What is the elatePortal?

The elatePortal is a J2EE portal-based information system for educational environments. The project started in spring 2005 due to the lack of appropriate systems for managing courses at the Department of Educational Sciences at Leipzig University.

One of the most important features is the eAssessment functionality that is currently used to assess around 1000 students per semester at Leipzig University. At its core is an eAssessment framework that provides support for several extensive student assessment workflows.

Note that the eAssessment framework and the examServer are now maintained on github, see www.elatexam.de. A lot more information about eAssessment in practice is available on the iAssess.Sax website.

The elatePortal project currently comprises:

  • The elatePortal, an enterprise portal based on Apache Jetspeed-2
  • The examServer, a lightweight webapp for electronic exams with special security requirements
  • The TaskModel, the above-mentioned eAssessment framework
  • The ctEdit, an editor for creating/editing complex question pools for the TaskModel

Proceed to the Introduction or have a look at the Screenshots for a first impression. More comprehensive technical documentation (describing the Software Product Line approach and the elatePortal project as a case study) is available as a diploma thesis below.

The SourceForge.NET Project Page is at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/elateportal/

Downloads

Grab the current development snapshot here:

or the individual parts:

Demo

You may test the student view of the ElateXam-Webapp here. Alternatively you may also upload and test your own question pools here.

Developers

Project Lead: Thorsten Berger <elatePortal@thorsten-berger.net>

  • initiated the elatePortal project in spring 2005
  • former project lead of the uebman project http://uebman.sf.net
  • main architecture and implementation of the elatePortal
  • eAssessment Framework
  • examServer

Steffen Dienst <steffen.dienst@elateportal.de>

  • started participation in december 2005
  • ctEdit
  • extended the eTesting framework
  • integrated new "Tasklet" types, esp. the Autotool (automatic correction of excercices in mathematics and theoretical computer science)
  • current maintainer working for the research project iAssess.Sax

René Plötz <ploetz@elateportal.de>

  • updates for TaskModel's User Interface and ctEdit
  • work on examServer backend authentication (HTTP Auth / Shibboleth)
  • improvements in security during exams
  • work on elatePortal and examServer for the "Selbständige Abteilung für Allgemeinmedizin" (unaffiliated chair of general medicine)

Contributors

Björn Dassow

  • Forum

Daniel Zimmermann

  • ctEdit

Ralf Rublack www.rublack.org

  • started participation in november 2006
  • extended e-Testing-Framework for requirement of the "Institut für Angewandte Linguistik und Translatologie"
  • server administration

Supporters

  • Department of Educational Sciences at Leipzig University
    • Prof. Wollersheim "Allgemeine Pädagogik" (The Chair of History and Philosophy of Education) http://www.uni-leipzig.de/~allpaed
    • Prof. Wollersheim has also been the initator of the elatePortal project. I'm working for his chair since Oct. 2004.
  • The Chair of Business Information Systems at Leipzig University http://bis.informatik.uni-leipzig.de/
    • Prof. Gräbe initiated a seminar around eLearning software where the elatePortal is in the spotlight
  • "Selbständige Abteilung für Allgemeinmedizin" (unaffiliated chair of general medicine) http://db.uni-leipzig.de/lageplan/index.php?kst=89980126

Running instances

Resources / Publications