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Draft – not final – expect changes
From Conception to Production-- The Yale Sakai Story
Chuck Powell
May 31, 2006
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Draft – not final – expect changes
Agenda
• Some history to understand:– Why we chose Sakai– What we did to make it a good solution at Yale
• Culturally
• Technically
• “In the trenches”
– Why we’re headed in certain directions
• How we’re doing things today• What we learned along the way
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Humble Beginnings
From: Chuck Powell To: Lois BrooksDate: Nov 10 2003 - 3:10pm
Lois,
Any chance I could set up a time to call and learn more about "Sachi (?), Saki (?)"? Intrigued at this end and would always rather be ahead of the wave rather than behind it.
Chuck
From: Chuck PowellSent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:13 PMTo: Wheeler, Bradley C.Subject: Re: Announcing the Sakai Project and the Sakai Educational Partners Program
Brad,
Please count Yale in as a SEPP member. I'll be the initial contact point.
Chuck> > Wheeler, Bradley C. wrote:> >>We believe the time is right for advancing a set of open source…
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Today’s toddler
Date: May 18, 2006 4:34 PM EDT
From: Drew Mazurek [email protected]
Subject:Testing again
We're now in production with 2.1.2. No need to respond if you receive this message.
- Drew
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Draft – not final – expect changes
Vision
Yale will deploy a next generation collaborative learning environment to provide excellent online support for the administration of courses, a rich set of tools to support teaching and learning and with integrated access to the emerging digital materials under development at the Library, museums and across Yale. Yale will develop and deploy an institutional strategy for continuous evolution of the learning environment to accommodate accelerating technology change and development of digital material.
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Draft – not final – expect changes
Original Schedule
• Phase I – Pilot replacement for classes.yale.edu (5-10 courses) and draft portal views
for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty which highlight access to the course web system and related services
– Goal: Begin immediately and conclude Spring Semester, 2005
• Phase II– Expand number of courses in pilot (few hundred) and add one content
tool/service.– Introduce full SAKAI-based portal with improved views for undergraduates,
graduate students and faculty– Goal: Begin immediately following phase I and conclude within Fall 2006
• Phase III– Full replacement of classes.yale.edu– Phased integration of library content and services– Goal: Begin immediately following phase II, conclude within Fall 2007
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Progress Summary
• Classes*V2 adoption exceeding our expectations and straight line projections. ~60% on V2, ~40% on the original.
• No measurable progress on new/revised portal views for faculty and staff.
• No new content tools or services built. We’ve focused on modifying or integrating existing Yale tools like the Photo Roster and Online Course Selection
• Still aiming for retiring the original Classes server by Fall semester 2007.
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News and Updates
• Classes*V2 continues to be very successful– Already noted adoption rate for courses but also increased
usage by non course groups large and small– Fruitful adoption discussions with Nursing, EPH, & YSM– No surprises to date in supporting the faculty & students
• Yale Library part of a Mellon Grant to build tools for integrating licensed library content into Sakai
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The Road Ahead and Priorities
• Lot’s of opportunities to do more! The 40+ items on the current spreadsheet are a good start not an exhaustive list.
• Current estimate given current resourcing is that it would take us 3-4 years to complete just these.
• How to balance needs, impact, transition costs, future expansion and patience waiting for others to help us?
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A Quick Tour of Classes*V2
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Draft – not final – expect changesCurrent
HR Records Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources
Cla
sses
Web
CT
Bla
ckbo
ard
Orb
is
Ban
nerW
eb
Fac
eboo
k
OC
I
OC
E
Web
Mai
l
New
s, e
tc.
Student Portal
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Draft – not final – expect changesFuture?
