Shika Development updates - version 1.1 and up

The 2 months since the release of Shika 1.0 have been an amazing time. Thank you everyone that has supported Shika either as Early Adopters or through words of encouragement via the comments, forum posts and Social channels.

We had published a Roadmap for version 1.1 of Shika on 22nd March. However, there have been some changes in the feature list and hence the schedule of this release. In this blog I'll take you through what's coming. 

Parallel Release Tracks

Since the release of version 1.0x we now have separate teams working on parallel release tracks as below. 

Maintenance Track

The version 1.0X series for maintenance bug fix & micro feature releases

Shika Next Track

The primary objective of this team is the  next major version with new features as well as versions after that. Right now 80% focus is on Shika 1.1 while we have some work happening on version 1.2. 

Why the roadmap change in Shika 1.1? 

The main change that happened in the Shika 1.1 release was due to some changes in the planned JTicketing Architecture. As you might already know, Shika 1.1 introduces Blended learning by allowing you to create courses with 'Events as lessons'. In addition to allowing offline events, the plan was to also allow Online events via Webinars. 

Initially we were hooking up the Webinar provider (Adobe connect in 1.1 extendable to others via plugins) directly to a JTicketing event. However, we decided down the road that we need to bring in 'Venues' as a functionality in JTicketing and the Venue could be online or offline. This work is more than 50% done now and you will see some exciting new things in JTicketing 1.8 which are required for Shika 1.1 to have a lot of these functionalities. 

While this was happening, some great merge requests from our service team that were developed for some Consulting work were ready for merging giving the 1.1 release some more punch!

So whats really coming in Shika 1.1? 

The earlier roadmap more or less stays intact. We are just adding a 'few' more things ;)

Awesome new Enhancements to Quizzes

A lot of our users had asked for the ability to randomise Questions in a Quiz as well as the answer options. Both of these will now be supported. However we have a bigger surprise for you. 

In a lot of 'Proctored Exam' or serious test scenarios you do not want to give the same question paper to candidates sitting in the same room giving the exam. So here we have introduced a new feature where you can define a set of rules to create a 'Question Pool' from the question bank and Automatically create quizzes from the same when the user starts the Quiz. You can choose to do this with a limited number of sets (more efficient) or unlimited sets (more differenciation). 

Feature #75606: Auto generated Quizzes
Feature #78133: Question Shuffle
Feature #78138: Answer shuffle

Blended Learning support with Events as lessons via JTicketing

Feature #35035: Support for Online and Offline Classroom/ Instructor Led/Scheduled Training via JTicketing integration
Feature #71683: Online Events with Adobe Connect
Feature #36978: Blended Training Calendar - Showing Physical events + Assignments (jLike Assignments)

Even more lesson types

Feature #76383: Link as Lesson
Feature #62881: Joomla Articles as lessons in Shika

Course Assignments and User Goals

Feature #35264: Course Assignment and Goals

Reporting Improvements

Feature #76254: Single Course report in backend
Feature #20502: User Group Filters for the User score report

Certificate Improvements

Feature #45579: Support for Easysocial Fields in the Certificate
Feature #34967: Show total time spent in course on certificate

New Social Integration with Community Builder

Feature #71684: CB - Shika Integration

Improved CPD Support with Ideal time/Certifiable time support

Feature #71679: Ideal time for lesson - core field
Feature #71697: Dashboard widget for total ideal time

Other Improvements

Feature #71676: Open in new tab & course page refresh
Feature #71677: Course checkout UI
Feature #71680: Single Course Menu
Feature #73407: Subscription renewal after expiry.
Feature #62826: +1 Enhancing the Activity Stream for lesson
Feature #71675: Module for courses that shows My Enrolled Courses and any courses from single/multiple categories
Feature #71678: Download lesson source file 

Feel free to add comments if you have any questions!