Sakai Perspective on Integration and Interoperability Charles Severance June 22, 2006 June 29 Cambridge, UK - http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/ This material is Copyright Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 www.dr-chuck.com

Sakai Foundation Names Executive Director Recently I was selected as Sakai Foundation’s first Executive Director. I now am responsible for Sakai - period - I have no other job - I have no where to hide - I only have one hat. My “performance reviews” from now on could be termed “how is Sakai doing”. And I have a board of directors that is just now working up a set “of metrics” to measure my performance as Executive Director. I will just say that the Sakai board has “very high expectations”. As I came home from Vancouver, the big question in my mind - what - “Who are these institutions now paying my salary and what will it take to keep them happy??”

Sakai Map Sakai Activity - June 2006 So I grabbed a cup of coffee and did a little “data mining and assembled some “business intelligence”. This is pretty fun - I used Google’s Search API, Google’s Map API, and a for pay service that can find latitude/longitude from an IP Address. Sakai has 90 academic partners and 15 commercial partners - who now pay my salary. So this is the map of my salary. Sakai Activity - June 2006

Sakai Partners in Production (24%) Production = Running Sakai 24x7 permanently - there are users who expect Sakai to be part of this enterprise for the foreseeable future. This part of my salary is pretty secure. Sakai Partners in Production (24%)

Sakai Partners in Pilot (32%) These are the Sakai partners that are “playing with Sakai” - they have a server up but there is no commitment to “keep it running” users are evaluating it but it is not production. Some of these will go into production, and some will finish their pilot/ evaluation and shut the server down. Sakai Partners in Pilot (32%)

Partners that do not run Sakai (46%) These are the sites that do not even have a Sakai server up Partners that do not run Sakai (46%)

Members that don’t run Sakai… Currently run WebCT, Blackboard, Angel or home-grown In no hurry to change vendors Are often paying Sakai to make the market a better place What do they want in the short term? Interoperability. Interoperability with their existing systems to ease migration and coexistence during transition periods and/or experimental uses of new technologes.

Background in Standards Open Software Foundation (OSF) (1989-90) UNIX International (1990) IEEE POSIX IEEE P1003.0 / ISO BS ISO/IEC TR 14252 (1990-1997) - Guide to an Open System Environment Reference Model Vice Chair POSIX (1992-1996) IEEE Standards Advisory Board IEEE Computer Magazine - Column Editor 1994-1994 IEEE LTSC - (2001 - 2002) IMS Technical Board coChair 2005-2006 IMS Tool Interoperability WG - 2005 IMS Common Cartridge WG - 2006 My addiction to travel started a long time ago. I had to rush home from an IEEE POSIX meeting when my wife went into labor with my son

William Kahan - I think that it is nice to have at least one example - and the floating point standard (IEEE 754) is one - where sleaze did not triumph. Charles Severance - “As one organization “invades” the turf of another, we get to see the cards held in the hands of the players”.

“Enough time has passed to talk openly about the myths and realities regarding the ISO-OSI networking efforts and how they relate to TCP/IP. Jerry Foley. Charles Severance: - “The possibilities for career growth through standards involvement are endless.

Sakai and Standards Sakai needs to use its position and resources to influence ever richer standards so as to insure an ecology of many different collaboration and learning systems which are highly interoperable. JSR-168 Portlet / WSRP 1.0 JSR-286 Portlet 2.0 / WSRP 2.0 IMS Tool Interoperability IMS Common Cartridge Career development and business intelligence. Talk about vendors use of JSR-168 and 286. You get to see the cards - strategies, etc. I have felt honored to be part of the TI and CC - these are some smart people doing brilliant engineering. I wish I could convince a producer to make a reality show about the IMS demo efforts. Institutions should get involved in standards. People should get involved instandards.

Something to think about.. Standards are cool! LMS systems will import Common Cartridges LMS systems will use TI based tools Which LMS systems will export Common Cartridge and make their internal tools available via Tool Interoperability? Sakai is not afraid of losing market share by being completely interoperable. Isolation and holding on to market chare using defensive approaches is not an option. Defensive approaches to interoperability will only last “so long”. Customers now are figuring out their vendor’s game - regardless of whether or not the vendor is commercial *or* open source.

Data Interoperability Needs Going forward, Sakai needs to increasingly function as a component of a larger enterprise architecture along with many other applications. Each enterprise will evolve their mix of applications independently over time. In addition, there are some elements which still need to be completed.

Sakai Data Interoperability Roadmap Portal Environment Personal Learning Environment LMS Systems Collaboaration Environment Authoring Environment Content Management We recently published a interoperability roadmap for Sakai. I call this the “data web diagram” - The focus is not just “dashboards” - but full data interoperability supporting both reading and writing. Going forward, Sakai needs to increasingly function as a component of a larger enterprise architecture along with many other applications. Each enterprise will evolve their mix of applications independently over time. Enterprise Directory Data Repository ... interoperability and data portability are key elements... Student Information

Sakai Interoperability: “Swiss Army Knife” HTML HTML CalDav RSS SOAP SOAP WebDav WebDav SPARQL iCal Current Sakai REST Future Sakai

Sakai Integration Efforts Repositories Read/Search - DR OSID / Sakaibrary Writable repositories / DR OSID / JSR 170 Export / long-term archival - Fedora / DSpace Learning Design - LAMS / CopperCore Collaborative Learning Environments (IMS TI) Moodle / ATutor Blackboard / WebCT / Angel Portals - JSR-168 portals / PHP based portals Desktop - PLEX / VUE / Apple RDF - Haystack / Piggybank / Welkin

Crazy Idea: Interoperability at the User Interface Service Oriented User Interface (SOUI) iTunesU is the model to follow until we find something better This collaboration, portfolio, learning, achievement, talent, etc - is about *ME* But not just about “ME” - I am a different me in different “context” So my “essence” is a combination of “who I am and “where I am pluged in” Federated user interfaces - customizable. Like iTunes I like to think ahead five years.

Interoperability at the UI RSS, ATOM, RDF, SOAP, REST, HTML Interoperability at the UI The SOAUI

Conclusion A critical element of Sakai’s value proposition to its members is standards and interoperability Demo / engineering oriented groups bring a “bit of IETF” to IMS Shorten the cycle time from specification to interoperability to production in multiple systems Higher Education Academy/JISC Look forward to find ways for teaching and learning “catch up” with how we already are living and creating our “e-life” The winners going forward are those organizations that can “out collaborate” Sakai is not about “locking in” - it would be hypocritical to engage in any “lock in practices” June 29 Cambridge, UK - http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/