[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter January 21, 2010
Margaret Wagner
mwagner at umich.edu
Thu Jan 28 10:39:45 PST 2010
Sakai Newsletter
January 21, 2010
1. From the Executive Director
2. Call for Proposals for the 2010 Sakai Conference
3. Sakai Board of Directors Elects Officers -- Josh Baron, Chair,
Maggie Lynch, Vice-Chair
4. Sakai Foundation Executive Brief Webinar Slides Posted
5. JForum 2.7.1 for Sakai Now Released!
6. The Etudes Team is Pleased to Announce the Release of Melete 2.7.2
for Sakai 2.6.x.
7. Profile2 1.4.0 Preview Release Available
8. Search 1.2.0-rc03 Has Been Released
9. Sakai-2.7.0-b01 QA Tag Available
10. Registration Deadline: Jasig 2010 Early Registration Ends Jan 31
11. Teaching and Learning Group to Hold Virtual Working Session on 2/4
and 2/5
12. European Sakai Conference 2010 in Valencia, Spain
13. Announcing the 2nd Annual Etudes Users' Summit!
14. Call for Entries: Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award 2010
15. Draft 2.7.0 Release Schedule
16. Recent Email Group Discussions
17. Events
-----------------------------------------
1. From the Executive Director
Well, its January, and that means that planning for the 2010 Sakai
Conference in Denver is heating up. After last year's outrageously
fun, educational and successful conference in Boston, I'm personally
very excited for this year's event. The main conference will be from
June 15-17, with pre-conference workshops on the 14th.
And you should get involved!
- Register for the conference. The registration opens on Monday,
February 1.
- Submit a proposal. I especially want to encourage those folks who
have been using Sakai but haven't presented before.
- Design a logo! Sakai conference logos are designed by community
members. If you're interested in designing one we can provide you with
the source files for the existing Sakai logo.
- Suggest a keynote speaker. I'm on the lookout for great speakers and
could use your suggestions.
- You can join the conference committee. Send email to Mary Miles (mmiles at umich.edu
) or Pieter Hartsook (hartsook at sakaifoundation.org) for details.
Finally, attending a Sakai Conference is a great way for those
considering Sakai to learn more about why Sakai is more than just a
product. So I'd ask you to encourage your colleagues at other
institutions to attend.
Visit the conference website (http://sakaiproject.org/static/conference-2010.htm
) for details. There is also a LinkedIn Events page (http://events.linkedin.com/Sakai-2010-Conference/pub/217956
).
See you in Denver!
Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska at sakaifoundation.org
phone: +1 510-859-4247 (google voice)
skype: mkorcuska
-----------------------------------------
2. Call For Proposals for the 2010 Sakai Conference
The deadline for proposal submissions is Feb. 28, 2010.
The conference Tracks are:
1. Building Sakai
2. Deploying Sakai
3. Using Sakai
4. Portfolio
5. Sakai Showcase
6. Multiple Audiences
This year you will also be able identify the focus of your
presentation by selecting a "subtrack" area of interest to help
attendees in their session planning. The subtrack tags are:
1. Newcomer
2. Research
3. Pedagogy
4. QA
5. Faculty Practices
6. Sakai3
7. Student Involvement
8. Innovation
9. User Support
You can find further details on the conference website: http://sakaiproject.org/static/conference-2010.htm
.
We look forward to your proposals.
2010 Sakai Conference Planning Committee
-----------------------------------------
3. Sakai Board of Directors Elects Officers -- Josh Baron, Chair,
Maggie Lynch, Vice-Chair
The Sakai Foundation is pleased to announce the re-election of Josh
Baron, Director of Academic Technology and eLearning at Marist
College, to serve as Chair of the Sakai Foundation Board of Directors
for the coming year. Josh was elected to the Sakai Board in December
of 2007 for a three-year term and served as Chair since August of
2009. He is responsible for supporting a wide range of instructional
technology initiatives at Marist College, including distance learning,
faculty training, and student support. He also plays a leadership role
in strategic planning for the College in areas of academic and
information technology.
Maggie McVay Lynch, Dean of Academic Technology and Distance Education
at College of the Redwoods, has been elected to serve as the Sakai
Foundation Board of Directors Vice-Chair for the coming year. She has
been a part of the Sakai community since 2002. Her most recent
contributions have been as part of the Teaching & Learning Group,
developing the evaluation rubric for the Teaching with Sakai
Innovation Award, and providing input to a number of pedagogical and
user-related issues. In 2008 she received recognition as a Sakai Fellow.
