In response to clear feedback from SLK users, ITWorx and Microsoft have worked together during the last few months to produce a revised and upgraded version of SLK—SLK version 1.4. It is a great pleasure to announce that the release of SLK 1.4 is now available on CodePlex. Currently, the full release is available in three patches. Once SLK 1.4 is approved by the Codeplex community, an offical release will be posted.

What’s in SLK 1.4?

The single feature most often requested from users to enhance SLK is the addition of a Drop Box—functionality that enables instructors and students to receive and exchange non-e-learning content, such as ordinary Word documents, while leveraging all of assignment tagging and tracking functionalities contained in the original SLK. Previously, these functionalities in SLK were constrained to formal e-learning content, such as assignments authored in SCORM. SLK 1.4 includes a Drop Box that gives students the capacity to submit up to six non-e-learning files for a single assignment circulated by an instructor.

A second addition we hope users will find valuable in SLK 1.4 is the bundling of SLK with the Course Manager, also called the Add-on Pack. Previously these components required separate installations. This integration was done to facilitate and enhance deployment of the modules together.

A third new feature is a Grade Book Extractor tool. The tool, which is designed to make the Course Manager more flexible and useful for instructors and administrators, allows the easy export of grade data to an Excel spreadsheet.

It is also worth noting that this SLK revision project has addressed and fixed several shortcomings identified in SLK version 1.3.1. These fixes, which were previously delivered CodePlex, and which are now bundled with new SLK 1.4 release, include

·         Full .LRM files functionality on x64 environments

·         Teacher review mode compatibility with SCORM 2004 content    

·         Enhanced SLK rendering in the Firefox browser

We sincerely hope our partners and customers find this new SLK release to be of significant value.