[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter April 8, 2010
Margaret Wagner
mwagner at umich.edu
Sat Apr 17 06:59:20 PDT 2010
Sakai Newsletter
April 8, 2010
1. From the Executive Director
2. T & L Show & Tell
3. 3rd Annual Ja-Sakai Conference Summary
4. New Version of Elluminate Bridge for Sakai
5. Article in Campus Technology about ePortfolios - Mentions Sakai
6. Etudes Publishes Rates for Sakai Hosting, Training and Support
7. Project Management for E-Learning
8. New Mail List: Sakai3 ui-dev
9. Job Opening: Dir. of Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
at Indiana U.
10. Job Opening: Application Development Manager at U. Mich
11. Job Opening: Starfish
12. Recent Email Group Discussions
13. Events
--------------------------------
1. From the Executive Director
Last week we kicked off a new project to develop the next generation
of Sakai software, Sakai 3. This project brings together the
tremendous accomplishments already achieved on Sakai 3 into a single,
coordinated effort, and aims for a completed version that is feature-
equivalent to Sakai 2 in mid-2011. The active design and development
work accomplished by the Sakai community for the past year will be
gathered into the new project, enabling it at the start with a large
existing design effort and code base. While there is a lot yet to be
done, the work accomplished to date shows tremendous promise. Indeed,
even as we ramp up the coordinated effort, Cambridge and NYU are
each preparing a local deployment of Sakai 3 for use this summer.
Six universities have already dedicated resources to the coordinated
effort: Berkeley, Cambridge, Charles Sturt, Indiana, NYU and Stanford,
and this roster will grow in the coming months. You'll hear a lot more
about Sakai 3's composition and progress, and how you can get
involved, as the project unfolds.
In addition to the huge amount of work contributed directly to Sakai 3
development, credit for this work must be given to the community for
Sakai 2. Our collective intelligence and effort has enabled a robust
and highly functional product used on hundreds of campuses today. The
early innovation in Sakai 2 has led directly to our continued ability
to envision and create new tools such as Sakai 3, and it is a
testimony to the diversity and strength of the Sakai community that
both products can be in active development and use.
Sakai 2.7, which includes new features in Tests & Quizzes (Samigo),
Assignments, and Messages and Forums, as well as many fixes, is
scheduled to ship in about a month. The QA team, a community gathering
of shared effort, is undertaking a final push to validate the new
features and fixes in the latest version, and can use additional hands
over the next few weeks. If you've got a spare day, or a few
half-days, check the QA site at
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/2.7.0+Changes to see how
you can help.
Lois Brooks
Executive Director Sakai Foundation
lbrooks at stanford.edu
--------------------------------
2. T & L Show & Tell
At the 2010 Sakai conference in Denver, we invite Sakai users to
participate in the Teaching and Learning preconference workshop, "T &
L Show & Tell," during the afternoon of Monday, June 14th. We solicit
short presentations of teaching methods in Sakai, illustrating
specific techniques, tips, scenarios, or solutions, with printed or
web takeaways. Both instructors and instructional designers are
invited to share answers to questions such as:
- What enhancement have you made to Sakai out-of-the-box?
- What teaching practice have you finally been able to implement?
- What teaching problem have you solved with Sakai?
- What special request or situation have you accommodated with Sakai?
These short talks will be appetizers for the main conference sessions,
whether they relate directly to a conference talk or serve generally
to pique interest.
Please volunteer for a presentation of 5-20 minutes, by signing up at
our Confluence planning page by May 28th:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=68165032
We will schedule the presentations and assemble all materials (to be
submitted by June 4th) into one document and website. Presenters are
invited to bring something to offer the attendees -- a help sheet, a
screen shot or illustration, a configuration file, or other takeaway.
Robin Hill, University of Wyoming
Mathieu Plourde, University of Delaware
Rob Coyle, Johns Hopkins University
--------------------------------
3. 3rd Annual Ja-Sakai Conference Summary
I was very pleased to join Lois Brooks at the 3rd Annual Ja-Sakai
Conference hosted by Kumamoto University in Japan. One of the exciting
OSP-related developments we witnessed was a new dashboard tool
Kumamoto University calls "Notifications" and an integration of their
WebCT learning management system with Sakai 2.6 OSP. The workflow
looks something like:
1. Students land on a uPortal course page which is the launch point
for both the WebCT and OSP related tools.
2. Students submit learning artifacts to the WebCT system using
existing workflows.
3. Via an automated batch process, the artifacts are migrated into the
corresponding OSP Matrix tool for evaluation.
