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Mon Feb 11 08:04:41 2002 UTC (22 years, 3 months ago) by harris41
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a first go at frequently asked questions

1:  2: <html> 3: <head> 4: <title>Frequently Asked Questions</title> 5:  6:  7: </head> 8: <body bgcolor='#ffffff'> 9:  10:   11: 12: 13: 14: Questions about anything and everything 15: 16: 17: 18: 19:  20:  21: FAQ 22: <ul> 23: 1. <a href='#q1'>What is TtH and how do I know I have it?</a> 24: 2. <a href='#q2'>So I think I'm done with the LON-CAPA installation. 25: Now what do I do? How do I begin?</a> 26: 3. <a href='#q3'>Why do I have to worry about choosing a "role"?</a> 27: 4. <a href='#q4'>What kind of computer and operating will this work 28: on?</a> 29: 4a. <a href='#q4'>Will this work on BSD Unix?</a> 30: 4b. <a href='#q4'>Will this work on Mac OS X?</a> 31: 5. <a href='#q5'>What does LON-CAPA stand for?</a> 32: 6. <a href='#q6'>Who wrote this code?</a> 33: 7. <a href='#q7'>Where is this software being used?</a> 34: 8. <a href='#q8'>What are current plans for the installation?</a> 35: 9. <a href='#q9'>How do I upgrade?</a> 36: 10. <a href='#q10'>What are RPMs?</a> 37: 11. <a href='#q11'>How do I know this will be a secure solution for 38: my users?</a> 39: 12. <a href='#q12'>How do I contribute code?</a> 40: 13. <a href='#q13'>Is LON-CAPA owned by any umbrella company?</a> 41: 14. <a href='#q14'>What are the costs?</a> 42: 15. <a href='#q15'>What kind of computer do I need?</a> 43: 16. <a href='#q16'>Where can I learn more about the technical 44: ideas surrounding the LON-CAPA project?</a> 45: 17. <a href='#q17'>How are you similar or different to 46: WebCT, Blackboard, etc?</a> 47: </ul> 48: <hr />1. <a name='q1' />What is TtH and how do I know I have it? 49: 50: TtH = TeX-to-HTML. 51: You should have a file called tth.so on your system. If you do not 52: have it, then you should download and install the binary 53: http://install.lon-capa.org/3.1/binaries/tth.so 54: into your 55: /usr/lib/perl5/site_perl/5.???/ directory. 56: 57: 58: <hr />2. <a name='q2' />So I think I'm done with the LON-CAPA installation. 59: Now what do I do? How do I begin? 60: 61: You will first need to set up a domain coordinator on your machine. 62: See loncapa/doc/how_to_domain_coordinator.txt in your CVS repository checkout. 63: After this, it is time to play with the interface. We do not 64: yet have a user manual, but 65: <a href='mailto:felicia@lon-capa.org'>Felicia</a> is helping answer 66: questions related to the LON-CAPA web interface. 67: 68: <hr />3. <a name='q3' />Why do I have to worry about choosing a "role"? 69: 70: A critical feature of the LON-CAPA interface is the idea that a user 71: must select a role before doing anything further inside the educational 72: system. 73: 74: 75: <hr />4. <a name='q4' />What kind of computer and operating will this work 76: on? 77: 78: The operating system LON-CAPA runs on is the Linux operating 79: system. LON-CAPA relies on an Intel-based architecture. 80: 81: <hr />4a. <a name='q4' />Will this work on BSD Unix? 82: 83: No. 84: 85: <hr />4b. <a name='q4' />Will this work on Mac OS X? 86: 87: No. 88: 89: <hr />5. <a name='q5' />What does LON-CAPA stand for? 90: 91: The Learning Online Network with Computer-Assisted Personalized Approach. 92: 93: 94: An eclectic variant is: Look! Our New Car Answers Pizza Appetites. 95: 96: <hr />6. <a name='q6' />Who wrote this code? 97: 98: This code was originally written by a group of staff and graduate assistants 99: at Michigan State University. We are now receiving software contributions 100: from several other universities. The technical design behind the project 101: was constructed by Gerd Kortemeyer. 102: 103: <hr />7. <a name='q7' />Where is this software being used? 104: <hr />8. <a name='q8' />What are current plans for the installation? 105: 106: We have been able to run LON-CAPA on RedHat 6.2, 7.1, 7.2, Debian, and 107: Mandrake. 108: 109: <hr />9. <a name='q9' />How do I upgrade? 110: 111: You must use CVS over the network. 112: Please click on the upgrade button at the top of this web page. 113: 114: <hr />10. <a name='q10' />What are RPMs? 115: 116: Software packages that are (usually) very easy to install. RPM stands 117: for RedHat Packaging Manager software package. 118: 119: <hr />11. <a name='q11' />How do I know this will be a secure solution for 120: my users? 121: 122: LON-CAPA is distributed without warranty as described in the 123: <a href='http://mycrow.mph.msu.edu/docs/license/index.html'>license</a>. 124: 125: 126: We do think our security strategy is fairly robust. Important communications 127: are encrypted and the server-client validation is instantiated in such 128: a way as to prevent any remotely conceivable kind of spoofing. 129: 130: <hr />12. <a name='q12' />How do I contribute code? 131: 132: Send a diff to <a href='mailto:lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org'> 133: lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org</a>. It helps if you give it context 134: with the -C option. For example, 135: 136: <pre> 137: diff -u -C3 doc/build/faq.html doc/build/faq.html~ | mail lon-capa-dev@mail.lon-capa.org 138: </pre> 139: <hr />13. <a name='q13' /> 140: Is LON-CAPA owned by any umbrella company? 141: 142: No and hopefully never. That's not what we're about. 143: 144: <hr />14. <a name='q14' /> 145: What are the costs? 146: 147: Time & Money. You and/or somebody else needs the time to learn how to use 148: the LON-CAPA system. You and/or somebody else needs the money to set up and 149: maintain a working computer server(s) for your institution. 150: 151: 152: More importantly, if your institution wants a sound future and a 153: increased ability to configure the LON-CAPA software, we recommend 154: that you assume some responsibility for contributing code to the 155: freeware project. 156: 157: <hr />15. <a name='q15' /> 158: What kind of computer do I need? 159: 160: You need a RedHat 6.2-7.2 Intel-compatible computer. 161: We do not currently support the SPARC and SGI hardware architectures. 162: 163: <hr />16. <a name='q16' /> 164: Where can I learn more about the technical 165: ideas surrounding the LON-CAPA project? 166: 167: You will find the technical manual to be very handy; please visit 168: <a href='http://www.lon-capa.org/technical.html'> 169: http://www.lon-capa.org/technical.html</a>. 170: 171: <hr />17. <a name='q17' /> 172: How are you similar or different to 173: WebCT, Blackboard, etc? 174: 175: I would suggest two major differences 176: <ol> 177: <li>In LON-CAPA, the user is the fundamental data object. 178: Other educational software systems seem to focus on the virtual 179: classroom as the fundamental data object.</li> 180: <li>I look at it like this. Many strictly profit-based enterprises aim to 181: significantly please 80% of their users. LON-CAPA started out, in the 182: beginning, aiming for a much higher percentage since the whole project 183: was about doing what no one had done before. 184: </li> 185: </ol> 186: 187:  188: </body> 189: </html>