The Sakai Project and Partners Program Jim Farmer

The Sakai Project and Partners Program Jim Farmer Sakai Community Liaison Online Information and Education Conference 2004 Suan Dusit Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand, 16 September 2004

The Sakai Project Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the four universities

The SAKAI Project “The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, and the u. Portal consortium are joining forces to integrate and synchronize their considerable educational software into a preintegrated collection of open source tools. ” The Sakai Project, A proposal to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, 2 December 2003

The broader goal “Integrating these disparate efforts will also merge their associated communities of use and practice towards a critical mass to have a real economic and innovation effect for educational institutions. ”

Sakai is • • A concept An architecture A four-university development effort An emerging community

The Sakai Vision We will create an open-source Collaboration and Learning management system which is competitive with best offerings, BUT at the same time create a framework, market, clearinghouse, cadre of skilled programmers, documentation and set of community practices necessary to enable many organizations to focus their energy in developing capabilities/tools which advance the pedagogy and effectiveness of technology-enhanced teaching, learning, research and collaboration …rather than each just building another threaded discussion tool as an LMS. Sakai Board, June 23, 2004

Sakai: So Whats New? • New approach to Portal Technology: Application Development Platform • New Approach to web application development: Code to work on desktop (someday) • New approach to Learning Management Systems: Not just for classes any more – research, collaboration And, most importantly today: • New form of development: “Community Source”

The Sakai architecture • Services-based architecture • Open Knowledge Initiative Service Interface Definitions (OSID) • JSR 168 portlet (and, implicitly, WSRP remote portlet) • Open Standards: XML, XSLT, SOAP, SAML and others as the project progresses

Tool Portability Profile A set of specifications to be followed when developing software • Sakai services based on the Open Knowledge Initiative’s OSIDs (OKI Service Interface Definitions). • User interface abstraction for localization • The JSR-168 portlet specification

Sakai 1. 0 Contents (12/04) • Complete Framework including JSF to Portlet Rendering All of the CHEF tools and services in legacy mode • Three new TPP compliant tools: SAMigo (Assessment), and Gradebook • Ready to deploy as a Learning Management System (looks a lot like Michigan’s CHEF 1. 2 plus) • Ready to use as a development platform with rich sample applications • Implementation of Sakai APIs, and MIT OSID plug-ins Goal: Deployable in production at UM, pilot at the other three universities.

Sakai 1. 0 Tools and Features • • • Worksite Info Schedule Announcements Resources Assignments Discussion Dropbox Chat Web Content News Email Archive • • • My Workspace Users Present Tear off windows Multiple roles, permissions Notification, preferences Browsable sites list Membership (self join sites) Webdav to Resources Public view Message of the Day

Sakai 2. 0 (May 2005) • Significant replacement of legacy tools – TPP Compliant, using OKI and Sakai APIs – Tools will be richer and deeper – Each core institution will focus on a set of tools to develop • SEPP partners will be involved in new tool development based on ability and commitment. • Sakai organizational structures evolve to expand participation while maintaining core development focus

Sakai to use JA-SIG’s u. Portal The Sakai tools will be built to the JSR 168 to run in any JSR 168 compliant portal with installed services. Joseph Hardin, Sakai Board Chair, July 2004 u. Portal also developed “aggregated layout” specifically designed to “push” course Web pages to students

What is u. Portal? • Enterprise portal • Framework for presenting aggregated content (channels) • Personalization • Role-based access control and layouts • Open source, collaborative effort • Java web application

Illinois State University

Denison University

SAKAI product availability Basis • CHEF Work. Tools Production Version Summer 2005 OKI OSID • Navigo Assessment Spring 2005 IMS QTI, OKI OSID • CHEF CMS Summer 2005 OKI OSID • Eden Workflow OKI OSID Spring 2005

The Sakai Education Partners Program Funded by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation and the partners

Sakai Education Partners • Participate in the community discussion on future direction • Deploy Sakai-based software • Develop Sakai-based software, refactor current software using the Tool Portability Profile, or publish Sakai-based content • Implement the Sakai architecture Based on expressed interests of the community

