[sakai2-tcc] 2.8.2 release announcement - draft

[Steve Swinsburg]

Planning to send this out probably today sometime. Regurgitated the 2.8.0 announcement and updated slightly.

Please send any edits.

cheers,
S

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On behalf of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment (CLE) Technical Coordination Committee, I am pleased to announce the release of the Sakai CLE, version 2.8.2.
 
The Sakai CLE 2.8.2 builds on previous releases by refining and stabilizing the 2.x feature set. It offers dozens of new features and improvements to key areas like accessibility, internationalization, performance, and security.
 
Among the many enhancements included in the 2.8 series, noteworthy items include:
·                  Configurable URL shortening service
·                  reCAPTCHA support for logins
·                  Collapsible portal navigation menu
·                  Mobile portal UI improvements
·                  Experimental CKEditor implementation
·                  Respondus question import handling
·                  Customizable letter grades in assignments
·                  Support for IMS BasicLTI outcomes and improved external integration capabilities
·                  Enhanced user profile options
·                  Persistent event logging for Quartz Scheduler jobs
·                  Improved integration with external user providers (e.g., LDAP)
·                  Inclusion of many new webservices
·                  Updated language packs (Chinese, Dutch, French Canadian, Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish and Vietnamese.)
·                  Feature to set open/close dates for discussion boards, forums and topics and sort the threads
·                  Ability to preview message prior to sending in Messages tool
·                  Ability for site authors to change display order of announcements
 
A full list of features can be found in the release documentation https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/xQl6B
 
Obtaining the 2.8.2 release
·         Release artifacts are available at http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/
·         Release documentation including install guides is available at https://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/xQl6B
 
Licensing
Sakai 2.8.2 is licensed under the Educational  Community License, version 2.0.
 
Older Releases
With the release of the Sakai 2.8 series, official Community support for Sakai 2.6 ceases. Organizations running Sakai 2.6 (or earlier versions) are strongly encouraged to upgrade to the latest versions of Sakai 2.7 or 2.8 in order to take advantage of continued maintenance support.
 
Our thanks go out to the dedicated Sakai Community volunteers from around the world for their tireless work on this release.