Overview of Sakai Technology

SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005 1

Overview of Sakai Technology

Mark J. Norton

Senior Technical Consultant

The Sakai Project


Welcome!

SEPP Summer ConferenceJune 10, 2005

Baltimore, Maryland


Overview

• Quick Technical Overview

• What’s New in Sakai 2.0– Kernel– Services– Portals

• Sakai Technical Development– Getting Involved– Anticipated Changes


What is Sakai?

• Sakai is a Collaboration Learning Environment.

• It is a platform for modular tools.

• It’s also bundled support for:– Course management– Learning delivery– Collaboration, work, and administration


The

Sak

ai F

ram

ewor

k

SakaiService

SakaiService

SakaiService

SakaiService

Sakai Tool Sakai Tool Sakai Tool

What is a Framework?

• A “framework” is like a “hosting environment”• It is the stuff that “surrounds” the user-programmable

parts “inside”• This framework includes common services that can

be used to build more complex services.


Aggregator

Presentation

Tools

Services

Client

System

The

Abs

trac

t S

akai

Env

ironm

ent

What is an Architecture?

• Very abstract• The part that doesn’t change• Defines common terminology• Usually not heavily debated• Is not the implementation

detail at all


Architecture .vs. Framework

Aggregator

Presentation

Tools

Services

Client

System

The

Abs

trac

t S

akai

Env

ironm

ent

The

Sak

ai F

ram

ewor

k

InternalAggregator

Sakai ToolPresentation

SakaiTool Code

ApplicationServices

FrameworkServices

PresentationSupport

The

Sak

ai T

ool E

nviro

nmen

t

ExternalAggregator

System

Architecture

Framework

The Sakai Architecture leads to the design of a Sakai Framework


The Sakai Framework

JSF

Tools

Application Services

Portal

Common Services

Kernel

The Sakai Framework consists of three essential parts: JSF to manage presentation and implement the Style Guide, Common Services to provide essential service support, and the kernel to provide a basic web application environment.


What’s New in Sakai 2.0?

• A Completely New Kernel– Flexible support for applications

• Service Transition– Legacy Services moving forward– New Common Services

• Portals– Now: Charon and Mercury– Later: Astro and uPortal


New Kernel Features

• Login and Authentication

• User Sessions

• Tool Placement

• Component and App Registration

• Dependency Injection via Spring

• Broader UI support (Servlet, JSP, myFaces)


Legacy Services Start to Migrate

• The Legacy Authorization service is still in place.

• Changes were made to legacy services so they will work with new kernel.

• Work being done on Content Hosting.

• Providers replace plug-ins.


Legacy Services• alias• announcement• archive• assignment• calendar• chat• content• coursemanagement• digest• discussion• dissertation• email• event• id• message

• news• notification• preference• presence• realm• resource• security• site• time• user• CVS• cluster• component• config• courier

• current• email• log• memory• portal• session• sql


Providers

• Providers are a way to “look someplace else” for data.

• These other place can be a remote service or a database.

• Sakai is working on well known database schemas to allow data to be moved in via intermediate databases.


New Common Services

• Several key services are being completely re-designed:– Authorization– Super Structure– Course Management

• These will enable hierarchical site organization and improve integration.


The Sakai Common Services

Authorization

Authentication

SuperStructure

RepositoryAgent / Group

UuidType


The Authorization Structures

Group

Group Group

Agents Agents

Group Tree UCD

English Science

Staff Biology

BIO-101

Section

Site

Tools

Dean

Prof.

Super Structure

Chat.Read

Email.Write

Assess.Grade

Site.Create

Functions

WHO CAN-DO WHAT?


sakai

UM

EE

EE101

S123

Off101

chat-tool dir/

file.txt

rsrc-tool

layout

Group-EE-Students

Group-UM-Students

chat-tool

GRP1

GRP2

Chat-channel-0439

Sakai Super Structure

Note: this is not areporting structure,Rather, it is a way toorganize resourcesand determine access to them.


Portals

• Sakai will continue to offer it’s own portal.

