Gibbon

Gibbon is the school platform which solves real problems encountered by educators every day. I have been leading the development of Gibbon since its inception in October 2010. For more information, please visit https://gibbonedu.org.

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30 thoughts on “Gibbon”

  1. Hi,
    We are exploring curriculum mapping programs and would be interested in any information abut Gibbon. We currently run Atlas but are exploring alternativesl.

    Selection Criteria:
    * Ease of use
    * Design of a planner to suit UbD
    * Generation of reports – assessment, topics, essential competencies/skills
    * Ease of uploading activities, files, websites, etc
    * Support & training
    * Transfer of details from Atlas to Gibbon
    * Communication to parents of our curriculum based on units developed within the system
    * Cost
    * List of users

  2. Hi,

    I am discovering gibbonedu and I am very disapointed. I would like to find and help to start and I dont find it.
    How can I create one hundred children ?
    what do we have to do first, second, third …

    Please if you have e pdf file that explain all this, so let me know what is the best order to create students, create matters ?,…

    1. Didier, I am sorry to hear that you are disappointed. Please do keep in mind Gibbon is a volunteer-driven solution, which we give away for free. We try and do a lot with very limited resources.

      If you follow the Installation Guide (https://gibbonedu.org/support/administrators/installing-gibbon/), please then take a look at the Getting Started Guide (https://gibbonedu.org/support/administrators/getting-started-with-gibbon/). In terms of importing users into the system, please go to Admin > User Admin in Gibbon’s main menu, and the select Sync Users in the right hand menu.

      Good luck, and please stay in touch by posting any future questions to our forum https://forum.gibbonedu.org/.

      Ross

  3. Congratulations Ross,

    This is a huge undertaking that focuses and supports student directed learning. The creative commons license allows this idea to germinate in many schools beyond the international schools.

    I haven’t had a complete look and it is a huge investment. ( I worked on MyDragonNet with Justin Hardman for years) Please share your work with him. A large volunteer community can make a difference.

    Very best wishes,
    David Elliott
    Concordia International School Hanoi.

    1. David, thanks for your very positive feedback on Gibbon! You are right on the scale of the undertaking…as of now I believe I am at least 8,000 hours into this project. As you say, community makes a difference, and hence we chose the GPL license (similar to Creative Commons but more traditional). I really think core education software should be available to anyone, free to change, and developed by educators.

      We met in passing (I believe) at the 21C Job-Alike in December, and I have heard of Dragonet from a number of different sources. I will connect the dots with Justin.

      If you would like a demo of the full scope of the system, just let me know and we can Skype. I am also looking for an excuse to visit Vietnam again…

  4. Hi Ross

    I must say excellent work on Gibbon. It is probably the most complete piece of open source PHP programming I have ever seen.

    I do have one question(for now). My web host does not allow access to the php.ini file. So I am forced to use the .htaccess file. Can I use the
    php_value max_input_vars command? If yes how?

    Thanks and God bless you and your work

    1. Buki, thanks for your kind words on Gibbon! It is a labour of love, but we are not done yet! For your question, please can you search our forums, and then post there if you cannot find the answer. https://ask.gibbonedu.org. Thanks!

  5. Dear Ross Parker

    i have gone through your product, GIBBON is a comprehensive product i am looking for your support with regards to its moodle integration can you please share any guidelines.

    Warm Regards

    UK

  6. dear Ross, how can I create a course and more different courses? Gibbon support the E-learning method?

    thanks, for any reply

    1. Clenz,

      Thanks for your email, and welcome to the Gibbon community. We are currently directly such enquiries to our support forums. Please start by searching the forum for answers to these questions. If you cannot find the information you need, post each question as a new forum thread, and we will answer the question there. We prefer the forum, as it helps keep answers public and accessible to other users.

      Thanks,

      Ross

  7. Hi Ross,

    Thank you for the good work you are doing, do we get to donate? I will extend your work in Kenya. I have question will it be possible to build inventory for equipment such as computer, musical equipment that can be assigned to class? I also tried to install helpdesk module and l got an error “Module error due to incorrect manifest file or folder name.” I have tried to name the folder as helpdesk, Helpdesk and default name but no luck. Thank you!

    Davis

    1. Davis, Thanks for your email, and welcome to the Gibbon community. We really appreciate your positive feedback, and your kind offer of donation. At current we are not set up to take donations, but perhaps one day!

      In terms of your technical inquiries, we are currently directly such qiestions to our support forums (https://ask.gibbonedu.org/). Please start by searching the forum for answers to these questions. If you cannot find the information you need, post each question as a new forum thread, and we will answer the question there. We prefer the forum, as it helps keep answers public and accessible to other users.

    1. Hi Ahmad, good question! The best place to ask this is on our community forums: https://ask.gibbonedu.org. In short, Moodle provides tools specifically for learning (e.g. it is a virtual learning environment) where as Gibbon does a lot more in terms of school data management, as well as quite a bit on the learning side (but not as much as Moodle in terms of learning activities). We call Gibbon a “school platform” as it is a single site to meet most school data and learning needs.

