| Catalogs Configuring EKP Courseware EKP Installing EKP Miscellaneous Reports Troubleshooting User Data Uploading |
CatalogsWhat is the purpose of the HIDDEN catalog?You can think of the HIDDEN catalog as a 'staging area' for creating new entries (or editing existing entries) for catalogs. When setting up new catalog entries for courses it is recommended that you use the HIDDEN catalog. This catalog is only accessible to those with permission to use the catalog editor and so incomplete or incorrect catalog entries in the HIDDEN catalog will not be viewable by learners. When you are ready to display the course to learners, re-assign it to one of the regular catalogs to which learners have viewing permissions. |
| Can I include an
external course in a Learning Program? Not in EKP 2.6 but EKP 3.0 allows this. In EKP 2.6, Learning Programs can only contain online learning modules, classrooms, virtual classrooms and workshops. External classrooms can not be included in Learning Programs. In EKP 3.0 Learning Programs can contain any combination of learning modules. |
| How can I ensure
that learners cannot retake courses? In EKP you can turn off the ability for a user to re-open a course installed on EKP. This setting may be turned on or off in the Catalogue Editor (under Manage >> Catalogue Manager >> Catalogue Editor) and viewing section 2.1 'Define Module Security'. If the 'Allow Reopen' checkbox is checked, the user will be able to access the course and Knowledge Center after marking the course 'Finished'. Note that this restriction applies to the course and not to any tests that may also be assigned to other courses. |
Configuring EKPHow do I configure EKP to send an email to a manager informing the manager when a learner's certificate expires?To configure EKP to automatically inform a manager when a learner's certificate expires, access the System Customization screen. In the Mail category, check the box next to Send email to manager, when a learners certificate expires. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How do I configure
EKP to allow users to create Discussion Forums? To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Forum category, check the box next to Allow all users to create forums. See the EKP Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I configure
EKP to display more than just two User attributes? Yes, you can configure EKP to display up to four User Attributes. To do so access the System Customization screen. In the User category, check the boxes next to the user attributes you wish to display. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How can I enable
the cost center attribute so that I may associate a user with a particular
cost center? Access the System Customization screen. In the User category, check the box next to Enable Cost Center field. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I enforce a
minimum password length rule? Yes. Access the System Customization screen. In the User category, enter the minimum password length (max. of six characters) in the Minimum Password Length field. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I increase
the length of the password field? Yes. Access the System Customization screen. In the User category, enter the new maximum password length (max. of 20 characters) in the Maximum Password Length field. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How do I change
the display of learning objects in the Search Catalog? Access the System Customization screen. In the Catalog category, check the boxes next to the learning objects you wish to display and whether you wish to display subjects in the left or main frames. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Is it possible
to change the types of learning objects that are displayed in the Search
Catalog's quick list? Yes, you can select the learning object types displayed in a quick list. To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Catalog category, check the boxes next to the learning objects you wish to display. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I change the
way lists of users are sorted and displayed? Yes to do so, access the System Customization screen. In the General category, check the boxes next to the Sort users by Family Name and Show Family Name first options. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I personalize
the Home page such that it displays the user's name? Yes. To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Home Page category, check the box next to Show Username. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I change the
number of news articles displayed in the Home page? Yes. To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Home Page category, enter the number of news articles to display in the Number of News Articles to display field. You can configure EKP to display zero to five news articles. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I change the
number of courses displayed in the Home page? Yes. To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Home Page category, enter the number of courses to display in the Number of courses to display field. You can configure EKP to display zero to five courses. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| Can I configure
EKP to only display online courses in the Home page? Yes. To do so, access the System Customization screen. In the Home Page category, clear the box by the Show all enrollment types (unchecked = online only) field. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How do I configure