• These are being rolled out in Sakai 2.0 and 2.1.

• Support for uPortal is being moved into place based on WSRP work by Anthony and Chuck.


Charon

• Charon is a new version of the Sakai portal that supports flat worksites and legacy authorization.

• It is integrated with the new Sakai kernel, so it is more robust, flexible, and extensible.

• It works pretty much the same as before (but look for a new Sakai skin!).


Mercury

• Mercury is a development portal, new in Sakai 2.0.

• It provides some system level information to help developers.

• Allows tools to be accessed independently.

• No more need for tunneled access.


Astro

• Astro will be the default Sakai portal in Sakai 2.1.

• It will support hierarchical organization of projects and courses, including inheritance of permissions.

• It will use the new Authorization Common Service.

• Will require some admin changes.


uPortal

• Anthony Whyte and Charles Severance have been working on adding WSRP support to Sakai (for the IMS TPP project).

• This should also provide support for uPortal integration as well.

• Coordination and development will be needed from both Sakai and JA-SIG.


Getting Involved in Sakai

• Sakai is a community based, open source development effort.

• That means that we need many people to get involved.

• Not everyone needs to be a developer:– UI specialists -- Database people– Testing and QA -- Documentation


Kinds of Sakai Development

• Framework development – core

• Service development - specialists

• Tool development - general

• User interface design – HCI specialists

• Database Migration – DBAs, etc.

• Skins and style sheets - designers


Framework Development

• Chuck, Glenn, Lance, Craig and others will continue to work on the Sakai Framework.

• However, there is room for other contributors:– Internationalization– Accessibility– Modularity, Plug’n’Play, etc.


Service Development

• Services are the heart of Sakai functionality.

• Legacy services will be migrated.

• Common services, completed.

• Consider other services, though:– Work flow, SCORM, instructional design,– Content management, library services, etc.


New Tool Development

• Existing tools are being reviewed and re-designed to make them Style Guide compliant.

• New tools are being proposed.

• What tools would you like to build?


User Centric Design

User FeatureRequests

Sakai StyleGuide

User InterfacePrinciples

Requirements

ConceptualDesign

EvaluationBy Users

ToolDesign

ServiceRequirements

TestPlan


Database Migration

• Sakai currently supports:– Oracle– MySQL– Hypersonic

• Others we could consider include:– PosGreSQL– MS SQL Server– Etc.


Governance

• We framing the discussion of how Sakai should be governed at this conference.

• If you care about Sakai, please contribute to this dialog!

• Governance many not specify what gets built, but it may determine how fast it gets there.


Starting a Work Group

• The Sakai discussion groups will continue to serve as a place to incubate ideas around.

• If there are people who are interested in turning these ideas into code, a work group can be created.

• Sakai provides on-line support for WGs.

• Submit a WG proposal, it’s easy!


CVS Process

• Server: cvs.sakaiproject.org• CVS Structure

– The bundled release of Sakai is now managed under the sakai2 CVS root.

– Use scratch to hold prototypes, etc.– Use config to distribute completed (etc) code.

• Sakai Releases– Part of the governance discussion is to figure out

how future Sakai releases will be managed.


Quality Assurance

• Carol Dipple is leading the Sakai QA effort.

• We all benefit from the QA process.

• Sakai is getting better at testing release candidates, but we still have a ways to go.

• Please help by volunteering to test.


Bug Tracking

• Full-time bug manager (Peter Knoop)

• [email protected]• [email protected]• bugs.sakaiproject.org• Open to the public to view and

submit• Will increasingly be the focus

of new work assignments


Documentation

• Sakai has several kinds of documentation:– The KnowledgeBase at Indiana U.

• https://www.indiana.edu/~sakaikb/

– Sakaipedia– Published documents and reports– JavaDoc

• If you can’t find what you need, please consider writing it.


Documentation

• Collab.sakaiproject.org– This is where most projects are organized.

• Sakaipedia– A collaborative documentation

effort similar to Wikipedia.

• Formal documents– The kernel and key services are formally

documented.


Questions?

Documents

Overview of Sakai Technology