Harman Patil (Editor)

Open Sankoré

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Developer(s)
  
Sankoré

Stable release
  
2.5.1 / 1 may 2013

Initial release
  
2003

Open-Sankoré

Written in
  
C++, HTML, Javascript, QT

Operating system
  
Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Available in
  
French, English, German, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian

Open-Sankoré is a free and open-source interactive whiteboard software compatible with any projector and pointing device.

Contents

History

Open-Sankoré is based on the Uniboard software originally developed at the University of Lausanne, Switzerland. The software started to be developed in 2003 and was first used by the teachers of the University in October 2003. The project was later spun off to a local startup company, Mnemis SA. It was subsequently sold to the French Public Interest Grouping for Digital Education in Africa (GIP ENA) which bought the intellectual property of the software in order to make it an open source project under the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL). The DIENA was founded to share the software in African countries and develop free educational material

Since September 2014 OpenBoard, a fork based on Open-Sankoré 2.0 is developed by the educational administration of Geneva (Swiss). This lighter version works better on Mac OS. A new version based on Qt 5.5 should solve existing bugs.

Since November 2015 neither DIENA nor Open-Sankoré respond to emails. The source of Open-Sankoré was last changed in January 2015. A new version should be developed for 2017.

Fork

In 2013 The GIP ENA would be dissolved. Since 2013 the Open-Sankoré support, contact, bug report don't answer. The DIENA responsible for the project don't answer.

In September 2014 a fork, OpenBoard, is developed by the education administration of Geneva, écoles-médias (SEM). It's based on Open-Sankoré 2.0 version 2.0 with Qt4, better for Mac OS X. The source code of Open-Sankoré was developed until September 2015 but bug appears on Mac and Windows.

It should be an Open-Sankoré 2.5.2 in 2017 (version actuelle 2.5.1). The French education administration is building a new concept until June 2016 with the Direction du numérique pour l'éducation (DNE).

Innovations

Beside being the first full featured Interactive Whiteboard software available in open source, Open-Sankoré brings two key innovations to the market. Firstly, its file format is non binarized and is based on the W3C web standard, therefore making it possible to be displayed in a modern web browser. This allows the content creators to distribute their lessons online without the need to install the software or a plugin. Second, the software can be extended using Apps which are written using the W3C widget standard. This allows the developers of the software to focus on the core functionality of Open-Sankoré while letting the community easily develops a wealth of more specific apps meeting their own needs.

Impact

The French government has set up an Interministerial Delegation for Digital Education in Africa (DIENA) and a Public Interest Grouping for Digital Education in Africa (GIP ENA) in order to implement a multi-year program for developing digital education in many African partner countries. Open-Sankoré is one of the strategies of this group to try to achieve the Millennium Development Goals for education in Africa, an initiative of the United Nations.

Version History

Open-Sankore version 2.5
released on 1rst mai 2013

  • Adding an action on an image or block of text (hyperlink, link to another page, play a sound). The tool "interact with objects,".
  • capture web content expanded to store the links on the media or the media themselves (sound, audio, video and flash)

    • Open-Sankore version 2.0
    released on 20 November 2012. It is compatible with Mac OS 10.6 and higher, Linux (Debian and Ubuntu 32/64bit versions), Windows XP/Vista/7 (Win8 compatibility in development), with all digital interactive tables/interactive beamers currently on the market, and with many tablets/tablet PCs.

    Open-Sankore version 1.4
    Version 1.4 of Open-Sankoré, released early July 2012, fixes bugs and improves performances over version 1.3 but also brings numerous new features such as new Interactivity tools to create exercises for the students to play with, online integrated search engines that allow the users to search for images, videos and sounds on Google and Planète.Sankore directly from within the software, import support for the IWB/CFF file format as well as a new text engine

    Bugs

    Open-Sankoré 2.5.1

  • On Windows quickly draw a line down is recognized as impulse to go to the previous page. Same problem on OpenBoard 1.02
  • No Mac OS compatible version from Yosemite, OpenBoard 1.02 is a good option.
  • Linux with touch screen, can not use the touch screen only. it is necessary to open the EWB in parallel.

    • OpenBoard 1.02.10

  • On windows not available in French.

    • Not specified OS

  • The software shutdown when many objects / images are open on the page.

    • Wishes

  • To avoid having to build its own figures it would be better to allow the vector calculation for figures like geogebra.
  • - Allow layers of management as to Workspace better to hide / discover solutions, highlight areas etc.
  • - Compatibility between different platforms SMART Board, Promethean, Workspace, ...

    • References

    Open-Sankoré Wikipedia
    (Text) CC BY-SA