EKP to allow a user role access to the mail box but not send messages? To configure EKP to allow a user access to his/her mail box but not send messages, access the Access Control for Role: <role> screen. In the Communicate Features section, select Read Only access for Mail. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How do I configure
EKP to allow a user role access to the personal notebook but not write
to it? If you specify Read Only access for this option, the role will be able to access his/her Personal Notebook but not write notes to it. See the EKP26 Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How do hide the
User ID Change setting? In the ekp.properties file, set: system.securenamedisplay=true See the EKP Configuration Guide for more details. |
| How to I configure
EKP so users can receive e-mails in external email addresses (e.g. user@hotmail.com)
rather than the EKP mail box? You can configure EKP for users to receive e-mails outside EKP quite easily by making the following change to your ekp.properties file (under WEB-INF/conf folder: system.externalmail=Y You will need to restart your application server (e.g. Tomcat) to make this change effective. You also have to specify the smtp server (for example your company mail server) and configure it to handle mail sent from EKP. To enable users to select whether to receive messages internally or externally: log on as a system administrator, go to System Admin Manager > System Customization > System Customization, select User category, check the box next to Allow Mail Choice and click the Save button. Note that if external mail is to be used users must have valid external email addresses set up in their accounts. |
| How can we change
5MB course upload limit? 1. Open the ekp.properties file (found under "WEBINF/conf folder") in a text editor. 2. Search for the following text: # Maximum File Upload Size (# bytes) system.maxuploadsize=5000000 3. Update the value from "5000000" to whatever size you wish to allow (the value is in bytes). 4. Save the file and then restart EKP (by restarting your application server - e.g. Tomcat) |
| How to upgrade
any of the components e.g., Apache, Tomcat, JDK Download the Upgrading-EKP-Components.doc from the White-Papers Download section |
| If I have a Silver
license for two languages, how do I set which two languages will be available? EKP will look in the ekp.properties file for the line: system.languages=.... EKP will take the first two languages specified in the list. Note that English is always available as the default language. |
CoursewareLearners exiting NETg Skillbuilder courses are shown a NETg course menu. How do I stop this?The skillb folder on the server contains a Home.html page. By default learners are shown this page when completing or exiting a NETg course. This behavior is controlled by a setting in the sbplayer.cfg file in the skillb folder. To return control to EKP when a learner exits a
course: edit sbplayer.cfg and change the setting as follows: |
| Can I import tests
created in Authorware into the EKP test engine? You cannot import a test made in some other tool directly into the EKP test engine. However, you could load the test as an "external certification" learning type. This is a learning object designed to accommodate tests built in 3rd party development tools. Then you would create a Learning Program which combined the online course and the external certification together, and set the enrolment permissions such that you could not enrol in either one alone - only the combined Learning Program. You would not be able to review the test results in EKP the same way as you would if the test were built in the EKP test engine, but you would be able to track results and report on them with some of the available EKP reports. If the test sends the results data, EKP can track it. If you are using AICC you can send detailed question level data as well as test-level summary scores. |
| Is the Sun Java
Virtual Machine (JVM) supported for learners with Internet Explorer taking
Smartforce courseware? No, the Sun JVM is not supported. Smartforce recommends using the Microsoft JVM. Learners may need to change their browser preferences to select the Microsoft JVM. |
| SkillSoft
courses are not opening, not bookmarking, not tracking scores or an error
message appears. If SkillSoft courses are not opening, not bookmarking, not tracking scores or you get an error message that says, "The SkillSoft Player has encountered an error communicating with the LMS Server. Please contact Skillsoft Technical Support", you need to perform the following steps: 1) Close the course down. You can click on the X in the upper right corner if you need to. 2) Close the window that first opens. This is the screen where you click on the option to play this course. 3) In your browser, click on Tools and then Internet Options. Note: the following actions will vary from browsers and versions but they all will have the options to Delete Cookies, Temporary Files and clear certificates. 4) On the General tab, in the Temporary Internet files section, click on the Delete Cookies button and the Delete Files button. Delete Off-line Content also if there is a check box for that. 5) On the Content tab, in the Certificates section, click on the Clear SSL State button or Certificate button if no SSL State button. 6) Click on the OK button to close the Internet Option dialog box. 7) Close all browser windows. 8) Open a new browser window. 9) Start EKP 10) Start the course again. You should get a security warning dialog box which you need to reply YES to. |
| I'm having problems