HR Records Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources
The Portal
Facebook News
WebMail OCE OCI
OPAC
JStor Term Bill
Reserve ClassroomCheck Grades
Post Grades
Jive
Weather
Library Loan
Quiz Tool
eReservesSearch Engine
Authz OSID OSID OSID OSIDOSID
CWeb WSRP iChannel Sakai GUIJSR-168
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Background materials
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Feedback & Requests (new things)
Improved WebDAV functionality
Photo Roster & Integrated student roster
Resources: increase permissions granularity
Dropbox: email notification when new submission
Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons
Web Content: launch in a separate window
Personal image asset management/publishing/analysis tool
Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually
WYSIWYG editor improvements
Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?
Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook
Scheduling tool for office hour appointments, discussion section sign-up, seminar discussion leaders…
Bulk downloading of drop boxes
Installing & using Melete
Plagiarism detection tool(s)
Upload functionality for quizzing and testing so everything doesn’t go through a web form
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Feedback & Requests (Systemic)Full integration with Online Course Selection
New web server for freestanding sites on Classes
Full integration with Online Course Info site
Non-course db feeds into site participant list (e.g., undergrad majors)
Automatic creation/population of Jive forums for non-course sites (projects, umbrellas)
Better content migration tools, including email
Course Evaluations
Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?
Friendly URLs to course sites
Library e-reserve integration
Integrated linking to available resources (Twin Peaks)
Integration with Learning Object repository (includes searching)
Better tools for the creation of “one-off” non Yale credentials for collaborators and visitors
Db integration for Med/Nursing School auto-population of course sites
Better quota management tools for individuals, projects and course sites
Translation tool to move quiz items between personal response systems and ClassesV2
Continue to develop alternate skins for individual course/project tabs
Multiple entry points or brands for the overall system
Improvements to distributed administration of courses and the concept of hierarchies
Automated access to courses for certain roles (e.g. department chair, DUS, DGS, etc).
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Draft – not final – expect changes
Feedback & Requests (Bugs & fixes)
Faults in Mac WebDAV implementation
Resources: increase permissions granularity
Resources: permissions should not affect Drop Box
Dropbox: display correct last modified date, plus time stamp
Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons
Web Content: launch in a separate window
Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually
WYSIWYG editor improvements
Friendly URLs to course sites
Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook
Syllabus tool improvements
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Purpose
To evaluate and adopt a next generation collaborative learning environment that will improve faculty and student access to and utilization of web-based services and capitalize on the campus investment in information and learning resources.
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Background (ITS)
Classes.yale.edu has been in service since the late 90’s and usage has grown dramatically– Easy to use, basic instructional tools, well known space, full
support for end users– Features lag behind “the competition”, organic growth of
code now difficult to support– Service was developed and deployed with no specific
programmatic funding
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Background (SFAS)
SFAS has also been increasing its online services in response to growing student and faculty demand.– Core services such as online access to Banner and key
student and faculty tasks– Additional highly valued services such as Online Course
Evaluation and the Facebook.– These additional services were not always tied to specific
programmatic funding and sometimes not well integrated into end user support structures
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Background (Library)
The Library has invested in a significant array of online resources and has extensive plans for more integrated access to digital materials. All of these materials and services should be readily available for access by faculty and students via a T&L portal. Examples include:– Library and museum catalogs and collections;– Web-based library services such as reference and reserve;– Course support digital library content (for example, the ELI
program);– With more to come in the future.
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Background (other)
• SOM, Law, and ITS-Med all run their own course management systems with their own separate end user support systems
• Student portal was “quietly” rolled out in summer 2003 with no incremental budget
• Summary: A lot of good new services here, but also end user confusion on how to find and use. Limited institutional planning or funding to date.
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Issues & Barriers
• Resources• Support• Transition from current systems in production• Availability and prioritization of functional services
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Why Not Buy?
• A suite of collaboration and learning tools have become core to the IT infrastructure and simultaneously is perceived as core and unique to the University’s “business” something we shouldn’t necessarily outsource to a vendor
• We’re better positioned to integrate these tools with other campus infrastructure and enterprise tools
• We (collectively) have vastly more experience in what is needed than any vendor
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Draft – not final – expect changes
Classes.yale.edu usage