4. The new "Notifications" dashboard provides a birds-eye view of
Matrix updates to support deep learning.
This work is in support of their competency-based curriculum and will
be presented at the 2010 Sakai Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado.
For more information about Kumamoto University's portfolio practices,
see: http://www.gsis.kumamoto-u.ac.jp/en/gp.
Some other key takeaways from conference:
1. Nagoya University has officially announced their plans to migrate
from WebCT to Sakai.
2. Kansai University, the largest private university in Japan, has
adopted Sakai in partnership with a commercial entity. Their biggest
hurdle with Sakai is the lack of custom workflows and were very
excited to see the work coming out of Sakai 3 to help resolve this
concern.
3. Learning Java is presenting a problem to Sakai related development
and lowering this barrier to entry is an important concern (e.g.,
think PHP developers). Much of Sakai development is occurring at the
edge in Japanese Universities.
4. Japan now has at least two commercial partners that are active in
the Sakai space.
5. Internationalization and localization of both Sakai the software
and Sakai the website continue to be a hurdle for Japan.
For more details, see:
http://sakaiproject.org/blogs/lancespeelmon/3rd-annual-ja-sakai-conference-report
Lance Speelmon
Scholarly Technologist
lance at indiana.edu
--------------------------------
4. New Version of Elluminate Bridge for Sakai
Elluminate is pleased to announce the release of the Elluminate Bridge
for Sakai. This bridge seamlessly integrates live, synchronous
distance learning and collaboration into the Sakai Collaboration and
Learning Environment.
Instructors can schedule and deliver sessions and classes using
Elluminate Live!, providing users with superior voice over the
Internet, multipoint video, integrated teleconferencing, shared
whiteboards, public/private chat, best-in-class breakout rooms,
application/desktop sharing, file transfer, PowerPoint import, and more.
With the Elluminate Bridge for Sakai, students can launch a
synchronous session or interactive recording using Elluminate Live!
directly from their familiar Sakai environment. This bridge is
available to both hosted and self-hosted Elluminate customers.
The Elluminate Bridge for Sakai features include:
- Session creation by instructors and teaching assistants
- Ability to display, list and modify scheduled sessions
- Single signon launch of classroom from within Sakai
- Scheduling and delivery of Elluminate Live! sessions
- Single-click access to Elluminate Live! Sessions
- Ability to create, store and view Elluminate Live! recordings
- Ability to assign moderator and participant roles
- Assign sessions to sections within Sakai
- Sessions can be created for specific Sakai sites or for all sites
For more information:
http://www.elluminate.com/Products/Elluminate_Learning_Suite/Bridges/Sakai/?id=179/
In keeping with its commitment to support open standards, Elluminate
will be contributing this integration to the Sakai community.
Steve Schoen
steves at elluminate.com
Rick Ruden
rickr at elluminate.com
--------------------------------
5. Article in Campus Technology about ePortfolios - Mentions Sakai
"Portfolios, Finally!"
http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/04/07/eportfolios-finally.aspx?sc_lang=en
The article also includes a reference page with ePortfolio resources:
http://www.eportfolio-source.org/
Pieter Hartsook
Sakai Foundation Communications Manager
hartsook at sakaifoundation.org
--------------------------------
6. Etudes Publishes Rates for Sakai Hosting, Training and Support
Etudes has published its hosting and support services rates for fiscal
year 2010-2011.
http://etudes.org/hosting-fees.htm
The average per-user cost for Etudes hosting and support is $5.25
per-user. This price represents a 20% reduction from the 2009-2010
per-user Etudes rates. The lower rates were made possible by a move to
a new high-performance hosting facility with completely up-to-date
high-performance hardware capable of supporting a much larger user
population at lower cost. Since Etudes is a non-profit,
member-supported organization, these cost savings were passed onto the
customers.
The Etudes Board of Directors is committed to stable pricing from
year-to-year. A sincere effort will always be made to keep rate
increases within 3-5% or less. The Etudes Board of Directors also
feels that having uniform pricing and publishing pricing details is
important for a non-profit organization.
About Etudes:
Etudes is a non-profit 501(c)(3), public charity organization
providing hosted Application Services Provider (ASP) using Sakai
targeted at small-to-medium institutions. Etudes provides a low-cost
end-to-end e-learning technology solution including software
development and maintenance, hosting, and faculty training. The Etudes
training program ranges from introducing faculty to good uses of the
Etudes software to best practices for online teaching, learning and
collaboration. Etudes can be used to support an entire campus as the
campus enterprise learning management platform or it can be used to
complement an existing campus learning platform.
