📚 LibreCourse

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LibreCourse is an open-source Django application for creating, organizing, and collaborating on courses.
It’s designed to empower educators, learners, and communities by providing a flexible, modern platform to share knowledge freely.

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✨ Overview

LibreCourse allows anyone to create and manage courses using a clean, intuitive interface.
Courses are structured into lessons, support Markdown formatting, and can include rich media to engage learners.

The platform supports both individual educators and collaborative teams, making it ideal for schools, training groups, or open learning communities.

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🛠️ Tech Stack

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🚀 Features

• 🔑 User accounts

  • Personalized usernames with unique display names in the format username#id.
  • Secure authentication system.

• 📝 Course creation

  • Compose lessons using Markdown for text, code, and formatting.
  • Add images, videos, and external resources to lessons.
  • Organize lessons into structured courses.

• 👩‍🏫 Collaboration

  • Invite contributors or co-authors to courses.

• 👥 Teacher groups

  • Users can join together to form teacher groups.
  • Groups allow educators to publish and manage courses under a shared pseudonym, making collaboration seamless and giving the group a unified identity.

• 🔍 Discoverability

  • Search for courses by title, tags, or author.
  • Public and private course visibility settings.

• 🌍 Open Source

  • 100% free and community-driven.
  • Contributions welcome!

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🛠️ Upcoming Features

LibreCourse is continuously evolving. Upcoming features include:

• ✅ Roles & permissions for fine-grained collaboration.

• ✅ Learner progress tracking across lessons and courses.

• ✅ Student progress dashboards for teachers

  • View individual progress in real-time or general courses.
  • Track forum participation for better feedback.

• ✅ Quiz builder with multiple question types.

• ✅ Assignments & evaluations to enhance learning.

• ✅ Embedded video uploads beyond external platforms.

• ✅ Discussion forums for teachers and learners.

• ✅ Curriculum support

  • Bundle related courses under a shared curriculum.
  • Shared forum for discussions between teachers and learners.
  • Course creators can request inclusion in a curriculum.

• ✅ Moderation & reporting tools for admins.

• ✅ Certificates of completion for finished courses.

• ✅ Gamification: badges, points, streaks.

• ✅ Offline mode with automatic progress syncing.

• ✅ Multilingual support for global communities.

• ✅ API integrations with external tools.

• ✅ Discover & recommendations

  • Browse courses via a feed or personalized recommendations.

More details in Dev Roadmap

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🤝 How to Contribute

We welcome contributions of all kinds—bug fixes, new features, documentation improvements, or feedback! LibreCourse uses the pull request workflow. Here’s how you can get involved:

🔄 Contribution Workflow

1. Fork the repository Click the "Fork" button at the top-right of this repo to create your own copy.

2. Clone your fork

   git clone https://github.com/your-username/LibreCourse.git
   cd LibreCourse

3. Set up the development environment Run the setup script:

   python3 dev_jumpstart.py

4. Configure environment variables Create a .env file in the project root with at least:

   SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key
   

   Optional (a local SQLite3 fallback is implemented if not set):

   DATABASE_URL=postgres://username:password@localhost:5432/librecourse
   

5. Create a new branch Always work in a feature branch, not in main:

   git checkout -b feature/your-feature-name

6. Make your changes

   • Follow the existing code style and conventions.
   • Keep commits focused and meaningful.

7. Test your changes Make sure the project runs properly:

   python3 manage.py runserver

8. Commit & push

   git add .
   git commit -m "Add: short description of changes"
   git push origin feature/your-feature-name

9. Open a Pull Request (PR) Go to the original repository and open a PR from your branch.

   • Clearly describe what you changed and why.
   • Reference related issues if applicable (e.g., Fixes #123).

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✅ Contribution Guidelines

• Keep PRs small and focused—one feature/fix per PR is best.
• Update documentation if your changes affect usage.
• Be respectful and constructive in discussions.
• All contributions are reviewed before merging.

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🤝 Contributions - Project Setup

To make it easier for contributors to set up the project on Linux (Ubuntu/Debian, Arch-based) and other supported systems, we provide a single script: dev_jumpstart.py.

This script automates the entire environment setup process so you don’t have to manually install or configure dependencies.

🔧 What dev_jumpstart.py does

Running the script will:

1. Detect your operating system (Ubuntu/Debian, Arch Linux, or others).
2. Ensure system dependencies are installed
   • Checks and installs curl, node, and npm if missing or outdated.
   • On Ubuntu/Debian, uses apt; on Arch, uses pacman.
3. Set up Python environment
   • Creates a .venv virtual environment (if it doesn’t exist).
   • Installs/updates all Python dependencies from requirements.txt.
4. Set up Node.js environment
   • Installs or upgrades node and npm if necessary.
   • Installs local npm dependencies including:
     • tailwindcss (via @tailwindcss/cli)
     • postcss
     • autoprefixer
   • Ensures the TailwindCSS binary is properly linked and accessible.
5. Run Django + Tailwind
   • Launches the Django development server.
   • Starts Tailwind in watch mode so CSS updates automatically.

At the end, you will have a fully working development environment with Python, Django, TailwindCSS, and all project dependencies configured automatically.

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▶️ How to use it

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/your-username/LibreCourse.git
   cd LibreCourse

2. Run the script:

   python3 dev_jumpstart.py

   ⚠️ On some niche Ubuntu systems, you may need to run:

   sudo apt install python3-venv

3. The script will handle everything:

   • Install missing system packages
   • Set up Python virtualenv
   • Install Node/NPM dependencies
   • Ensure TailwindCSS is installed and ready

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💡 Notes

• If you see warnings from npm, they can usually be ignored unless they prevent installation.

• On first run, you may need to enter your system password for sudo commands.

• After setup, you can re-run:

  python3 dev_jumpstart.py
  

This will not reinstall everything from scratch. Instead, it will:

• Check if system dependencies (curl, node, npm, etc.) are present and up to date.
• Check if Python dependencies in requirements.txt have changed and install any missing ones.
• Check if Node dependencies (tailwindcss, postcss, etc.) need updating.
• Start/Restart the development environment (Django server + Tailwind watcher).

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This project is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License version 3 (AGPLv3). View LICENSE.