Please join the Sakai Foundation in welcoming these stalwarts of the
community in their new leadership roles.
You can see the information about the current Board of Directors at: http://sakaiproject.org/board-directors
Pieter Hartsook
hartsook at sakaifoundation.org
-----------------------------------------
4. Sakai Foundation Executive Brief Webinar Slides Posted
The slides from the webinar are on the Sakai Foundation page:
http://sakaiproject.org/sakai-foundation
along with a link to download the .ppt file:
http://sakaiproject.org/sites/default/files/2010%20January%20Exec%20Brief.ppt
Pieter Hartsook
hartsook at sakaifoundation.org
-----------------------------------------
5. JForum 2.7.1 for Sakai Now Released!
The Etudes team is pleased to announce the release of JForum 2.7.1 for
Sakai 2.6.x.
DOWNLOAD JFORUM 2.7.1
----------------
Instructions on how to download and build JForum 2.7.1 can be found
at: http://etudes.org/release/discussion/
In addition to implementing several new features and enhancements,
with this release, Jforum no longer uses Jboss cache. Additionally, we
have moved all Jforum configurations to sakai.properties. And, Jforum
now uses Sakai's email settings.
FEATURES & FIXES
-----------------
For highlights of this release (with screen shots), please see: http://etudes.org/release/discussion/2.7/
For a complete list of Jira issues addressed in 2.7.0 and 2.7.1,
please see:http://etudes.org/release/discussion/jforum_past.htm
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
---------------
For information on future development, see: http://etudes.org/jforum_features.htm
CREDITS
---------------
Many thanks to Murthy Tanniru, Senior Java Developer, Etudes, for his
ongoing work in making Jforum a better teaching, collaboration, and
communication tool.
QUESTIONS?
---------------
To report issues or ask questions about Jforum, send a message to: dev at etudes.org
, or sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org.
Vivie Sinou
Executive Director, Etudes, Inc.
http://etudes.org/
-----------------------------------------
6. The Etudes Team is Pleased to Announce the Release of Melete 2.7.2
for Sakai 2.6.x.
DOWNLOAD MELETE 2.7.2
-------------------
Instructions on how to download and build Melete 2.7.2 can be found
at: http://etudes.org/release/melete/
In addition to implementing several new features and accessibility
improvements, with this release, Melete's "import from site" and IMS
CP import/export functionality has been greatly enhanced and
streamlined.
Also, import of Moodle packages is now supported by Melete's IMS CP
code, as well as import of eXe packages.
FEATURES & FIXES
-------------------
For highlights of this release (with screen shots), please see: http://etudes.org/release/melete/2.7/
For a complete list of Jira issues addressed in 2.7.0, 2.7.1, and
2.7.2, please see:http://etudes.org/release/melete/melete_past.htm
FUTURE DEVELOPMENT
----------------
For information on future development, see: http://etudes.org/melete_features.htm
CREDITS
---------------
Many thanks to Rashmi Maheshwari and Mallika Thoppay, Learning Systems
Developers, Etudes, Inc. for their ongoing work and commitment to
making Melete a super lesson builder tool.
Many thanks also go to Chuck Severance for his continued contributions
in enhancing LTI support in Melete. Several LTI improvements and fixes
were added by Chuck in this Melete release.
QUESTIONS?
---------------
To report issues or ask questions about Melete, send a message to: dev at etudes.org
or sakai-dev at collab.sakaiproject.org.
Vivie Sinou
Executive Director, Etudes, Inc.
http://etudes.org/
-----------------------------------------
7. Profile2 1.4.0 Preview Release Available
I am very pleased to announce that a preview release of Profile2 1.4.0
is available. This release gives a sneak peek into some of the new
features that Profile2 v1.4.0 will bring.
Notable features included in this release:
- Private messaging
- An image gallery and the ability to choose your profile image from
your gallery
- Improved Wicket AJAX performance
- Direct, easily bookmarked URLs to various pages and views
and dozens of other fixes and features!
For the full list of issues and features in this release, see Jira: http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/PRFL/fixforversion/11740
As always, the full installation/upgrade/configuration guide is
available in Confluence:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PROFILE/Profile2
How to get it: This release is available in the Sakai subversion
repository at:https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/profile2/tags/profile2-1.4.0-preview-01/
and as a binary Tomcat overlay in the Sakai Maven repository at:http://source.sakaiproject.org/maven2/org/sakaiproject/profile2/profile2-assembly/1.4.0-preview-01/
A big thanks to everyone who has contributed to the development of
Profile2, and a special thanks to the Centre for e-Science, Lancaster
University, UK, who contributed the Image Gallery feature!
