[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter July 9, 2009
Margaret Wagner
mwagner at umich.edu
Tue Jul 7 12:13:26 PDT 2009
Sakai Newsletter
July 9, 2009
1. From the Executive Director
2. Follow Along with What's Happening at the Conference
3. Call for Volunteers: Citizen Journalists for Sakai Boston Conference
4. Come Join the Sakai Community Gathering on Reinventing the
Requirements Process
5. New Sakai Foundation Staff Members
6. Oxford Going Live with Sakai
7. Sakai Book Found in the Wild
8. The Jasig Fall 2009 Unconference is Coming!
9. rSmart Welcomes College of the Redwoods to the Sakai Community
10. rSmart Sakai Workshop: Join us for Summer Sakai Institute
11. Job Opening at Virginia Tech
12. Recent Email Group Discussions
13. Events
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1. From the Executive Director
As part of the Sakai 3 project and the overall UX initiative, the
Sakai Foundation, University of Cambridge and Georgia Tech recently
engaged a User Experience Design Consultancy in the UK to create a
visual design. The process and initial results can be found here:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/eI1DAw/
I'm personally very pleased with the direction this is heading and it
is an important step on the path towards delivering Sakai 3. Please
take a look and let us know what you think. I will be demonstrating
this "in action" at the 10th Sakai Conference in Boston.
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
phone: +1 510-931-6559
mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
skype: mkorcuska
----------------------------------------------------------
2. Follow Along with What's Happening at the Conference
Not attending the Conference in Boston? There are several ways you
can follow along:
Yahoo Pipes -- Go to http://pipes.yahoo.com and search for Sakai09
Facebook -- Go to http://www.facebook.com/login.php Tag: Sakai09
Slideshare -- Go to http://www.slideshare.net/event/10th-sakai-conference-boston-ma
UStream.tv Channel -- We will be piloting live streaming from some
select presentations at the conference. Visit http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sakai09
to follow the live stream during the event and access recorded. If
you would like to participate in this pilot, please contact Mathieu
Plourde (just call him Matt), mathieu at udel.edu. Matt will mostly
broadcast from the Using Sakai track.
Watch for information about other sources of information about the
Conference at the following site:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=38862858
and on the Conference website:
https://educonference.com/sakai/boston/index.php
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3. Call for Volunteers: Citizen Journalists for Sakai Boston Conference
We are looking for volunteers to serve as "Citizen Journalists" during
the Sakai Conference in Boston. Your role would be to interview
presenters whose sessions you find interesting and to produce a short
video summary. Interviews of conference attendees, such as brief
demos of Sakai capabilities, overviews of an organization's migration
or integration strategy, or a survey of opinions about a topic, would
also be very welcome. Our goal is to gather such videos as quickly as
possible, balanced against allowing some time to edit them for content
and presentation quality, and post them for viewing during (or very
shortly after) the conference.
If you are interested in helping out, but don't have your own video
equipment, the Sakai Foundation will be providing a few Flip camera
(or similar) setups for use during the conference. If you would like
to help with interviewing, but don't know much about cameras and
editing, or, if you are a videophile, but don't know much about
interviewing, please still consider volunteering, and we will try to
pair you up with someone who has a complimentary set of skills.
If you would like to volunteer to help with this effort, please get in
touch with me.
Thanks.
Knoop, Peter
knoop at umich.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
4. Come Join the Sakai Community Gathering on Reinventing the
Requirements Process
Greetings Sakai Community,
I just wanted to take a moment to draw folk's attention to a session
that we're hoping to get a diverse cross section of the community to
attend.
As many of you may know, throughout the history of Sakai there have
been attempts to collect, prioritize and address functionality
requirements (e.g., new tools, enhancements to tools, etc.). To date,
no one ideal process has emerged, and as a result we currently lack a
comprehensive "requirements" strategy. With the launch of several new
initiatives (e.g., product development process, Product Council,
3akai, etc.) this past year, several of us in the community felt that
this was a good time to visit this issue and work together to reinvent
a new community-based requirements gathering process.
If you are interested, please consider attending the session titled
"Community Gathering: Re-Inventing the Requirements Process" scheduled
for Wednesday at 1:15 PM (with a BOF to follow at the same time on
Thursday). The session will be a forum for the community to gather
and discuss inventing a new requirements process.
