[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter July 23, 2009
Margaret Wagner
mwagner at umich.edu
Sat Jul 25 16:16:49 PDT 2009
Sakai Newsletter
July 23, 2009
1. From the Executive Director
2. Sakai 2.6.0 Officially Released
3. Profile2 v 1.2 Released
4. 10th Sakai Conference Videos
5. New Sakai-Related Research Papers and Articles
6. rSmart Welcomes the Kuali Foundation
7. Build a Course in Sakai with rSmart's Sakai Summer Institute
8. Recent Email Group Discussions
9. Events
------------------------------------------------
1. From the Executive Director
I just got back to Berkeley after an amazing week in Boston at the
10th Sakai Conference. It was an exhausting week, starting with
Project Coordination meetings on Monday, a Sakai Foundation Board
meeting on Tuesday, the Newcomer's Reception Tuesday evening, the main
conference and associated receptions and dinners from Wednesday -
Friday, and a post-conference Project Coordination meeting on Saturday.
But more than exhausting, it was exhilarating. I don't know if you had
the same experience, but I felt an exceptional amount of energy and
enthusiasm at the conference. Why was that?
With over 500 attendees this was the largest Sakai Conference in terms
of actual attendance and we had a large proportion of first-time
attendees (over one-third). We also had a large number of faculty and
instructional design staff (also about one-third) -- the people who
are using Sakai every day and stretch its capabilities. The mix of
developers, designers, users and organizational decision-makers was
superb. The presentations were extremely high quality. The food was
excellent. All of this contributed to the great energy.
But there is more than that. First, it is extremely clear that the
Sakai community has been successful in creating an excellent
alternative to commercial products. It is no longer just the early
adopters or the large research universities -- there are too many
success stories to dismiss Sakai as a niche solution or as a project
that depends on external funding for sustainability. Second, while our
success is clearly evident, the community also has an awareness that
we haven't come close to realizing our potential. And finally, the
desire to do even better is now accompanied by a new vision --
represented in many ways by Sakai 3 -- for how we can get to where we
really want to be.
We see the challenges and potential that lie ahead while
simultaneously knowing that we have the skills and resources to
successfully meet those challenges. In many ways it reminds me of the
psychological concept of "flow" from my days studying Cognitive
Psychology.
Suffice it to say that I'm more excited about Sakai than I've ever
been. And, as usual in Sakai, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
phone: +1 510-931-6559
mobile (US): +1 510-599-2586
skype: mkorcuska
------------------------------------------------
2. Sakai 2.6.0 Officially Released
Greetings Sakai Community,
It is with no small amount of exuberance that we pen (key) the
following words: Sakai 2.6.0, the latest release of the Sakai
Collaboration and Learning Environment, is now officially released and
available to the Sakai community worldwide. We are also simultaneously
releasing Sakai 2.5.5, the latest maintenance release of the Sakai
Collaboration and Learning Environment in the 2.5.x series. These
releases represent the efforts of many dedicated designers,
developers, testers and others. We want to thank all of you for your
efforts, skills and time in these endeavors.
SAKAI 2.6.0
Sakai 2.6 addresses over 1500 issues and enhancements, including a
number of security and performance enhancements.
DETAILS OF THE RELEASE
Overview
- Features a number of functionality enhancements,
internationalization and performance improvements, and support for IBM
Websphere and DB2.
- Binds to a reorganized, repackaged set of low-level "kernel"
services that are now released separately.
- Features a new license: the Educational Community License, version
2.0.
Sakai 2.6.0 Distributions
Source, binary and demo are available at:
http://source.sakaiproject.org/release or http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6
Documentation and Overview
- Sakai 2.6 Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration, etc.)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6
- Sakai 2.6 Overview (PowerPoint)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/download/attachments/3440646/Sakai+2.6+Overview+29-Apr-2009.pptx?version=3
QA and Instances
- QA/Testing Results
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/2.6+QA+SUMMARY
- Test Instances
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/Test+instances
We want to thank everyone who has contributed and participated to the
Sakai 2.6.0 release effort. Special thanks goes out to Anthony Whyte,
David Horwitz, Noah Botimer, Beth Kirschner, Matthew Jones, Jean-
Francois Leveque, Adam Hocek, Michael Lavacca, Karen Tsao, Lydia Li,
Peter Knoop, Thomas Amsler, Megan May, Angela Joyce Henry, Nancy
Wilkison, Vern O'Connor and everyone who participated in the weekly
release management meetings. We also want to take a moment to express
our thanks to the early-adopter institutions (University of Cape Town,
Indiana, Rutgers, Yale, and others) who are currently running release
candidates of 2.6.0 successfully in production or test environments.
