What is a Beta Release?
Beta release means that all the products of this pilot project are still under development. We welcome feedback from users on features provided by all the products and the delivery of the pilot project. What are the products provided by the project? This project provides the following products: • IntraLibrary – for depositing and managing resources • Compendle – for creating and editing content packages • Question Builder – for creating questions, tests and quizzes • Review Panel – for reviewing digital resources How can I start searching the Repository? The Repository will be incorporated into NLH as one of the search targets, expected early 2009. Anyone can search and browse the metadata of resources via NLH Search. Metadata is the information about the resources, e.g. title, creator, descriptions, etc. Do I need to login to search for resources on the eLearning Object Repository? No. When the eLearning Object Repository is incorporated in NLH as one of the search targets, anyone can
A beta release is a new version of a software program that has not yet been fully tested for bugs. Once a beta release is tested to the satisfaction of the writer, owner or organization, it is released as the newest stable version of the software. At this point the software will go from being, for example, “version 4.0b” (for beta), to “version 4.0.” It might also operate under a code name while in beta release. A beta release can be open or closed. An open beta release is normally available to the general public to download and test. A closed beta release is available only to a specific group of beta testers. Many computer enthusiasts enjoy being beta testers and often subscribe to beta mailing lists with software companies. The benefit for the software company is that the beta release can be tested by scores of real-world users, each using unique computer systems with a variety of hardware and software. If there are conflicts with other programs or hardware, beta testing should revea
A beta release is one of many elements employed by Impatica as part of our product quality control cycle. A beta release is used for software/hardware that has not yet completed internal quality control processes but has had a great deal of client interest; i.e. clients are keen to use the product even though it is not yet stable and ready for release. Clients participating in a beta release agree to report found incidents back to Impatica so they can be logged and, ideally, repaired in time for the final release of the product.
Before a piece of software is made available to a wider audience software developers usually release a set of BETA releases that allow the potential audience of the application to provide feedback before the final release is made. This feedback usually includes details of parts of the application that do not function correctly on their specific hardware or details of changes they would like implemented. BETA releases however by their nature usually contain problems, are feature incomplete (for example, unable to import previous settings) and may not be compatible with any existing version of the application installed. This generally means BETA releases are not recommended to be installed in a production environment or by inexperienced users. A more detailed explanation of what a BETA release is and the full software release cycle can be found on Wikipedia.