Inside the Evolving Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment Josh Baron Director, Academic Technology and eLearning Marist College Sakai Foundation Board of Directors “When you innovate, you've got to be prepared for everyone telling you you're nuts.” - Larry Ellison, Founder and CEO, Oracle
How many are running Sakai today?
How many are piloting or evaluating Sakai?
How many came because you thought there would be rice wine and sushi? How many came because you thought there would be rice wine and sushi?
Presentation Overview What is Sakai? – A view from 10,000 feet The CLE Software The Community The Foundation Why Sakai? – Driving Innovation Sakai: Myth vs. Reality New Initiatives and Directions Q&A (Please ask as we go…)
What is Sakai? Community Collaborative Learning Environment Software Sakai Foundation Open-Source Model Remind me at the end and I’ll tell you where the name comes from
What is Sakai? Community Collaborative Learning Environment Software Sakai Foundation Open-Source Model
My Workspace Courses Portfolios Projects The CLE Software
SAKAI DEMONSTRATION Be Kind, Don’t Hog the Wi-Fi!
CLOSE TO 50 ADDITIONAL “CONTRIB” TOOLS
Synchronous conferencing
Image Gallery Tool
SOLO – Offline Sakai
Sakaibrary – Library integration
Timeline Tool
What is Sakai? Community Collaborative Learning Environment Software Sakai Foundation Open-Source Model
The Sakai Community Over 160 Production and140 Pilot Instances on 7 continents
Sakai Commercial Affiliates
An Enterprise Solution (or not) Number of UsersInstitutions 130,000+Indiana, UNISA 60,000+Michigan 11, ,000UC Berkeley, Rutgers, Yale, Virginia Tech, RINET, Cape Town, Etudes Consortium, New England (AU), Valencia, Windsor, 1, ,000Marist College, Cambridge University, Cerritos, Charles Sturt, Fernando Pessoa, Lleida, Mount Holyoke, Northwestern, Rice, Roskilde, Saginaw Valley, UC Merced, Whitman, Arteveldehogeschool, eTech Ohio, AMDG Inc., OHSU, Limerick, Ross Institute
Increasing Number of Committers April 2008 (n=225) December 2006 (n=116) 94% increase in 16 months
What is Sakai? Community Collaborative Learning Environment Software Sakai Foundation Open-Source Model
The Foundation “Community source builds upon the open source production and development models but introduces more formal commitments and coordination to the work and strategic directions.” ( ) Protects open-source license Manages Sakai Partners Program ◦ 100+ members Coordination and facilitation ◦ Staff coordinate work within the community ◦ Host yearly conference and regular meetings ◦ External communication
Why Sakai? – Driving Innovation “Built by educators, for educators” ◦ Bottom line is not a profit-margin “Crowd-sourcing”– The human collective ◦ 5 Foundation staff ◦ 225 developers & 500 active contributors ◦ 10,000+ instructors & 1,000,000+ students ◦ Communities of practice – powerful PD opts! Decoupling “code” from the “service” Open standards support interoperability ◦ IMS Course Cartridge, QTI
Sakai: Myth vs. Reality Sakai is only for large research institution You need lots of developers to maintain Sakai It’s free, right? ◦ No license costs but it isn’t “free” ◦ ROI investing in human capital vs. licensing fees A bunch of volunteer can’t build anything useful! ◦ What about Linux? Apache? Your local FD? ◦ Robust software engineering process followed Using OSS without commercial support is crazy! What myths have you heard?
Institutional Resource Snapshot
New Initiatives & Directions Teaching and Learning Group ◦ Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award ◦ OpenEdPractices.org OpenEdPractices.org Yearly international conference ◦ Sakai 2009 – Possibly Boston Regional meetings and hackathons ◦ Cambridge (July 08) ◦ Berkley & Virginia Tech (Fall 08) K-12 Sakai Conference (RINET) User Experience Initiative
What might the future look like?
Where to learn more… Home: Issues: Collab: Wiki: Michael Korcuska, Executive Director, Anthony Whyte, Community Liaison,
Inside the Evolving Sakai Collaborative Learning Environment Josh Baron Director, Academic Technology and eLearning (845)