Steve Swinsburg
Profile2 lead developer and evangelist
steve.swinsburg at gmail.com
-----------------------------------------
8. Search 1.2.0-rc03 Has Been Released
Hi All,
Search 1.2.0-rc03 has been released. This is the latest bugfix release
in the search service targeted for the upcoming 2.7 release. This
release addresses three issues. All of them are aimed at eliminating
potential resource leaks identified by the static code review:
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-17638
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-17639
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-17630
As usual, the release site can be found at: http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/search/1.2.0-rc03/
Regards,
David Horwitz
david.horwitz at uct.ac.za
-----------------------------------------
9. Sakai-2.7.0-b01 QA Tag Available
I've generated the sakai-2.7.0-b01 QA tag. It downloads, installs and
starts up in Tomcat 5.5.28 running inside a Java SE 1.6.0_17 JVM. QA
server admins should download and deploy the tag to 2.7-supported
servers as quickly as is possible so that QA can have at it.
This tag was originally scheduled for release on 21 January 2010. It
was bumped to 25 January so that we could address issues with edu-
services as well as reduce a backlog of fixes that had yet to be
merged to the 2.7.x maintenance branch.
The next beta tag is scheduled for Friday, 5 February 2010.
THIS TAG
Get it: https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/sakai/tags/sakai-2.7.0-b01/
What gets deployed: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/REL/sakai-2.7.0-b01
Fixes (n=111): http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK/fixforversion/11681
What got left out (n=47): http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK/fixforversion/11775
DATES
Next tag: sakai-2.7.0-b02, scheduled for Friday, 5 February 2010
RM calendar: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/REL/Release+Management+Calendar
MORE INFO
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/REL/Release+Management+Working+Group
Cheers,
Anthony Whyte
arwhyte at umich.edu
-----------------------------------------
10. Registration Deadline: Jasig 2010 Early Registration Ends Jan 31
A message from our friends at Jasig...
Come to the most inclusive conference on open/community source higher
education projects you will attend this year!
Jasig Spring 2010: "Ten Years of Open Source Innovation"
When:
- March 8 - 10, 2010
- Supplementary Seminars March 7th and 10th
- Developer Days, March 11 - 12
Where:
- Town and Country Resort, San Diego, California
Early Bird Registration and Hotel Discounts are available through
January 31st.
Register for both at the conference site: http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/10spring/index.html
Keynotes by:
- Gregory A. Jackson, Vice President for Policy and Analysis at EDUCAUSE
- Justin Erenkrantz, President of the Apache Software Foundation
- Rod Johnson, Founder of the Spring Framework Project
-----------------------------------------
11. Teaching and Learning Group to Hold Virtual Working Session on 2/4
and 2/5
As many may already know, the Sakai Teaching and Learning group has
scheduled a two-day "Virtual Working Session" which will take place on
February 4th and 5th from 12 Noon EST to 7 PM EST. The goal is to
dedicate a block of time to taking the "Learning Capabilities"
documentation that we've been working on associated with the Sakai 3
development effort "to the next level". Details of what this means
and background on the effort can be found at:
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PED/Virtual+Working+Session+planning+page
We have over 20 people signed up to participate but would love more
(feel free to join in even if you've not had time to engage up until
this point). The website referenced above also has a place to sign up.
Joshua Baron
Director, Academic Technology and eLearning
Marist College
Josh.Baron at marist.edu
-----------------------------------------
12. European Sakai Conference 2010 in Valencia, Spain
The conference will consist of a BootCamp/Workshop on the 1st of March
followed by two days of conference presentations and BOF meetings on
the 2nd and 3rd of March. You can find all the information about the
conference on the Sakai website: http://sakaiproject.org/sakai-european-regional-conference-2010
You can register and make your payment at: https://www.upv.es/pls/sosak/sic_eusakai.REGISTRATION?p_vista=poliformat&P_IDIOMA=i
The registration fee is 100 EUR and includes all the meals for the
conference.
About PRESENTATION PROPOSALS: Please, we need all your collaboration
for the conference presentations. If you think you have good
experiences to talk about, a new tool to show, or any best practice
you want to share, please think about doing a presentation in the
conference. Presentation proposals can be sent to the conference e-
email address:eurosakai2010 at upv.es.
About the BOOTCAMP/WORKSHOP: The schedule includes a Bootcamp/
Workshop that is focused on the configuration and maintenance for the
Sakai 2.x instance. As you may know, Sakai 3 is gaining momentum and
you may be interested in a second, parallel BOOTCAMP for Sakai 3.
