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Advances in E-learning-Experiences and Methodologies

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Open Source LMS Customization<br />

Figure 9. ACEM configuration page<br />

complex documents but it needs every element<br />

to be positioned with<strong>in</strong> the document, what can<br />

be really difficult for large documents. This is<br />

the reason why DOM PDF is used for generat<strong>in</strong>g<br />

the reports, as this library allows the automatic<br />

conversion from HTML to PDF. Thus, the report<br />

is <strong>in</strong>itially formatted <strong>in</strong> HTML <strong>and</strong> then,<br />

by <strong>in</strong>vocat<strong>in</strong>g one function of the library, the<br />

f<strong>in</strong>al PDF document is obta<strong>in</strong>ed. However, when<br />

the number of students, <strong>and</strong> thus the size of the<br />

documents generated grows, the time spent <strong>in</strong><br />

generat<strong>in</strong>g the reports is unacceptable. Therefore,<br />

the generation of reports will be done us<strong>in</strong>g FPDF<br />

library as well, although it <strong>in</strong>volves much more<br />

time to develop.<br />

For generat<strong>in</strong>g MS-WORD documents<br />

(DOC), several libraries researched, but none<br />

of them worked properly so the f<strong>in</strong>al choice was<br />

generat<strong>in</strong>g a HTML document <strong>and</strong> then chang<strong>in</strong>g<br />

its file extension to .doc because, currently,<br />

MS-WORD converts automatically from HTML<br />

to DOC keep<strong>in</strong>g the structure of the document<br />

practically <strong>in</strong>tact.<br />

Another difficulty is the <strong>in</strong>crease of time due<br />

to the large number of database queries to be<br />

done. At first, the queries were executed without<br />

control obta<strong>in</strong><strong>in</strong>g excessive execution times. Then,<br />

the number of queries to execute was reduced<br />

<strong>and</strong> a cache of query results was implemented.<br />

Thanks to this, the execution time was reduced<br />

to a fourth of the orig<strong>in</strong>al time, though we are<br />

still work<strong>in</strong>g on it.<br />

concLusIon<br />

An added-value tool for a LMS platform has been<br />

developed by us<strong>in</strong>g Web technologies, which is<br />

currently under exploitation by the client.<br />

By observ<strong>in</strong>g the different LMS platforms <strong>in</strong><br />

the market, it can be noticed that most of them<br />

do not provide enough graphical representation<br />

about the students’ activity <strong>in</strong> the courses <strong>and</strong><br />

they do not allow the generation of certificates<br />

or diplomas either. What is more, Moodle, which

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