Chamilo LMS: an open source E-learning platform

Chamilo LMS is a free software E-learning Platform, licensed under the GNU / GPLv3, management of face-to-face, semi-face-to-face or virtual learning, developed with the aim of improving access to education and knowledge globally.

It is supported by the Chamilo Association (non-profit association), whose objective is the promotion of software for education (and in particular Chamilo), the maintenance of a clear communication channel and the construction of a network of service providers and contributors to the software .

The Chamilo project tries to ensure the availability and quality of education at a reduced cost through the free and open distribution of its software, The adaptation of its interface to devices from Third World countries and the provision of a free access e-learning campus.

It uses PHP, jQuery and MariaDB and can be installed with Apache or nginx on GNU / Linux, macOS and Windows, as well as with IIS on it.

Chamilo is currently the 4th most popular MS Opensource in the higher education sector, some different portals from Claroline still born nine years earlier, as published in the LMS ListEdTech coverage.

About the new version of Chamilo

Recientemente the Chamilo community announced the release of the new version of its software: Chamilo LMS 1.11.8, with more than 30 new features to improve the quality and availability of education for all.

New features of Chamilo

• GDPR support: a series of new features that allow institutions to comply with the GDPR standards with their platform.
• 360 ° Videos: Beta support 360 ° and virtual reality (VR) videos in MP4 format, enabling more immersive experiences for students.
• LTI 1.1 Support: Plugin to integrate external LTI tools into Chamilo classes.
• Audio messages: Add audio recording to internal messages (on social network) to better match the behavior of new email applications.
• Mandatory Surveys: require students to complete surveys before they can take more courses; includes a special "Pending Queries" page.
• Portfolio tool: by course or global (through social networks), this tool allows students to show their work to their class or to all users of the portal.
• Skills and Tags - Allows you to add tags to skills for broader management.
• Student Life - A beta feature to manage student wellness monitoring in parallel with their studies;
• Skills and Steps - A beta feature that allows you to associate skills with course items, not just for course validation.
• BBB HTML5 Integration: The BigBlueButton video conferencing integration now supports BBB beta version 2.0 with the HTML5 client.

This minor version represents more than 1,000 hours of analysis, development and design, added to the project for free.

Work has already started on Chamilo 2.0, which integrates Symfony 4 boostrap 4 webpack and many other new technologies from around the PHP environment.

How to install Chamilo on Ubuntu Server, Ubuntu 18.04 and derivatives?

Chamilo is fundamentally an LMS that runs with:

• Apache 2.2+
• MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB 5+
• PHP 5.5+ (7.2 recommended for efficiency)

So that it is necessary to have these tools of open source installed in your system, although you can make use of LAMP to facilitate the installation of these prerequisites.

You can check the publication I made some time ago about installing this.

In the special case of those who have a server, a hosting or a space on the web and are using Cpanel, they can find the installer in Scriptaculous.

While in the case of a manual installation, they simply have to download the package from the next elevation.

Now You must unzip it and copy it from the Chamilo directory to your Apache web directory.

This can be "xampp \ htdocs \" or / var / www / html / chamilo (or / var / www / chamilo /) as mere examples, as it depends on the location of your root folder for your server files.

Finally, from the browser they have to open the address websites http://localhost/chamilo/ if installed locally or http://www.tu-dominio-chamilo.com if installed remotely.

Follow the web installation process.