importing SCORM courses! SCORM course packages are built from zip packages so it is vital that file and folder names use standard ASCII characters, otherwise when its unzipped the process will fail because EKP's uninstaller cannot process it. Likewise the XML files (i.e. imsmanifest.xml or metadata files in the package) should have the correct encoding and match the encoding used within the file. The encoding is specified in a meta-tag in first line of the file - and it should match the encoding that was originally used. In addition, the imsmanifest.xml should be stored in the root directory of the SCORM package. |
| SkillSoft JVM/JRE
Support Position You can download the SkillSoft-JVM-Support-Position.doc detailing their support of the Sun and Microsoft's JRE. It is under the Support site's Download section under Courses. |
EKPHow does EKP track non AICC compliant courses?Time tracking is only possible for downloaded materials organized as a course. EKP supports AICC, SCORM, and NETG-cookie based score and time tracking. In addition, we have created a native tracking for those companies that have HTML-oriented materials and want time tracking but do not have the expertise to implement any of the industry standard interfaces that support this. All this interface can do is track time, since EKP knows whenever a course is launched, so it is only necessary to add a termination page to the material so that it can inform EKP when the user is finished. Note than typical web downloaded materials could not be time tracked when they use simple browser downloads since browsers do not maintain a connect with servers, hence it is impossible to tell when the user has stopped using the material. |
| How does EKP track
the number of attempts the student does when a course is taken? EKP keeps count of the number a course has been launched. It is available through the User training history/transcript review functions and can be view in various reports. |
| How does EKP publish
customized certificates after a course has been taken? If a certification is associated with a course, there is usually a certification test as well. If the user achieves the passing score on the certification test, he/she is automatically awarded the certification (with an email sent as well). This certification is added to the user's list of certification in their training history, plus it is shown on various reports that details user's who have achieved certain certifications. |
What are the available
reporting options on EKP?
|
| How does EKP control
the number of attempts an evaluation could be taken? In EKP 3.0, it is a system option to restrict the user to 1. By default, it is unlimited (at the request of some of our other clients). |
| How can one define
the weight of a question on an evaluation? How can one define different
weights for different questions on an evaluation? All tests allow you to assign an arbitrary # of points (in the Test Editor) to each question assigned to any test (except randomly generated questions). Of course, evaluations (I assume you mean course evaluations, not student evaluation which would be constructed as some other test type, such as a "standard test") do not auto-grade, so the number of points is meaningless. |
| Does EKP have a
Suggestion Box? Not directly, but we have had clients that renamed the "Contact Us" mail reply form to "Suggestions", and others who use the Discussion Forum for similar purposes. |
| Does EKP tracks
the number of times a test has been taken by a student? Can the result
be published on the reports menu? Yes. EKP stores all instances of all tests and can be reviewed by instructors, administrators, and the user himself in the training history. These instances can be printed from the training history screen. However current canned reports summarizes the tests rather than showing each instance for a specific user. |
| Where can one find
a description of the 43 known reports that EKP supports? Each report has a brief description in the Report Help section. |
| Does EKP record
chat sessions? Currently, a user's current history may be recorded while they are in a session, but we do not trace all communications. |
| Can one print Discussion
Threads? Yes, by using the normal browser print functions (e.g. Right click to PRINT). |
| Database Backup
and Restore Remember to perform backups before making changes to your system : e.g. before schema changes when performing EKP upgrades. Also, should setup regular schedule of backing up the database or transactions regularly by setting up batch files and running them via a schedule. The Database-Backup-Restore.doc can be downloaded from Downloads - EKP White Papers section, |
| How to configure
IIS v.5.0 for use with Tomcat 4.1.x You can download the completed package from http://www.netdimensions.com/support Download the Tomcat41-IIS5-Howto.zip which contains: - Tomcat41-IIS-Howto.doc - isapi_redirect_125.dll files - tomcat_conf folder with workers.properties, uriworkermap.properties files. |
| How to Change EKP
Session Idle Time-out The session idle time-out is a function of Tomcat you can change the session time-out parameter in the tomcat/conf/web.xml file <session-config> <session-timeout> 240 </session-timeout> </session-config> Edit the tomcat/conf/web.xml file and restart tomcat. The default is 240mins which is 4 hours so can set to different time. NOTE - that when users are in a course they are not using EKP directly so considered idle so it is NOT RECOMMENDED to reduce time-out to less than 60. |
| How do I add custom
language strings in EKP? For EKP version 3.2.2 and above - all English and language strings are found in the ekp.jar file. This can be found in the ' 1.