Please send feedback if you are interested. If there's a strong
demand, we will schedule it.
About the SPORTS ACTIVITY: We are planning a sports activity for the
evening of the 1st of March. It will consist of a basketball match and
a indoor soccer match. If you are interested in this, please select
the mark that you will find it in the registration form.
Please if you have any questions, please contact eurosakai2010 at upv.es
Thank you.
Raúl Enrique Mengod López
rmengod at cc.upv.es
-----------------------------------------
13. Announcing the 2nd Annual Etudes Users' Summit!
Etudes develops the Melete, Mneme, and JForum tools for the Sakai
community and uses the Users' Summit to showcase the latest and
planned features for these tools, as well as gather user requirements
for the roadmap for these tools going forward. The Users' Summit also
showcases how teachers effectively teach with Sakai.
This year's Summit will be held on May 13 and May 14, 2010, in
Burlingame/San Francisco, California, at the Crowne Plaza San
Francisco International. Last year's Etudes Users' Summit was held in
Los Angeles, California and had over 125 attendees.
Dr. Ed Gould, Superintendent/President from Imperial Valley College,
will kick off the Summit on Thursday, May 13, with the keynote
address. The program will include show and tell sessions, tool demos,
roundtable discussions and breakout sessions on best practices,
retention strategies, tips and tools to become a better teacher, and
much more.
EARLY REGISTRATION IS NOW OPEN
---------------------
Early registration is now open! Please go to: http://etudes.org/summit/
The registration fee is $150 for Etudes members and $200 for non-
members.
Registration fees will help defray the costs of meals (breakfast and
lunch, both days, are included), reception on Thursday evening,
meeting room accommodations, AV equipment, and other event needs.
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS
--------------------
We are now accepting presentation proposals. The DEADLINE for
submissions is February 12, 2010. For more information about program
themes, presentation types, and to submit a proposal, see: http://etudes.org/summit/summit-proposal-call.htm
LODGING
------------------
We have negotiated a great guest room rate of 99.00 US$ / night with
the Summit hotel, Crowne Plaza. This rate will be honored up to the
cut-off date of April 30, 2010. Please don't put off planning your
travel. For reservations, call 650-342-9200 and ask for the Etudes'
room block.
The rate will also be available to Etudes attendees two days prior and
two days after the event. Bring your family and stay for the weekend
and plan to visit the city! The hotel is close to Caltrain and the
BART station.
Complimentary transportation is provided to and from the SFO Airport.
Additionally, complimentary Internet Service will be available for
guests. For more details on the hotel accommodations and location,
please see:http://etudes.org/summit/summit-lodging.htm
Please plan to join us and your colleagues and experience in person
the vibrant Etudes community. We promise a repeat of last year's
energizing and valuable event. The attendees, Etudes members and non-
members alike, will appreciate and benefit from the interaction and
exchanges.
We hope to see you in San Francisco, California, in May!
Vivie Sinou
Executive Director, Etudes, Inc.
--------
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 schools. Etudes provides a low-cost end-to-
end e-learning technology solution including software development and
maintenance, hosting, and faculty training. Etudes training ranges
from teaching faculty to use the Etudes software to best practices for
online teaching. Etudes can be used to support an entire campus as the
campus enterprise learning platform or it can be used to compliment an
existing campus learning platform.
If you would like more information about Etudes, please send a message
to inquiry at etudes.org or visit http://etudes.org/
-----------------------------------------
14. Call for Entries: Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award 2010
Have you used Sakai to create a dynamic learning environment that has
enriched your students' experience? If so, consider applying for the
2010 Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award. This award publicly honors
successful pedagogical innovation and best practices in teaching and
learning in a Sakai environment. Winners will receive a trip to the
11th Sakai Conference, June 14-17, 2010, in Denver, Colorado, USA (http://sakaiproject.org/static/conference-2010.htm
) to give a featured presentation about their teaching with Sakai. All
entries will become part of the OpenEdPractices.org (http://openedpractices.org/courses
) repository of best teaching practices. The award is sponsored by
IBM, with additional support from rSmart and John Wiley & Sons.
For more information about the award and the submission deadline, go
to the Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award website: http://openedpractices.org/twsia
Janet de Vry
janet at udel.edu
-----------------------------------------
15. Draft 2.7.0 Release Schedule
I've added the calendar plugin to the release management space in
Confluence and laid out a draft release schedule for the upcoming
Sakai 2.7.0 release (see links below). The plan is a tentative one but
assumes the generation of six QA tags (beta/rc) starting on Thursday,
21 January, 2009 and released every other Thursday thereafter until we
judge that sakai-2.7.0 is ready for public release (tentative release
date: 22 April). If necessary the schedule outlined below will be
adjusted should circumstances require it.