Thanks!
Josh Baron
Director, Academic Technology and eLearning
Marist College
Josh.Baron at marist.edu
----------------------------------------------------------
5. New Sakai Foundation Staff Members
As a result of a strategic review of its goals and activities, the
Sakai Foundation has recently introduced some important changes to the
Sakai Development Process (seehttp://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/kIGTAQ
for more information). The introduction of this process and an
examination of the role the Sakai Foundation should play in supporting
the community resulted in the creation of two new staff positions:
Sakai Product Manager and Sakai Communications Manager. I'm pleased to
announce that we have completed the interview process for both of
those positions and will have two excellent new additions to the Sakai
Foundation staff.
Clay Fenlason has been selected for the Sakai Product Manager
position. If you've followed Sakai at all you'll know the
contributions Clay has made as a community member, a staff member of
two Sakai adopters (Boston University and Georgia Tech), and as a
member of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors. His skills and
experience, coupled with his passion for and dedication to Sakai, will
contribute a great deal to supporting the community and making the new
Product Development Process successful.
As Sakai Product Manager, Clay will lead the new development process
for Sakai and will drive both greater engagement from users and
contributors as well as greater roadmap predictability for adopting
institutions. He will also serve as the liaison between the community
and the Sakai Product Council. This will be a challenging and
invigorating role since the Product Manager will, in a very real
sense, "own" the Sakai roadmap. The Sakai Foundation and Georgia Tech
are still in the process of finalizing the formal arrangements for the
appointment, but we are working to ensure that he can assume these
duties as quickly as possible while still assuring a suitable
transition at Georgia Tech. I know that everyone in the community who
has worked with Clay understands how much he will be able to
contribute in this role.
I'd also like to welcome Pieter Hartsook, the new Sakai Communications
Manager. Pieter is an experienced marketing and communications
specialist with a history in higher education and open source. Most
significantly, Pieter spent nearly six years as marketing and
communications specialist at the Open Source Applications Foundation
(OSAF), the non-profit foundation behind the open source Chandler
project founded by Mitch Kapor. He also previously worked as Vice
President of Marketing Analysis & Research at Apple Computer and
published "The Harstook Letter," an independent newsletter focused on
market analysis of the Macintosh. We're very excited to have Pieter on
board to bring his extensive communications, high tech and open source
experience to the Sakai Foundation.
Pieter will be responsible for both internal and external
communications for the Sakai Foundation. He will own the content for
the Sakai website and the overall organization of our wiki and other
communication vehicles for Sakai. This will be a role with a wide set
of responsibilities, involving everything from developing a
communications strategy to writing lots of content.
Please join in offering congratulations to Clay and Pieter! Both will
be at the 10th Sakai Conference so those of you attending the
conference will have a chance to do that in person.
Best regards,
Michael Korcuska
----------------------------------------------------------
6. Oxford Going Live with Sakai
As of 30th June, Oxford University is running Sakai in production
(v2.5.x).
We're using most of the core tools plus Mneme, Evaluations, Tutorial
Sign-up, Search and Site Stats. We've also integrated tightly with our
LDAP, developed a hierarchy service to allow us to arrange sites in a
tree structure and using this, introduced devolved administration via
the concept of Administrations Sites (admin site members are able to
create new sites within any site where they are a maintainer), we've
also made it easy to assign the .anon and .auth roles to any site to
encourage Open Content. We've also developed a hierarchy of Guidance
sites with lots of documentation and exemplars, visit
weblearn.ox.ac.uk/info (no login required).
(As a side note, there's a hierarchy BOF provisionally on the Friday
of the Boston conference at 9:30 AM if anybody would like to know
more. This has been organised by Robin Hill.)
We ran a very successful pilot last year and attracted a large number
of early adopters from over 60 separate departments. These early
adopters have created over 700 separate sites which have been accessed
by over 4500 users. The pilot has generated very positive feedback and
we're looking forward to all our users (30,000) moving their focus
from the old Bodington-based service into nice shiny new Sakai!