Their efforts and feedback played a significant role in helping to
identify critical issues, test installations and overall increase the
quality of this release dramatically. And a last thank you to all the
developers who volunteered their time to step up and address many
unforeseen issues in the last few months.
SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT SAKAI 2.4 AND EARLIER
Sakai 2.6.0 contains a number of security enhancements that have been
applied to Sakai 2.5.5 but not to earlier Sakai releases. The Sakai
2-4-x and 2-5-x maintenance branches have been patched as necessary
and the code can be checked out using a Subversion client. However, as
of 20 July 2009 the 2.4.x maintenance branch will no longer be
supported. Organizations running Sakai 2.4 or earlier versions are
strongly encouraged to upgrade to Sakai 2.5 or Sakai 2.6.
SAKAI 2.5.5 MAINTENANCE RELEASE
Sakai 2.5.5 addresses over 200 issues, including a number of security
and performance enhancements.
DETAILS OF THE RELEASE
Sakai 2.5.5 Distributions
Source, binary and demo are available at:
http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/2.5.5 or http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5
Documentation and Overview
- Sakai 2.5.5 Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration,
etc.)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5
We want to thank everyone who has contributed and participated to the
Sakai 2.5.5 release. Special thanks goes out to Matthew Jones, Jean-
Francois Leveque, Karen Tsao, Lydia Li, Anthony Whyte, Peter Knoop,
Michael Lockett, Angela Joyce Henry, Thomas Amsler, Nancy Wilkison,
Vern O'Connor, and everyone who participated in the weekly release
management meetings, for all their efforts and assistance to make this
release a reality.
Regards,
Pete Peterson
QA Director, Sakai Foundation
plpeterson at ucdavis.edu
Phone: 530-754-7259
------------------------------------------------
3. Profile2 v 1.2 Released
I am very pleased to announce the 1.2 release of Profile2 for Sakai.
Profile2 is a complete redevelopment of the existing Profile tool in
Sakai and brings social networking to Sakai2. A Facebook-like
interface for editing your profile, comprehensive privacy controls,
post status updates including Twitter integration, searching for
people with common interests and adding them as a connection, are what
Profile2 is all about.
Over 41 fixes and new features are incorporated into this release,
including:
- full EntityBroker support for all Profile, Privacy, Preference and
Status entities (including a business card-style entity)
- extensive control over the configuration
- full internationalisation support
- improved conversion from the original Profile, including image urls
- the ability to lock down profiles and privacy settings
- improved AJAX processing
- improved performance
- a full set of API Services for other tool or system integrations
- and continued support for 2.4.x, 2.5.x and the 2.6.x releases of
Sakai.
More information, including screenshots and installation instructions
for all three Sakai flavours are available on Confluence here:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/PROFILE/Profile2
For the full list of entities supported, see this page on Confluence:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PROFILE/EntityBroker+support+for+Profile2
For the full list of features and fixes for the release, please see
the issue Navigator for Profile2 in the Sakai Jira:http://jira.sakaiproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10500&fixfor=11411
Cheers,
Steve Swinsburg
steve.swinsburg at gmail.com
Portal Systems Developer
Lancaster University, UK
------------------------------------------------
4. Conference Videos
After returning to Berkeley from the 10th Sakai Conference in Boston I
took a minute to glance at the results of the "citizen journalists"
who recorded various presenters during the conference. I'm sure
there's more to come but the results are already impressive.
There is a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/sakaivideo
and a uStream channel athttp://www.ustream.tv/channel/sakai09
I'm sure more will be uploaded during the next few weeks, but there is
already some great content at both of these locations. Check them out!
Cheers,
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
------------------------------------------------
5. New Sakai-Related Research Papers and Articles
Hi all,
I have started a new page in Confluence in an effort to keep track of
the different research papers and articles that are published by
members of the Sakai community or are of interest to our community.
Please feel free to add your papers and articles to the list.
The page is available on Confluence: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/p4DWAw
It is a child page of the Teaching and Learning group, but the content
of the paper does not have to be confined to teaching and learning
subjects.