If you would like more information about Etudes, please send a message
to Vivie Sinou, Executive Director, sinou at etudes.org, or visit
http://etudes.org/
--------------------------------
7. Project Management for E-Learning
A special issue of the "Journal of Distance Education" (Canada) has
been published with the theme "Project management for e-learning"
(http://www.jofde.ca/index.php/jde). This special edition of the
Journal examines the critical partnership between teaching and
learning and project management by presenting detailed examinations of
a range of issues that readers might encounter at their own
institutions. Amongst other papers, this issue includes a case study
of aspects of project management in the implementation of Sakai at
Charles Sturt University, Australia:
Buchan, J. (2010) Putting Ourselves in the Big Picture: A Sustainable
Approach to Project Management for e-Learning. Journal of distance
Education (Revue de L'Education a Distance) VOL. 24, No. 1, 55-76.
Janet Buchan
Manager Educational Design & Media Team
Ph.D. Candidate Division of Learning & Teaching Services
Charles Sturt University
jbuchan at csu.edu.au
--------------------------------
8. New Mail List: Sakai3 ui-dev
The sakai-ui-dev list will be focused on issues particular to UI
development, which tends to involve different assumptions and
skillsets than the Java service development which reigns on sakai-dev.
It's Sakai 3's heavy use of front end technologies which prompted the
formation of this list, but it shouldn't be only for Sakai 3. That
said, JIRA notifications for the Sakai 3 front end are being routed to
sakai-ui-dev for the time being, and so it's those actively engaged in
this work who will most benefit from the list. Others are welcome to
participate depending on their tolerance for this level and quantity
of detail.
There will often be overlap with discussions on sakai-ux, but in
general user experience and design discussions should continue to be
directed to sakai-ux."
Clay Fenlason
clay.fenlason at et.gatech.edu
--------------------------------
9. Job Opening: Dir. of Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning
at Indiana University
The New Center for Innovative Teaching and Learning (CITL)is being
established to bring together expertise in the areas of curriculum
design and development, learning technologies, evaluation and
assessment, writing across the curriculum, and service learning. CITL
is a partnership between the Office of the Vice President for IT
(OVPIT) and the Office of the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education
(OVPUE). The Director of the CITL will provide vision and leadership
to support excellence in teaching and learning at IU Bloomington. The
Director will work with faculty from across the campus and establish
strong relationships and creative partnerships, in addition to
maximizing the ways in which the Center serves the central teaching
and learning mission. A key responsibility will be leading
initiatives connected to new directions in Indiana University's
teaching and learning strategy and the development of strategic
collaborations. Candidates are expected to be well-versed in
innovative teaching approaches; effective use of technology to support
instruction; assessment strategies that support student academic
achievement and persistence to graduation; effective learning
environments for teaching and learning; multicultural teaching, and
internationalization of the curriculum. Candidates must have a
terminal degree; supervisory and administrative experience; college
teaching experience; excellent oral and written communication skills;
appreciation and advocacy for diversity; excellent organizational,
interpersonal, and management skills; external funding experience;
professional development experience; record of publication and
participation in national organizations; and a willingness to work
collaboratively and strategically to support institutional priorities.
Candidates should submit a letter of application and curriculum vitae
to: Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Sonya Stephens, Chair,
CITL Director Search Committee, OVPUE, Maxwell Hall 100, 750 E
Kirkwood Avenue, Bloomington, IN 47405. Electronic applications are
welcome. Please send materials to: citl-dir-search at oncourse.iu.edu
The Committee began reading applications on April 15, 2010. The
successful candidate may begin as soon as July 1, 2010, or as soon
thereafter as possible. The institution is particularly interested in
and values candidates who have experience working with faculty and
students from diverse backgrounds, along with a demonstrated
commitment to improving access and the conditions in higher education
for persons from less represented populations.
David Goodrum
goodrum at indiana.edu
--------------------------------
10. Job Opening: Application Development Manager at U. Mich
The University of Michigan is seeking an exceptional Application
Development Manager to lead our local Sakai implementation team (see
position details below).
To apply for this position through 04/29/10 (posting end date), please
visit www.UMjobs.org. Once you have established your profile, go to
Search for Jobs, click Start Here and enter Job ID 39563. For more
information about building your career at the University of Michigan,
please go to www.UMjobs.org and select "Why U-M". A
Non-Discriminatory/Affirmative Action Employer.
