[Announcements] Sakai 2.7.0 Release Announcement

[Kim Thanos]

We are pleased to announce availability of the Sakai 2.7.0 release.

·       Release artifacts are available at http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/
·       Release documentation including install guides is available at http://confluence.sakaiproject.org//x/NgchB
·       Sakai 2.7.0 is licensed under the Educational Community License version 2.0

Dedication
The Sakai 2.7 series is dedicated to the memory of Steve Smail, Programmer/Analyst in Library Information Technology at Indiana University, who died in late December 2009. He was a respected and long-time member of the Sakai developer community; many knew him through his work on the Sakaibrary project, Citations Helper and previous library resource integration efforts as well as his regular participation at Sakai conferences.
 
Highlights
Sakai 2.7.0 adds significant new capabilities to the core build including:
·       Site statistics
·       A new profile interface
·       Initial support for the IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI) spec
·       Improvements to the core tool set
·       Accessibility, performance and security enhancements
·       Language/locale updates
·       Bug fixes that improve upon the Sakai 2.6 series

Of note, the addition of IMS Basic LTI as a core capability provides users with a simple, standards-based mechanism for launching and sharing information with externally- hosted tools.   Basic LTI sends course, user, and role information to an external tool, signed securely using OAuth (http://www.oauth.net) security protocol.  Multiple Basic LTI placements can be added to a Sakai site in order to connect to one or more tool producers running outside of Sakai.  External tools can be written in any language.

Older Releases
With the advent of the Sakai 2.7 series, official Community support for Sakai 2.5 ceases. Organizations running Sakai 2.5 (or earlier versions) are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest versions of Sakai 2.6 or 2.7 in order to take advantage of continued maintenance support.

Thank you to all who have contributed to the success of the 2.7.0 release. 

The Sakai Foundation Staff


Strategic Communication Lead | Sakai Foundation | 503.816.4721 | kthanos at sakaifoundation.org

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