  8. Mr. Ross,

    Congratulations on the Gibbon project. It is one of the best and almost complete I have ever seen. I would like to know if you already have a student notes management module and courses to include in this project?

    1. Hi Richard, thanks for your kind words! Gibbon has been a long labour of love…and we are still working hard to make it better! For questions on functionality, please can you post them on our forums, as then our answers are available to other Gibbon users. Thanks : ) Ross

  9. Hi Ross

    I have just discovered Gibbon and am very pleased you have developed this software with the Gnu mindset.

    I have watched some of your webcasts and managed to get quite a lot of information from them.

    However, I’m still struggling with things like timetables. I’ve not yet managed to set one up. I know there are other things I need to do to get to this stage but the other things seem a little difficult to understand.
    I’m sure you and the Gibbon team have used this software so many times that its all second nature to you.
    Do you have a logical process that can be followed in order to get to set up timetables and beyond?
    Things like set up days of the week set up years, set up users, then set up facilities etc.

    If I can find my way around this software it would be my honour to write the step-by-step guide and share it with the community.

    Martin

    1. Hi Martin, thanks for taking the time to get in touch, and for your kind words. Gibbon’s flexibility does sometimes make it complex, and this is certainly true of the timetable.

      Have you seen the guide below:

      https://docs.gibbonedu.org/administrators/timetable/timetabling/

      If so, and you are still stuck, the best option is to post your question to our forums:

      https://docs.gibbonedu.org/administrators/timetable/timetabling/

      We’ll do our best to help you there. Commercial support is now available as well, via https://gibbonedu.org/com/, if you need more urgent assistance.

      Your offer to add documentation is very kind: this is the area we are most lacking in, and something we are currently looking for someone to lead. Let us know how you get on solving the issue, and we can help you contribute your ideas to our docs.

      Cheers,

      Ross

  10. Hi Ross,
    Absolute great work on Gibbon.
    It’s awesome but not perfect. Using Gibbon in the initial stage just seemed like using SAP (ERP System).

    Our company (a software services company) has just started introducing Gibbon to our educators. Any idea how many Gibbon users or sites are there in the world right now ? Or an estimate ?

    We are certainly looking forward to better future enhancements soon. Keep it great !

    1. Hi Kenny, thanks for your very positive feedback. I’ve yet to find any software that is perfect, and so it is with Gibbon. But, as you suggest, we keep working to improve it. In fact, v17 and v18 have many behind-the-scenes changes to the code base, which will allow us to more easily make front end UX changes in versions to come.

      At current I believe there are around 100 schools using Gibbon in production. We’ve over 12,000 installations, and around 100 translators. Forum activity is growing steadily, as is the developer community. All signs of a healthy project!

      Good luck with your work, and please do let us know of any success stories or major roedblocks.

      Cheers,

      Ross

  11. Hi Ross, great work with GIbbon I saw the demo video on Youtube and love it, I just a test on Bluehost using Softaculous but did get any Demo data. Are there some sample files I could upload to test the system with my friends?

    Thanks.

  12. I must say gibbon is an excellent product. And I appreciate the efforts from the team. Your reward will be rewarded. I have a slight concern though. I am using the gibbon version 21.0.01. On the other hand gibbon is now on version 24.0.01 I believe. The issue is assessing the documentation for the version 21.0.01. This is because gibbons docs site only shows the documentations of the latest version. And it doesn’t allow you to switch between versions. Any help will be appreciated. Thank you.

    1. Hi Nathaniel, thanks for your kind words on Gibbon : ) Sadly, documentation is our major weakness, and we don only provide one version of the documents, which we try and keep up to date. However, I would suggest you look to upgrade to v24.0.00, as this contains some security fixes that you’ll definitely not want to be without, not to mention a range of new features. Over time we hope to improve our documentation, and multiple concurrent versions (like other systems offer) would be a nice feature to have. Cheers! Ross.

  13. Hi Ross I hope this message finds you well. I recently had the opportunity to explore the Gibbon and was truly impressed by the exceptional work evident in its design and functionality.

    As I delved into its features, I couldn’t help but think about how beneficial it could be for our own school. The comprehensive approach and user-friendly interface seem perfectly aligned with our educational needs.

    I wanted to extend my heartfelt appreciation to you and the team for your outstanding work on this system. Your dedication and effort in developing such a valuable resource for education are commendable.

    1. Hi Jasem, thank you so much for sharing your heartfelt appreciation, and describing your experiences with Gibbon. This is music to our ears, and I’ll be sure to share with our team.

      We hope that our upcoming and future versions of Gibbon continue to bring you much pleasure!

  14. HI there! i need guidance on how to effectively use the financial side of gibbon as well as how to manipulate the grade scale for the system to generate 50%. Again is there any tutorial that take people through how the system works please

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