Thanks,
Sean DeMonner
------
Working Title: Application Development Manager
Market Title: Applications Systems Analysis and Programming
Manager Department: Application & Information Services
Job Code: 102189 FLSA
Status: Exempt
Salary Range: **$77,000-$110,000
Appointment: 100% / 40 hours per week
Posting Start Date: 4/15/2010
Posting End Date: 4/29/2010
The Information and Technology Services (ITS) organization at the
University of Michigan has an exciting opportunity for an Application
Development Manager working on CTools, the University's central
collaboration and course management system. CTools is based on Sakai,
a robust Community Source J2EE product that is in use by hundreds of
institutions around the world. As leader of our development team, you
will be responsible for maintaining and improving our enterprise-class
system. In addition to working with local constituencies at the
University of Michigan, you will also interact with a globally
distributed community to help evolve Sakai into a next generation
environment for highly interactive and integrated online collaboration.
**The potential salary may vary depending on the qualifications and
experience of the selected candidate.
A cover letter and resume are required. The cover letter should be
PAGE 1 of your resume and specifically address your interest in the
position and outline particular skills and experience that directly
relate to this position. Please include your current or ending salary.
Duties: Manages a team and provides strategic leadership for the
division. Participates in strategic planning in collaboration with
customers and product managers. Directs the development, maintenance
and production support efforts for enterprise application systems.
Assures project deliverables are produced. Contributes to technical
and project planning. Establishes operational processes, procedures
and standards. Collaborates with other divisions to manage technical
infrastructure and the production application environment.
Continuously monitors and improves divisional processes in conjunction
with other organizational divisions. Conducts effective
cross-organization communications and communicates status to
management and customers on a regular on-going basis.
Recruits, coaches, and counsels employees for success, conducts
performance reviews, develops salary planning proposals, and assists
employees with career development planning and training.
Analyzes business requirements and creates detail designs. Develops,
tests, documents, and implements application programs, reports and
queries. Maintains all appropriate documentation.
Leads and participates in internal initiatives and process improvement
efforts. Proposes, reviews and approves modifications to systems and
identifies integration points with other applications. Identifies and
resolves dependency and integration issues across product areas.
Evaluates and recommends vendor products for purchase. Collaborates
with units to ensure proper integration across functional areas and
that appropriate technologies are in place.
Ensures projects are completed within time and budget requirements
utilizing standard project management tools and techniques. Provides
input and guidance to ensure the planning and execution of
deliverables meet the objectives of the organization and the customer.
Provides technical liaison to relevant constituencies within U-M as
well as to external groups, including the Sakai Community.
Qualifications Bachelors degree in Business, Computer Science,
Information Systems or equivalent combination of education and
experience. Minimum 8 years experience in application systems
analysis, design, development, testing, implementation, and support,
process improvement (modeling, analysis, redesign), and technical
writing (system documentation, training materials), and systems
development methodologies. Minimum 4 years supervisory experience,
to include recruiting, mentoring, career development, performance
management, leadership, and team building, and a proven ability to
lead a project team to meet customer expectations.
Minimum 4 years experience programming, ideally on enterprise class
product/service using modern web architecture (e.g. J2EE, .Net).
Demonstrated knowledge and skills in project management, negotiation,
and conflict resolution.
Ability to communicate effectively, both verbally and in writing with
all levels of staff Demonstrated analytical skills and in-depth
business knowledge.
Experience working with relational database technology in a
client/server or Web environment, and design and developing software
using structured techniques. Proficient skills utilizing word
processing, spreadsheet, and database applications and thorough
understanding of relational database concepts and SQL.
Demonstrated experience with budget planning and conformance,
determining project objectives and requirements, anticipating and
solving problems, and developing standards and guidelines for diverse
activities.
Demonstrated successful performance with independent problem solving,
presentations, leadership and coordinating and completing multiple
tasks within and across departments to meet changing deadlines.
Demonstrated skills in researching and writing proposals and purchase
justifications.
Preferred Qualifications Experience working with Open and Community
Source development projects.
Experience working with Teaching and Learning applications and/or
large scale collaboration systems.
About ITS For more information about ITS please go to: http://its.umich.edu/
--------------------------------
11. Job Opening: Starfish
Sakai Developers,
Starfish is looking for a reasonably-priced consultant to help us
customize our solution (www.starfishsolutions.com) for Sakai. We'll
probably need around 20 or 30 hours initially and then an hour or two
every once in a while.