Steve Lonn
CTools/Sakai Staff Graduate Student Research Assistant
slonn at umich.edu
------------------------------------------------
6. rSmart Welcomes the Kuali Foundation
This month rSmart welcomes the Kuali Foundation to the Sakai Community
as one of its most recent Sakai CLE support customers. The Kuali
Foundation is a non-profit organization [501(c)(3)] responsible for
sustaining and evolving administrative software that meets the needs
of all institutions of higher education. Kuali started in 2005 as a
collaboration between seven university partners, NACUBO and rSmart,
and received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to produce
Kuali Financial System based on Indiana University's Financial
Information System. Kuali currently has over 30 member schools and
organizations, and nine commercial affiliates, who use an open-
community software development model to produce enterprise-grade, open-
source, modular software. Kuali has grown to include additional
projects including Kuali Coeus, a research administration system based
on MIT's Coeus project; Kuali Student for student administration; and
Kuali Rice, a set of middleware components and a rapid development
environment that supports the other Kuali applications.
The Kuali Foundation relies heavily on listservs for internal
communications and collaboration, and uses Sakai to manage this
mission-critical service. Sakai CLE 2.6 offers important improvements
to Kuali's previous listserv, including the ability to send HTML-
formatted emails and attachments. Additionally, the Kuali board of
directors and various project boards use Sakai extensively for
collaboration, taking advantage of Sakai's Site Resources tool to
share important documents. rSmart is playing a critical role in
Kuali's Sakai implementation. "Since rSmart already has deep expertise
in Sakai deployments, this contribution to the Kuali community is
especially helpful. Kuali software has been built using Sakai for
collaboration, and rSmart's work to upgrade us to Sakai's latest tools
is timely for our work," said Brad Wheeler, chairman of the Kuali
Foundation board and vice president for IT at Indiana University.
Best,
Jonny Brown
Sr. Information Architect
rSmart
jonny.brown at rsmart.com
------------------------------------------------
7. Build a Course in Sakai with rSmart's Sakai Summer Institute
August 31, 2009
9:30 AM - 2:00 PM PDT (GMT -7)
(There will be a 60-minute lunch break from 11 AM - 12:00 PM)
Join us August 31, 2009 for a half-day workshop!
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.
To register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/580074513
Megan Perrone
Marketing Representative
rSmart
megan.perrone at rsmart.com
------------------------------------------------
8. Recent Email Group Discussions
[Building Sakai] [DG: Teaching & Learning] Sakai 3 groups, roles, and
course sites
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Sakai-3-groups%2C-roles%2C-and-course-sites-to24650151.html#a24650151
[Building Sakai] [WG: Sakai QA] [DG: User Experience] User Experience]
why a separate step to join sites?
http://www.nabble.com/-DG%3A-User-Experience--why-a-separate-step-to-join-sites--to24645663.html#a2464575444
[Building Sakai] Sakai Confluence dashboard
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Sakai-Confluence-dashboard-to24647754.html#a24647754
[Building Sakai] Better contrib/confluence documentation was: Who do I
ask for contrib svn access?
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Better-contrib-confluence-documentation-was%3A-Who-do-I-ask-for-contrib-svn-access--to24641266.html#a24641436
[Building Sakai] content hosting versioning
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--content-hosting-versioning-to24644559.html#a24644559
[Building Sakai] logging into SakaiAdminX
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--logging-into-SakaiAdminX-to24625073.html#a24625073
[Building Sakai] GMT installation on 2.6.0
http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?query=GMT+installation+on+2.6.0&local=y&forum=18101&daterange=0&startdate=&enddate=
[Building Sakai] what is in 2.6's org.sakaiproject.kernel ?
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--what-is-in-2.6%27s-org.sakaiproject.kernel---to24633701.html#a24635697
[Building Sakai] SAK-16024: 2.6.0 conversion script: site.add.course
backfill issue
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--SAK-16024%3A-2.6.0-conversion-script%3A-site.add.course-backfill-issue-to24630203.html#a24630203
[Building Sakai] Auto adding Forum Synoptics to home page in 2.6
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Auto-adding-Forum-Synoptics-to-home-page-in-2.6-to24612361.html#a24625109
[Portfolio] XSL displaying HTML code in presentation
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--XSL-displaying-HTML-code-in-presentation-to24499476.html#a24499476
[Portfolio] 3 OSP requirements, proposed changes
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--3-OSP-requirements%2C-proposed-changes-to24490034.html#a24490034
[Portfolio] Assignment & matrices
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--Assignment---matrices-to24477276.html#a24477276
[Portfolio] T&L Pie-in-the-sky (PITS) thinking and most complex
scenarios (MCS)
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--Come-Join-the-Sakai-Community-Gathering-on-Reinventing-the-Requirements-Process-to24296873.html#a24429269
[DG: Teaching & Learning] OpenEd Practices
http://www.nabble.com/-DG%3A-Teaching---Learning--OpenEd-Practices-to24501797.html#a24501797
------------------------------------------------
9. 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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