Adam Marshall
adam.marshall at oucs.ox.ac.uk
----------------------------------------------------------
7. Sakai Book Found in the Wild
After ten months of effort and with the help of forty active
participants, the book the "Sakai Courseware Management: The Official
Guide" is a physical reality (http://www.packtpub.com/sakai-courseware-management-the-official-guide
). Despite the author X's consistent attempts to secretly add Google
AdWords to links hidden in the book, all royalties are going to the
Sakai Foundation.
Lots of people deserve thanks. Michael Korcuska's blog entry names and
shames: http://sakaiblog.korcuska.net/2009/06/12/sakai-book-now-shipping
Alan Berg
Informatiseringscentrum
Universiteit van Amsterdam
a.m.berg at uva.nl
----------------------------------------------------------
8. The Jasig Fall 2009 Unconference is Coming!
Dates:
September 28-30 -- Unconference sessions
October 1-2 -- Developer meetings
Place:
University of Illinois - Urbana Champaign I Hotel and Conference Center
Registration/Fees:
Jasig Members: $225
Non-members: $275
Accommodations:
I Hotel and Conference Center: $119/night
Deadline for guaranteed rate is August 27, 2009.
Front Desk: 217-819-5000
Make sure you ask for the Jasig room block and rate!
WHAT'S AN UNCONFERENCE?
"An unconference is a conference where the content of the sessions is
driven and created by the participants, generally day-by-day during
the course of the event, rather than by a single organizer, or small
group of organizers, in advance." -- Wikipedia
Jasig has always been about people coming together to share and learn
in an open environment, and this is what an "unconference" is all
about. This fall event will provide both spontaneous and planned
opportunities to collaborate on all Jasig community initiatives, as
well as initiatives from other community open source projects. This
year we plan to continue discussions begun at the June Internet2/
EDUCAUSE/Jasig Identity and Access Management ACAMP, as well. Mark
your calendar and make plans to join us! More information about the
Unconference will be available soon.
WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!
It's up to you. Ideas people are talking about so far include the
following:
--- Lightning Talks - Volunteers talk for up to 8 minutes. Any topic
goes
--- Code Clinics - Bring your uPortal, portlet, CAS, Bedework, or IdM
code or problem and work on it with core developers
--- Birds of a Feather Sessions - Discuss common interests, issues,
problems with colleagues
--- Strategic Planning - What should Jasig be focused on next year?
In three years? Join the conversation. Newbie? Meet the experts and
get individualized help
--- How-tos. How-not-tos
--- Tips and techniques
The final schedule will be determined in real-time, interactively with
the attendees. More information will be available soon. See you at
the Unconference!
- The Fall 2009 Jasig Unconference Organizers
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9. rSmart Welcomes College of the Redwoods to the Sakai Community
College of the Redwoods (CR) is excited to be implementing a pilot of
the rSmart Sakai CLE for the fall 2009 term. A public community
college, CR is located on the coast of northern California. It serves
nearly 280,000 residents, spread across a huge region of almost 10,000
square miles.
Although CR has three different campuses and several other
instructional sites, the majority of the region's residents do not
have easy access to these facilities. In response, CR plans to expand
its online courses and ultimately offer degrees entirely online. The
school hopes to increase development of online courses threefold over
the next several years.
To meet budget constraints, CR knew it had to move to an open source
environment for online delivery -- and it chose Sakai, already used by
more than 25 community colleges in the state. CR also recognized the
need for a strong strategic partner, with extensive knowledge of
Sakai, to ensure a successful pilot and provide ongoing support if the
platform is adopted. The school chose rSmart largely because of its
long-standing involvement with the Sakai community and its solid
business reputation.
"We have a need to move very quickly and yet not jeopardize the
quality of our student and faculty experience," says Maggie McVay
Lynch, Dean of Distance Education at CR. "From configuration
discussions and ultimate implementation to the training of our CLE
administrators, rSmart's expertise in Sakai and care for the customer
was evident. Their ability to help us proactively make important
decisions for the future has been invaluable to getting our pilot
going in record time."
Mike Zackrison
http://www.rsmart.com
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10. rSmart Sakai Workshop: Join Us for Summer Sakai Institute
During this half-day workshop, attendees will create a pilot course in
a live, hosted instance of Sakai. Participants will learn to build
content, assessments, and encourage collaboration with Sakai tools.
