closed Displayclosedtrainingontheloginpageandtrainingstart

Email alert, of Sendanemailtotheadministratoroftheplatform,eachtimea

PDF watermark This text will be added as a watermark to the documents

The breadcrumb is the horizontal links navigation system

Default forum Whatshouldbethedefaultoptionwhencreatinganewforum.

Allow definition Byenablingthisoption,youwillbeabletodefinevariations

If this setting is set to 'True', a user can fill in following

Extended profile Whichofthefollowingfieldsoftheextendedprofilehaveto

in extended profile to be activated and the field to be also

the This setting enables or disables the upcoming events that

upcoming events appearsintheleftcolumnoftheagendatoolofthecourse

The bookingsystem allows youtobookresources foryour No

Enabling the internal messaging tool allows users to send Yes

Social network Thesocialnetworktoolallowsuserstodefinerelationships Yes

in Multimedia file folders containing files supplied by default

folders animations to use in their courses. Although you make it

Forcing to Wiki Thiswillpreventmanyhidden,incorrectornonstandardtags

Permissions for The ability to define the permissions settings to assign to

Enable the OpenID URLbased authentication (displays an

Register users by Coachusersmaycreateusersontheplatformandsubscribe

Domain of the ThedomainoftheSingleSignOnserver(thewebaddressof

Display score Ticktheboxtoshowtheupperlimitofthescore

If you are using an LDAP server that does not support or

If you are using an LDAP server that does not support or

This feature allows you to index most of the documents No

Teacher Graph Displayinformationaboutteachersinsideplatformwithgraph

This is the name of the server where your BigBlueButton

Security key of ThisisthesecuritykeyofyourBigBlueButtonserver,which

Rdaction de base du manuel pour

Avril BeezNestBelgiumSPRL, info@beeznest.com Misejourpour1.8.8,correctifs,miseen

BeezNestBelgiumSPRL info@beeznest.com Translation to English. Missing

You might also like