The consultant should know the gradebook's database and APIs very
well, understand the authentication infrastructure, and also should be
familiar with adding simple components to the user interface.
Please email me with information about your background if you are interested..
Best,
David A. Yaskin, CEO & Founder, Starfish Retention Solutions, Inc.
dyaskin at starfishsolutions.com
www.starfishsolutions.com
--------------------------------
12. Recent Email Group Discussions
[Building Sakai] Filenae sorting in Sakai 2
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Filenae-sorting-in-Sakai-2-td4907740.html#a4907740
[Building Sakai] User Membership tool
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-User-Membership-tool-td4908787.html#a4908787
[Building Sakai] Problem found on qa-nl Server - Sakai 2.7beta-07,
Poll
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Problem-found-on-qa-nl-Server-Sakai-2-7beta-07-Poll-td4907987.html#a4908627
[Building Sakai] Mailtool question
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-Mailtool-Question-td2954090.html#a2954090
[Building Sakai] Sakai 2.6 upgrade
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Sakai-2-6-upgrade-td4906664.html#a4906664
[Building Sakai] Sakai 2.6 version in pom.xml
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Sakai-2-6-version-in-pom-xml-td4905865.html#a4905865
[Building Sakai] Question about RSF
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Question-about-RSF-td4905953.html#a4905953
[Building Sakai] question about UsageSessionServiceAdaptor refreshUser
call
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-question-about-UsageSessionServiceAdaptor-refreshUser-call-td4903132.html#a4903132
[Building Sakai] Too many open files?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Too-many-open-files-td4898350.html#a4901322
[Building Sakai] My Workspace update
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-My-Workspace-update-td4896650.html#a4896650
[Building Sakai] help! Ical export bringing up 404 sakai 2.6
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-help-Ical-export-bringing-up-404-sakai-2-6-td4900609.html#a4900609
[Building Sakai] [Deploying Sakai] Load balancing and sticky sessions
http://n2.nabble.com/Deploying-Sakai-Load-balancing-and-sticky-sessions-td4895753.html#a4895753
[Building Sakai] 2.6.2 java heap space error
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-2-6-2-java-heap-space-error-td4896653.html#a4896653
[Building Sakai] iCal feeds only viewable in MONTH view?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-iCal-feeds-only-viewable-in-MONTH-view-td4897460.html#a4897460
[Building Sakai] Is Sakai 2.7 ready for download now?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Assistance-for-Presentation-td4742290.html#a4894834
[Building Sakai] [Deploying Sakai] Load balancing and sticky sessions
http://n2.nabble.com/Deploying-Sakai-Load-balancing-and-sticky-sessions-td4895753.html#a4895753
[Building Sakai] Multiple Default Skins for My Workspace?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Multiple-Default-Skins-for-My-Workspace-td4880136.html#a4880136
[WG: Accessibility] [Building Sakai] Adding text-to-speech support to
Sakai
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Adding-text-to-speech-support-to-Sakai-td4858225.html#a4858225
[DG: User Experience] [VOTE] Sakai 3 UX 0.3.0 release from v_0.3.0_rc1
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-VOTE-Sakai-3-UX-0-3-0-release-from-v-0-3-0-rc1-td4877449.html#a4877449
[DG: User Experience] Sakai 3 Widget specification proposal
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Sakai-3-Widget-specification-proposal-td4909013.html#a4909013
[Building Sakai] User Membership tool
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-User-Membership-tool-td4908787.html#a4908787
[DG: User Experience] Sakai3 ui-dev mailing list
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Sakai3-ui-dev-mailing-list-td4890900.html#a4890979
[DG: User Experience] [3akai UI dev] jQuery 1.4.2 and evalJSON()
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-3akai-UI-dev-jQuery-1-4-2-and-evalJSON-td4898680.html#a4898680
[DG: User Experience] Dynamic profile information
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Dynamic-profile-information-td4891904.html#a4892971
[DG: User Experience] [Building Sakai] Question regarding names
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Question-regarding-names-td4869790.html#a4869790
--------------------------------
13. Events
2010 Sakai Annual Conference
Tuesday - Thursday, June 15-17, 2010
Pre-conference sessions: Monday, June 14, 2010
Hyatt Regency Tech Center
Denver, Colorado
http://sakaiproject.org/news/2010-sakai-conference-website-goes-live-call-proposals-now-open
Advance CAMP (Campus Architecture and Middleware Planning) Workshop
"The Second Identity Services Summit"
June 23-25, 2010
Raleigh, North Carolina
www.incommon.org/camp
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