We're happy to announce the upgrade of our ILIAS learning platform to version 7 for the winter semester 21/22.
This will include a new look, a new page editor and some other new features.
In this video we will show you the most important changes to ensure that you are motivated and equipped to explore and work with the learning platform.
Experienced users will probably notice straight away that the design of the user
interface and in particular the menu navigation of ILIAS has considerably changed.
First of all, the main bar of ILIAS has moved from the top of the screen to the left side.
In the mobile view, it is displayed at the bottom of the screen.
This ensures a better overview of the various elements in the header (or upper bar) and the main bar, which is now on the left and/or at the bottom.
It will also be much easier to use the learning platform on mobile devices with small screens.
In ILIAS 7, the main bar will contain all the navigation points that are relevant for you so that you can quickly access
various functions and areas of the learning platform by clicking on one of the icons in the main bar.
The slate, which is a kind of drawer, will, in almost all cases slide out as an additional window, where various items of the menu are grouped together.
These include, for example, links to other areas and functions of ILIAS.
Compared to ILIAS 5, the items in the main bar as well as their sub-items have been changed and rearranged.
A click on the same button or on the left arrow underneath the slate will then close it again.
When you select one of the items in the slate, a new page will usually open in the content area.
Here you can then carry on navigating in the usual way. Sometimes, however, a drop down menu opens in the slate. These items are marked with an arrow.
If you select the Button "Overview", the slate will in fact not open,
but you will be taken directly to your personal overview page, which is a kind of virtual desktop.
On this page, you will find your favourite courses and tasks or the calendar, for example.
Three other interesting features related to the changes in the design and operation of ILIAS should be mentioned at this point.
Experienced users in particular will no doubt be pleased with these. First by clicking on to "To Do's" in your personal Workspace,
you will now get a central overview of all upcoming deadlines from your courses so that you never lose sight of them.
Second, the Tree View of the Repository, which is not very intuitive and a bit hard to find in ILIAS 5,
can now be very conveniently accessed by clicking on the "Repository" button.
This will make it even easier to navigate and to find your way around the platform.
Furthermore, it is now possible to unsubscribe from several courses at the same time.
You can now do this very easily via "My Courses and Groups in the overview or the repository.
By clicking on the arrow next to the heading, you can then select "Unsubscribe Multiple" memberships.
The other major area where visible changes have been made concerns the ILIAS page editor,
which is the editing view that opens when you click on "Customize Page" in your courses, groups or folders.
This button is now centrally located right next to the second important button "Add New Item".
Experienced users will immediately notice that the editing bar, which used to appear as a pop up in ILIAS 5 and the hints,
which used to appear at the bottom of the page, have moved into the slate to the main bar.
To insert content, you still click on the plus sign at the desired position and select a type of content in the pop up window.
However, the way in which content is edited has slightly changed.
To do this, click on the desired content element just as before.
However, the editor is then not displayed above the page, but appears in this slate instead.
With ILIAS 7, automatic saving has been implemented for page editing.
While you are notified of saving activity on the screen, saving itself is carried out in the background.
You are therefore not forced to interrupt editing until saving is complete,
so that all in all, working with a page editor should now take much less time.
This was a first quick look at major changes in the new version of ILIAS.
If you want to learn more about the functions and special features of the learning platform,
we recommend our digital teaching toolbox. We will also provide for the videos on ILIAS 7
in which various aspects of the platform will be presented in more detail.
If there are still questions left, please feel free to contact us via email to ilias@rz.uni-freiburg.de.