For me a critical determinant of whether or not we can keep to the
schedule below involves transitioning successfully from beta tags to
release candidates. Alan Berg has proposed that the transition occur
only after the following conditions are met:
Beta -> rc transition
1. elimination of all blockers
2. no unassigned critical issues
We should discuss the above criteria (as well as other proposals). At
a minimum, I'd like to see a fall in the number of issues lodged
against successive beta tags before we decide to cut a release
candidate; however, tracking changes in the defect rate may prove
challenging.
Tentative schedule (Jan-Feb: beta tags, March-April: rc tags)
21 Jan: sakai-2.7.0-b01
4 Feb: sakai-2.7.0-b02
17 Feb: Properties files string freeze (e.g., i18N)
18 Feb: sakai-2.7.0-b03
4 March: sakai-2.7.0- (beta/rc)
18 March: sakai-2.7.0- (beta/rc)
1 April: sakai-2.7.0- (beta/rc)
15-19 April: sakai-2.7.0 tag/binaries prep
22 April: sakai-2.7.0 release
Indie Projects should consider synchronizing their beta/rc candidates
with the above.
If anyone objects to the draft schedule above please do not hesitate
to contact me.
Cheers,
Anthony Whyte
arwhyte at umich.edu
-----------------------------------------
16. Recent Email Group Discussions
How to make roster tool available only to maintainers Solaris
Architecture Affects Performance?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-How-to-make-roster-tool-available-only-to-maintainers-td4457527.html#a4457716
Floating Chat and business networking
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Floating-Chat-and-business-networking-td4467453.html#a4467453wrong
encoding with accents Wimba integration on 2.6
Create and share Google Sites with new Sites Data API features
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Create-and-share-Google-Sites-with-new-Sites-Data-API-features-td4465391.html#a4465391
T&Q -- multiple choice question always scores zero?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-T-Q-multiple-choice-question-always-scores-zero-td4462036.html#a4464244
A consolidated assignment submission?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-A-consolidated-assignment-submission-td4464148.html#a4468328
Size of welcome pannel
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Size-of-welcome-pannel-td4461460.html#a4464231
Evaluation system on nightly or demo
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Evaluation-system-on-nightly-or-demo-td4453159.html#a4454139
trouble patching calendar-impl
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-trouble-patching-calendar-impl-td4458937.html#a4458937
Forums tool and .anon
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Forums-tool-and-anon-td4454629.html#a4454629
Sakai Presence Question
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Sakai-Presence-Question-td4455168.html#a4455168
Is there a better way to render subforms?
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-Is-there-a-better-way-to-render-subforms-td4443762.html#a4444147
Matrix preview behavior
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-Matrix-preview-behavior-td4440230.html#a4440230
iRubric for Sakai
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-iRubric-for-Sakai-td4426570.html#a4426570
AAC&U Essential Learning Outcomes and VALUE Rubrics in Sakai
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-Teaching-Learning-AAC-U-Essential-Learning-Outcomes-and-VALUE-Rubrics-in-Sakai-td4427351.html#a4427351
learning capabilities categories - updated
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-Teaching-Learning-learning-capabilities-categories-updated-td4464237.html#a4464237
Call for testers
http://n2.nabble.com/Call-for-testers-td4434875.html#a4434875
Google Apps Integration in Sakai
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Google-Apps-Integration-in-Sakai-td4429782.html#a4429782
Update on Sakai 3 CSS refactoring
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Update-on-Sakai-3-CSS-refactoring-td4468741.html#a4468779
-----------------------------------------
17. Events
Connexions Conference 2010
February 2, 2010
Houston, Texas
http://cnxconference.rice.edu/
European Sakai Conference 2010 in Valencia, Spain
March 1-3, 2010
Valencia, Spain
http://sakaiproject.org/sakai-european-regional-conference-2010
Jasig 2010 Ten Years of Open Source Innovation
March 8-10, 2010
The Town and Country Resort
San Diego, California
http://www.ja-sig.org/conferences/10spring/index.html
2nd Annual Etudes Users' Summit
May 13 & May 14, 2010
Burlingame / San Francisco, California
Crowne Plaza San Francisco International
http://etudes.org/summit/
11th Sakai Annual Conference
Date and Time:
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
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