Open the ekp.jar file Available languages are: English (en_US), French (fr_FR), Simplified Chinese (zh_CN), Traditional Chinese (zh_TW), Hong Kong Traditional Chinese (zh_HK), Japanese (ja_JP), Korean (ko_KR), German (de_DE), Spanish (es_ES), Dutch (nl_NL), Italian (it_IT), Polish (pl_PL), Greek (el_GR), Portuguese (pt_PT), Brazilian Portuguese (pt_BR), Mexican Spanish (es_MX) Canadian French (fr_CA), Arabic (ar_SA), Hindi (hi_IN), Malay (ms_MY), Thai (th_TH), Turkish (tr_TR) 2.
Open the standard_xx_YY.properties files Example:
To find the Current Learning Modules label on the Learn Page
do a search for 'Current Learning Modules' in your text editor. You should
come across the following string: desc.my_learning_profile=Current
Learning Modules 3.
Copy the strings into a custom.properties (for English)or custom_xx_YY.properties
file Example: From the previous example, you need to copy desc.my_learning_profile=Current Learning Modules into the custom properties file. NOTE: These strings are put into the custom properties file rather than the standard properties file to ensure that they are not overwritten after an EKP upgrade. 4.
Edit the string Example: From the previous example, change the part on the right which says Current Learning Modules. 5.
Save the file 4. Restart your application
server (e.g. Tomcat) NOTE - There should not be any standard or standard_xx_YY.properties files in the '../WEB-INF/classes/com/netdimen/locale' folder otherwise these will be used instead of the ones in ekp.jar - any standard properties files in that folder will take precedence over the default ones. |
| How do I change
a time zone name in EKP? In EKP version 3.2 Build 89 and above, time zone names were moved into external text files. (You can find out which version and build you are on by going to: Manage --> System Administration Manager --> System Activity Statistics --> System Statistics --> and looking at EKP Version) To change the name of a time zone, you must open the file: ' and then change the line: timezone.GMT-X=(GMT-X) YYYYYYYY time (the X's represent the number of hours +/- GMT, the Y's represent the timezone name you want to change). Your file should then be copied or renamed to 'custom_en.properties' before the system will recognize it. You can do the same for any language, altering the _en to the appropriate language code, as found in ekp.properties - for example for Dutch it would be custom_nl_NL.properties. Once you have made the changes you will need to restart your application server (e.g. Tomcat) for them to take effect. |
| How do I specify
the language on the self-registration page? In EKP 3.2, you are able to specify the language for the self registration page by adding the LANG parameter. This is done by adding it to the URL. For example: 'http://www.yourekpsite.com/ekp/servlet/ekp/selfregistration?LANG=1' This also enables the user to select his or her language of choice. The available LANG options are: |
| Why don't error
messages show when there is a problem logging in? The login page is held outside of EKP and can be customized to suit your organization. When there is an error, an ERR code is sent back to the users browser. Your login page needs to be modified to be able to interpret this. You can do this using JavaScript. Here is an example: <script type="text/javascript" language="JavaScript"> var errormessage=1; var erroption=window.location.search; i = erroption.indexOf('ERR'); errormessage = erroption.substring(i+4,i+5); var errorbasictext=""; if (errormessage==3) { document.write(errorbasictext + 'Login failed. Please check your CAPS LOCK key, as the password is case-sensitive, or contact technical support for further help.'); window.open('wrong_pw.htm', '', 'width=600, height=450'); } else if (errormessage==2) document.write(errorbasictext + 'The System is not available at this time, please try again later.'); else if (errormessage==1) document.write(errorbasictext + 'Please try again. The User ID or password that you have typed in is incorrect.'); </script> By placing this script into the header of your HTML login document, the error messages will appear for the user if there is a problem logging in. You will have to edit the script to customize the messages received. The ERR codes have the following meanings: ERR=1 User does not exist ERR=2 General error ERR=3 Password is incorrect |
| In which order
should I start and stop my Application Server and my Web Server? As a standard procedure, stop Tomcat (your Application Server) first, then Apache (your Web Server). To start, start Tomcat first, wait until it has initialized, then start Apache. It will still work if you do it in reverse order but there may be errors on the first couple of accesses while the two services connect up to each other using their internal retry mechanism. This procedure above works immediately upon the services coming up. |
| Why do I need to
click 'Refresh' to see a course in which I have just enrolled in my list
of Current Learning Modules? Why can't it be like the transcript which
is always up to date? The transcript history always reads directly from the database (and hence is ALWAYS correct) and the Current Learning Modules is a cached list for performance reasons. |