Sakai founding partners University of Colorado at Boulder Cambridge University Carnegie Mellon University Columbia University Cornell University Foothill-De Anza Community College District Harvard University Johns Hopkins University Northwestern University Princeton University Tufts University of California Berkeley University of California, Davis University of California, Los Angeles University of California, Merced University of California, Santa Cruz University of Hawaii University of Oklahoma University of Virginia University of Washington University of Wisconsin, Madison Yale University

Additional Sakai partners Arizona State University Boston University, School of Management Dartmouth College Florida Community College, Jacksonville Georgetown University Maricopa Community College District Simon Fraser University of Arizona University of Hull University of Lancaster University of Melbourne University of Nagoya University of Toronto University of Washington

Partnership benefits • Sakai Education Partners Program is for administrators [for planning], adopters who will need support, and developers who will want to contribute tools and services to the higher education community. • Partners will receive early information on the Sakai Project, including strategic directions, technical design and the initial tool sets for the 2004 and 2005 releases, and an invitation to the semi-annual SEPP meetings.

SEPP support • Developers to provide technical support for partners and liaison with the Sakai Core development team, • Support tools of immediate and specific interest to partners, such as a shared knowledgebase, • Technical documentation and specifications, • Administrative Support person to aid SEPP staff members and partners.

Sakai organization Sakai Project Sakai Partners Sakai Board Joseph Hardin, Chair, University of Michigan Bradley C. Wheeler, Indiana University Lois Brooks, Stanford University Mara Hancock, University of California, Berkeley Carl Jacobson, University of Delaware Amitava ‘Babi’ Mitra, Massachusetts Institute of Technology Jeff Merriman, Open Knowledge Initiative Vivian Sinou, Foothill De. Anza Community College District

Sakai Partners • Educational institutions • Contribute US$10, 000 per year for three years • Participate in Sakai activities

Sakai Partners 2005 • Sakai Project • Sakai Partners – Foothill De. Anza authoring tool – University of California Berkeley gradebook • Sakai related – Open Source Portfolio Initiative – CREE Project: JISC Library access portlets – University of Nagoya multimedia “immersion”

The Berkeley Grade Book An example of collaboration University of California, Berkeley funded development of an on-line grade book • Develop the grade book in collaboration with MIT • Deploy and test the grade book integrated with local student systems • Re-factor the grade book to Sakai “Tool Portability Profile” to support interoperability

The Etudes Project An example of collaboration Hewlett Foundation funded deployment of Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment at Foothill-De Anza Community College District • Develop an authoring tool, primarily for faculty • Deploy and test Sakai as an information service (ASP: Application Service Provider) for 48+ community college districts • Develop open standards sharable learning materials

The Twin Peaks Project An example of collaboration Sun Microsystems, Inc. funded deployment of a citation/link authoring tool by Indiana University. • Transfer a citation and link from a Web search or browser display into a document. • Integrate into a JSR 168 portlet with an open source online WYSIWYG editor.

The CREE Project An example of collaboration UK JISC-funded project led by the University of Hull, a Sakai partner • Redevelop search applications as Sakai JSR 168 portlets • Improve the user interface; explore alternative presentations (by role, experience, disabilities) • Includes Z 39. 50 (Jafer), Web Services-based SRW/SRU, Open URL (BALSA), portal environment (HEIRPORT), and Google • Tested, documented, and made available as open source

The end jim farmer jxf@immagic. com; jxf@UMich. edu +1 -202 -296 -2807

Publisher’s Note • u. Portal is a project of the JA-SIG Collaborative led by Carl Jacobson at the University of Delaware and funded, in part, from the Sakai Project. • im+m has contributed to u. Portal, and the Meteor and California Electronic Transcript Project prototypes referenced in these presentations. • The author is Chairman of the Board of im+m and Sigma Systems Inc. , contracted by the University of Michigan for the Sakai Educational Partners Program, and volunteers as u. Portal Project Administrator.

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