They will learn how to configure Sakai tools and course permissions
and add students into the course. At the end of the workshop, each
participant will have a course built that they can run for an entire
semester. Attendees need a computer with internet connection for the
workshop. It is recommended that attendees have a syllabus on hand, as
well.
Workshop August 31, 2009
9:30 - 11:00 AM PDT, 12:00 - 2:00 PM PDT
To register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/580074513
Megan Perrone
megan.perrone at rsmart.com
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11. Job Opening at Virginia Tech
Virginia Tech has an immediate opening for a Learning Systems
Architect. This position plays a critical role in designing and
maintaining highly scalable systems to meet the needs of Learning
Technologies in cooperation with a wide variety of Information
Technology support groups. To learn more about this position or to
apply, please visithttp://www.jobs.vt.edu and search for posting
number 090379. Individuals desiring assistance or accommodation in the
application process should call 540-231-9331 or 540-231-6258 TDD.
Virginia Tech is an Equal Opportunity/Affirmative Action Institution.
Dr. John F. Moore
Senior Director, Strategy and Planning Learning
jmoore1 at vt.edu
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12. Recent Email Group Discussions
[Building Sakai] FCK Editor limit in samigo
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--FCK-Editor-limit-in-samigo-td3220133.html#a3220133
[Building Sakai] rest all 'My Workspaces'
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--rest-all-%27My-Workspaces%27-td3213717.html#a3213717
[Building Sakai] TinyURL Service Impl Issue
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--TinyURL-Service-Impl-Issue-td3214022.html#a3214022
[Building Sakai] Urgent help : Problem Uploading file in Scorm Player
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Urgent-help-%3A-Problem-Uploading-file-in-Scorm-Player-td3212539.html#a3212693
[Building Sakai] sakai2.5 skin appearance problem
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--sakai2.5-skin-appearance-problem-td3212199.html#a3212452
[Building Sakai] Sakai and OPENSSO
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Sakai-and-OPENSSO-td3211867.html#a3211867
[Building Sakai] Show Sakai tool iframe in full window mode
http://n2.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Show-Sakai-tool-iframe-in-full-window-mode-td3192457.html#a3192457
[Portfolio] WYSIWYG limit
http://n2.nabble.com/-Portfolio--WYSIWYG-limit-td3218876.html#a3218876
[Portfolio] SAK-16536 freeform madness
http://n2.nabble.com/-Portfolio--SAK-16536-freeform-madness-td3183775.html#a3183775
[Portfolio] Replyable emails from portfolio tools
http://n2.nabble.com/-Portfolio--Replyable-emails-from-portfolio-tools-td3177049.html#a3177049
[DG: User Experience] Sakai 3 UX [Fwd: [sakai-kernel] Re: My
Preferences, Account Details, Regional Settings: Language]
http://n2.nabble.com/-DG%3A-User-Experience--Sakai-3-UX--Fwd%3A--sakai-kernel--Re%3A-My-Preferences%2C-Account-Details%2C-Regional-Settings%3A-Language--td3220232.html#a3220232
[DG: User Experience] Visual Designs for 3akai
http://n2.nabble.com/-DG%3A-User-Experience--Visual-Designs-for-3akai-td3154191.html#a3154643
[Building Sakai] UStream Pilot
http://n2.nabble.com/-Using-Sakai--UStream-Pilot-td3196488.html#a3196488
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13. Events
AuSakai '09
September 17-18, 2009
Charles Sturt University Bathurst Campus
Bathurst NSW, Australia
http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/ausakai09/ausakai09.htm
1st Workshop: Learning Management Systems meet Adaptive Learning
Environments (LMS-ALE'09)
September 29 - October 2, 2009
EC-TEL
Nice, France
http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/lms-ale-09
The Jasig Fall 2009 Unconference
September 28 - 30 Unconference sessions; October 1-2 Developer
meetings
Urbana Champaign I Hotel and Conference Center University of Illinois
Urbana - Champaign, Illinois
Assessment Institute in Indianapolis
October 25-27, 2009
The Westin Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
http://www.planning.iupui.edu/institute
Online Educa Berlin 2009
December 2-4, 2009
Hotel InterContinental Berlin
Berlin, Germany
http://www.online-educa.com/the-conference
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