Installing EKPCan use the CD installer to install EKP on Windows XP?We have had a number of issues with XP with various software, and do not recommend using it for server machines. Windows 2000 (professional or server) are the best versions of Windows for Java based software. Windows XP does not have native Java support - so unless you have downloaded and installed the necessary Java support from Sun or Microsoft (we recommend the Sun JVM) then the JDBC drivers will not run. For client machines (which only need to run a browser) there are fewer problems (again, JVM support for Java Applets is the only issue we have ever run into). |
| Can we make a distributed
installation with EKP: database in one server, Web server in another? Yes, within the ekp.properties file, the database server and the web server can be changed to be hosted upon another machine. The ekp.properties file is located in ekpWEB-INFconf directory. This is loaded with other customizable features and any changes require a restart of the application server (e.g. Tomcat) to take effect. |
| How do I install
EKP in a different location than the default partition (C:)? One of the screens displayed during the installation asks where you would like EKP to be installed. You can choose a partition other than the default (C:) and EKP will be installed there. Note that if you are intending to use the embedded MSDE SQL database you must install on the C: drive. This is a restriction imposed by the Microsoft MSDE installer. The embedded database is included on the CD for demonstration and evaluation purposes and is not required for a production environment. |
| How do I avoid
the conflict between Apache Web server and IIS or Oracle? There may be a conflict between Apache and IIS or Oracle if the web-based manager for Oracle or IIS has been installed as they both use port 80. To avoid this, do not install the web-based manager or IIS. If this has already been installed, disable it or remove it. IIS in particular will reserve port 80 even if it is not running. Cathay Pacific Airways use Oracle and Apache with EKP together without any problems. An indication of a conflict is an Apache error such as: "Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is normally permitted. : make_sock: could not bind to address 0.0.0.0:80 no listening sockets available, shutting down." |
| Is there a way
to change ndadmins password, and maintaining connectivity with the database? There are 2 ndadmin accounts. At the application level, you can login to EKP with the ndadmin account and just change the password. (You change your password in EKP by going to Personalize > Change Password or through the User Editor. At the database level, you would need to change the database password. Then amend the ekp.properties file and then restart the application server (e.g. Tomcat). This cannot be done without interruption of the service. |
| How to Setup EKP
in a Optimised Production Server Environment The default EKP CDROM Quick Install is designed for demo setups on machines which do not have any web service applications, servlet engine or Database engines - the Quick-Install may fail as ports may be used that those applications. The Quick-Install will attempt to install the MSDE lightweight DB engine, Apache web server, Tomcat servlet engine and Sun JDK. Quick-Install also does not offer much user configuration choices : i.e. installs all components under the C: drive and performance is not optimized. You should use this document to manually unpack and configure the components to setup an optimized EKP environment to avoid the above limitations. Or in cases where the default EKP Quick-Install fails. The Manual-Setup-of-EKP-Production-Environment.doc in zipped format is in Downloads - EKP White Papers section. |
| How to Install
Sybase ASE 12.5 Install-Sybase-ASE-12_5.doc This summary of the install on Windows Platforms can be downloaded from Downloads - EKP White Papers section. |
| How to configure
IIS v.5 or v.6 for use with Tomcat 4.1.x You can download the completed package from http://www.netdimensions.com/support Download the Tomcat41-IIS5_IIS6-HowTo-Pack.zip from the White Papers which contains: - Tomcat41-IIS-Howto.doc - isapi_redirect_125.dll files - tomcat_conf folder with workers.properties, uriworkermap.properties files. |
| When installing
MSDE theres an error "MS SQL Server Desktop Engine unable to determine
system default collation" This problem may occur when installing MSDE from the EKP 3.x cd and is due Microsoft's MSDE installer not being compatible with some of the Eastern locale files used on a Windows XP/2003 environment. http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823466
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;838303
In summary Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 include several new Windows locales that are not supported by the Microsoft SQL Server 2000 collation mappings. Additionally, these Windows locales are not supported by SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine and SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine (Windows). So to remedy this I had to: |
| How do you MANUALLY
