ILIAS (Integriertes Lern-, Informations- und Arbeitskooperations-System [German for "Integrated Learning, Information and Work Cooperation System"]) is an open-source web-based learning management system (LMS). It supports learning content management (including SCORM 2004 compliance) and tools for collaboration, communication, evaluation and assessment. The software is published under the GNU General Public License and can be run on any server that supports PHP and MySQL.
History
ILIAS is one of the first Learning Management Systems to have been used in universities. A prototype had been developed since the end of 1997 under the VIRTUS project at the Faculty of Management, Economics, and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne, initiated and organized by Wolfgang Leidhold.[2] On November 2, 1998, version 1 of the LMS ILIAS was published and offered for learning at the Cologne faculty of business administration, economics, and social sciences. Initially used locally, its popularity prompted the team to publish ILIAS as open-source software under the GPL in 2000. Between 2002 and 2004, a new ILIAS version was developed from scratch and called “ILIAS 3”. In 2004, it became the first open-source LMS to reach full SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) 1.2 compliance. SCORM 2004 compliance has been reached with version 3.9 as of November 2007.
Concept
ILIAS is designed to provide a versatile online environment for learning and collaboration, featuring integrated tools. ILIAS goes far beyond the idea of learning to be confined to courses as a lot of other LMS do. ILIAS can rather be considered as a type of library providing learning and working materials and contents at any location of the repository. This offers the possibility to run ILIAS not as a locked warehouse, but as an open knowledge platform where content might be made available for non-registered users too.
Features
ILIAS offers a lot of features to design and run online-courses, create learning content, offer assessments and exercises, run surveys and support communication and cooperation among users.
Personal Desktop
ILIAS features two core components: the repository and the personal desktop. The Repository stores and organizes all content, courses, and materials categorized and described with metadata. In contrast, the Personal Desktop serves as each user's customized workplace, providing access to selected Repository items, such as current courses or forum, alongside essential tools like email, tagging, calendar, e-portfolio, and personal blogs.
Dashboard of ILIAS 6
Listing of selected courses, groups and learning resources
Personal profile and settings like password and system language
Bookmark Management
Personal Notes
External Web Feeds
Internal News
Personal Workspace
Blogs
e-Portfolio
Calendar
Internal Mail
Personal Learning Progress
Learning Content Management
ILIAS's repository is a centralized hub for storing and managing diverse content, including learning materials, forums, chat rooms, tests, surveys, virtual classrooms and external tools. This flexible structure enables content sharing without requiring course creation, allowing ILIAS to function as a knowledge base or website. Access to all repository items is granted by the role-based access control (RBAC) of ILIAS. The repository is organized into a hierarchical tree structured with a root node and multiple levels. Each repository item is assigned to one node in the RBAC tree.
ILIAS offers four kinds of container for delivering content:
Categories
Courses incl. member administration
Groups incl. member administration
Folders (within courses and groups)
Container objects can be extended by using the page editor for adding text, images or videos to the page.
All content objects are handled as references. They can be moved, copied or linked into other branches of the repository tree. A file that has already been uploaded can be linked multiple times in different courses and categories without being uploaded a second time.
