[Xerte] help exporting

Tue Aug 4 17:03:23 BST 2009

Hi Anthony,

I can't say for definite as the zip code is a piece of open source stuff
and I am not sure on its workings - but the idea that if the total quota
exceeds 100m then the code will fail would seem a likely issue.

There is another zip class in another part of the site which seems a bit
more lightweight, so I might move over to that at some point, but some
nice person may wish to write the code using php's native zip functions
instead.

I asked re Portsmouth as I've helped two other Portsmouth people off
list - but I am not sure which teams they work for.

The server version needs basically a PHP server and a mysql database.
Other than that I believe it to be relatively unfussy (I wrote most of
the webside) - apart from the need for LDAP authentication, which most
Universities should have. If you already have a moodle, then we have
moodle integration, if you have a WebCT, we might have an integration
for that as well.

The localhost version is approximately the same, with the exception the
localhost version has a few things that won't work because it's not set
up to be used by multiple people.

The same zip that installed it on your PC is the same zip that will
install it on the server - you just choose the non-xampp route, but I
would suggest getting a server admin person to do that. Some of the
questions the installer asks are of a more technical administrative
nature.

You ideally build a template in notepad and the desktop version of
Xerte, quite a few people on the list have done it, and there is a guide
on the xerte website on how do to it as well. It's not my area of
expertise though. Once you've made a template, the local or server
version can upload it and have it available for you to use.

If you want to limit access to certain templates then the site has scope
to do that as well.

In terms of who is using Xerte Online Toolkits (purely academically,
ignoring our friends in the business world) I think the following have
installs at Universities

University of Bath
University of Bolton
University of Derby
University of Loughborough
University of Nottingham (Our stats - we had our 600th user join today
(I just checked and feel we should have some sort of ceremony), about 20
percent of which are students, we are on learning object 1355 in terms
of created, but approximately 200 are public, about 400 are shared
objects and the most popular one has had about 1800 uses by students
(which was developed by someone in our business school).
Trinity College Dublin 

And a quite a lot of FE colleges, who we love as well, but I haven't the
time to list you all

(Feel free to say hello).

The desktop version is also used pretty widely as well - over 100
institutions.

I am not sure what overheads they have faced - feedback would be
interesting to receive. Problems are normal with getting it installed,
most work ok, some can be a little funky however. I tend to help people
get it installed, but it is easy enough to do really. Lots of places
have installed it without any help from me.

I would say that the support is this list, and we are encouraging people
to help each other out as well. Most of the common issues can be found
in archive as well.

I wouldn't think you need any javascript people - that part of the site
pretty much runs itself, and it's not hard javascript to understand. A
person with some PHP skills would be useful, but since we did version 1
in April, we've released a few bug fixes here and there, but the code
has been relatively stable. If you're not looking to develop a new
template, then I would imagine it's a matter of anticipating workloads
for your support people and training. Some flash / XML knowledge would
be handy in making a new template, but we have people here who aren't
really actionscript people who have built templates.

In terms of support overhead for me, we have relatively few issues
helping staff create content. I think I've probably had about a day's
work helping people in the year that we've had toolkits up and running.
Other people in the team have had more work, but I would say that has
been usually down to promotional events, and specific projects which
require a greater staff input.

You might also be interested in the xpert project
http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/xpert_project.htm

Hope this helps

Feel free to email me off list if you'd prefer

Pat

-----Original Message-----
From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk
[mailto:xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Anthony
Harrison
Sent: 04 August 2009 16:19
To: Xerte discussion list
Cc: David Starkey
Subject: RE: [Xerte] help exporting

Hi Pat, 

Thank you for your help, it worked a treat!
If I wanted to include additional .flv videos in my project and exceed
100M, would it be a case of just bumping that figure up again in the
ini.php file?

The department I work for (Portsmouth Business School) are very
interested in Xerte, and from the research I've carried out I believe it
will be an extremely useful tool and a great benefit for eLearning at
the University. 

I can not say if the University as a whole will adopt this approach as
the eLearn team have their own Flash developers who work on our VLE. It
could be a sensitive area, so for now I just want to test it out to see
if the PBS Faculty eLearning Co-ordinator and PBS tutors give good
feedback; and if so, I've no doubt it'll be up for discussion within the
eLearning meetings in the near future.

I'd like to know more about the server version and how it works in
comparison to using your 'sandpit area'.
How would I go about getting this set up and what is involved in the
process?
We're ideally looking to make a template that can be used for all the
tutors of the Business School, with the possibility of slight variations
between its departments. Can this not be achieved just by using the
sandpit area alone?

I'm not a flash developer and have a basic understanding of action
script, so I imagine the local version wouldn't be ideal for tutors to
use...However I noticed on one of your videos that you can implement the
online toolkit within the local version from what was described as a
'hidden' folder, how would I go about doing this for my own needs?

How many institutes are currently using Xerte and what level of support
could we expect to receive?
Would we need staff proficient in Action script and Java script as a
first line of support? 
Any further information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for your help and Kind Regards

Anthony Harrison

PBS eTeam
University of Portsmouth

>>> Patrick Lockley <Patrick.Lockley at nottingham.ac.uk> 03/08/2009 21:57
>>>
Hello,

The list archive is your friend :)

http://lists.nottingham.ac.uk/pipermail/xerte/2009-May/001919.html 

Assuming you've running an xampp installed localhost version, you need
to look for the php ini file. Then you look for the memory limit line,
and we've recommended setting it to be 100M.

Are Portsmouth thinking about the server version?

Hope this helps.

Pat

From: xerte-bounces at lists.nottingham.ac.uk on behalf of Anthony Harrison
Sent: Mon 03/08/2009 17:18
To: xerte at lists.nottingham.ac.uk 
Subject: [Xerte] help exporting

HI,

I'm new to using Xerte and have been playing around with the online
toolkit.
When trying to export my project I receive this error message:

Fatal error: Allowed memory size of 33554432 bytes exhausted (tried to
allocate 7340032 bytes) in
C:\xampp\htdocs\xertetoolkits\website_code\php\scorm\archive.php on line
630

Can anyone help me with this?

Kind Regards

Anthony Harrison

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