install EKP on Linux? If your Linux install from CD doesn't work: Assuming you have installed Apache, Tomcat and the JDK. 1. Insert EKP CD to CD-ROM 2. Type "mount /dev/cdrom" to access the cdrom device 3. Go to "Source" folder 4. Copy ekp.war to {tomcat}/webapps/ 5. Go to {tomcat}/bin and run "startup.sh" to start TOMCAT This will extract all the files required to run EKP and put them to folder "ekp" (Tomcat will create this) 6. Create a database "ekp" in MSSQL server. 7. Create database tables required for EKP by run the script "mssql.sql " which is located in the "Source" folder in EKP CD 8. Modify database connection configuration in the ekp.properties (Please read the installation guide for this) 9. Restart Tomcat |
| EKP Server Requirements Download the document EKP-Server-Requirements.doc to view hardware and tomcat memory requirements to run EKP in a production server environment. This is under the EKP Whitepapers section. |
| Does EKP run under
Red Hat Linux? Yes. EKP does support Red Hat Linux e.g. Red Hat ES/AS on IBM eServer BladeCenter. To elaborate it a little bit more. In order to run EKP, there are some prerequisite components required. See the following: - database server (Oracle 8i or above, Sybase 12.5 or above, Microsoft SQL 2000 or above) If the database server is running on Red Hat Linux,
only Sybase or Oracle is supported since Microsoft SQL does not run on
Linux.. These components by default are not bundled with EKP for UNIX platforms such as Linux. |
MiscellaneousHow do I hide a News article from displaying to users until it is ready?When creating a new News article, set Display Status to "Do Not Automatically Show". When you are ready to show the article set Display Status to "Automatically Show Until Expiration". |
| How do I preview
a News article? Use the Preview button at the bottom of the Edit tab. You must save your article first. |
| I am using Macromedia
JRun. Why am I getting a 404 'page not found' error? This is possibly due to a known bug in JRun 3.x (bug# 30178). See the link below for details and to download a patch: http://www.macromedia.com/support/jrun/ts/documents/tn18093.htm |
| When I try to start
EKP I get the following error: "EKP couldn't initialize the shared
memory". What is causing this? Whenever you get the error "EKP couldn't initialize the shared memory" in the ekp.log file it means that EKP did not connect to the database - and hence could not read the necessary information to perform that action. It could be that the database engine was not started or that the userid/password supplied were incorrect. Check that your database is running and that the database connection information in ekp.properties is correct. |
| How is the user
password encrypted in the database? With EKP encryption is via a one-way function. The number of bits doesn't figure in these encryption algorithms because there is no way to decrypt the password, that is there is no "key". |
| Does EKP support
SSL? Yes, EKP supports SSL - and you can put the entire EKP data stream into SSL. We have successfully tested a selection of vendors' courseware in "full SSL" mode. |
| Can I use several
web servers with load balancing to run EKP? EKP does support clustering but we have not yet completed testing on all types of configurations. The status is as follows:
For all of the above situations we usually map the web site to a shared file system on another server so that they all have access to the same courses and uploaded files. |
| Why won't the unzip
function on Repository Manager work? EKP Repository function unzip function won't work on filenames with character accents. Example: gUafico389.gif, grañe.jpg |
| How can I implement
security on my SMTP server? You can implement security by: - restricting which IPs can connect to the SMTP port by restricting IPs at the firewall level or the smtp server level - forcing authentication on using the smtp server options - disable (or at least restrict the IPs that can connect) the Telnet port at the firewall level |
| Windows XP and
higher no longer come pre-installed with the MS JVM 5.0.0.38 engine Windows XP and higher no longer come pre-installed with the MS JVM 5.0.0.38 engine (available from Win 98SE up to Win2000) so clients will have to manually download and install a JVM engine as many courses require a JVM e.g. Skillsoft courseware. Microsoft no longer offers downloads of JVM 5.0.0.x - instead their site has links to Sun's and other vendors' JRE. Clients can still download MS JVM 5.0.0.x from various sources eg. http://www1.skillsoft.com/jvm.exe However, support for the MS JVM will expire after December 31, 2007 so clients would be better off using Suns JRE which is fully supported by Skillsoft. SUN JRE: http://java.sun.com/products/archive/ http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.2/docs/guide/deployment/deploymentguide/upgrade-guide Our EKP CD's include Sun's JRE so this is not an issue when installing EKP - only an issue for client PC's after Windows 2000. The official Microsoft response regarding support of Java is at http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/java/ where they offer links to alternative JREs. |
ReportsWhat are the meanings of the codes listed in report C107 (EKP 2.6)?Under Learning Type: A = audio cassette B = book C = learning program D = CD E = external course I = video O = online module Q = just-in-time learning R = classroom U = archived virtual classroom V = virtual classroom W = workshop seminar X = external certification Under Student Status: Under Performance Values: |
TroubleshootingI am having problems in loading an online course, what's the best thing to do?Click here to download our "Loading an Online Course Troubleshooting Guide" and follow each steps to help identify the problem. |
| All Enrollment
Approval Request e-mails generated by EKP have the wrong URL link in the
email. How can I change this link? The link for approval within the email is set in the ekp.properties file and is initially configured to begin with "http://localhost:8080/ekp/servlet/ekp". This can be changed as follows: 1. Open the ekp.properties file (found under "WEBINF/conf folder") in a text editor. 2. Search for the key word "system.baseurl". 3. Update the value from "http://localhost:8080/ekp/servlet/ekp" to the correct URL with your server name. 4. Save the file and then restart EKP. |
| EKP gave me an
error number. What should I do? This error number that EKP gives you is a sequential number that points to more error details in the log file. To submit this to NetDimensions, you must send us the entire EKP.log file (located in the We would need the information starting at the line that states the EKP error number with all of the following 'at com.netdimen' messages. |
| What is the "Connection
reset by peer: socket write error" error message? The error message "Connection reset by peer: socket write error" indicates the database connections used in EKP has been closed by the database server. Possible causes are:
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| I'm having problems
connecting to the EKP service hosted by NetDimensions -- how can I check
if the problem is the server or something else? Since our services are hosted in Hong Kong, here is a test that you can easily use to determine whether a connection to Hong Kong is available or not: Here are two major sites that are based in Hong
Kong: You can bookmark these two URLs, i.e add them to your Favorites (e.g. under 'test connection' or something similar) and whenever you find that there is some difficulty connecting with your hosted service follow these steps:
If you find that the connection to one or both of these alternative URLs is 'similar' to the connection to EKP then you can assume that the problems are 'generalized' and most likely will be resolved within a short period of time (hopefully!). If you find that you have *no* difficulty in connecting to these alternative URLs but *do* have a slow or no response from your hosted service, then there *may* be a problem. Usually, if it is a serious problem, we will already have been alerted by one of the monitoring and alarm systems that we have in place which operate 24-hours a day. In case you feel the need to alert us in person you can call one of our support numbers which are shown on our support web site at http://www.netdimensions.com/support (please bookmark this URL also) and/or send an e-mail to support@netdimensions.com. Please note that from time to time our EKP servers will perform routine tasks and some of these can temporarily consume a lot of resources. This means that performance can be slowed down temporarily -- anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes. Normally if you follow the steps above this would allow enough time for any temporary condition to be completed. |
| I recently installed
Windows XP Service Pack 2 and now I can't run some online courses. What
do I need to do? Windows XP Service Pack 2 adds two new features that can prevent learners from using online courses:
Pop-up
Blocker Use one of the following methods to configure Pop-up Blocker to allow pop-up windows when using EKP:
For more further information on configuring options for Pop-up Blocker, please see How to configure the Pop-up Blocker in Internet Explorer (Article ID : 843016). Windows
Firewall To configure the firewall to allow these programs to be downloaded when required, do the same as in option (1) above and apply the default setting for the Security Level of the Trusted Sites Zone. See Internet Explorer's Help for instructions on configuring Internet security settings. |
User Data UploadingDo you need to load users into the system before they can use EKP?Generally speaking, yes. However, if you are dealing with an undefined user community, you can use the Self-Registration feature to allow users to add themselves the first time they access the system. |
| Should the organization
entities be loaded before the user? If you want to tightly control the organization structure so that users exactly map into the organization already set up, you should create organization data first. However, if there is too much data to manage in this manner, it may be more practical to simply identify the organization details along with each user record and allow EKP to create the organization objects when they are first referenced by the user on loading. |
| Are organization
codes meaningful? For some organizations, the codes are critical. However, some other organizations only use the names (and some use both). EKP provides a customization property to determine if the system displays the names or the codes. If only the names are displayed, the organization keys are still used as internal keys to identify the organization, but when preparing data for loading you can choose any arbitrary name (e.g. X0001, X0001, X0003) for these IDs. Organization names loaded by the XML loading process that do not yet exist in the system and do not have an organization code assigned are automatically assigned a generated key code prior to loading. |