The Sakai Project University of Michigan Indiana University Stanford University MIT JA-SIG (uPortal) & OKI

The SAKAI Project “The University of Michigan, Indiana University, MIT, Stanford, and the uPortal consortium are joining forces to integrate and synchronize their considerable educational software into a pre-integrated collection of open source tools.”

Converging Trends…why now… Data Standards Architecture Standards Institutional Mobilization Foundation $$ Investments Institutional Partnering Open Source Applications

SAKAI Proposal Synchronized Architecting of Knowledge Acquisition Infrastructure (also, Hiroyuki Sakai, and now kanji implications) U Michigan, Indiana U, MIT, Stanford, uPortal Awarded 2 year Mellon Foundation funding Build on JSR 168, OKI standards CHEF 2.0 as framework and services implementations uPortal as 168-compliant portal Distributed development of tools – portable code Tool Portability Profile (TPP) as part of grant Goal – interchangeable tools, components built at different places all work together

Hiroyuki Sakai Iron Chef French – Fusion Cuisine

KYOU / sakai Boundary, Situation Gyakkyou – adversity, adverse circumstances Henkyou – frontier, remote area Shinkyou – frame of mind, mental state Fits well, since we are embarking on a difficult project that will cross important frontiers, taking us into remote areas, and that will require determination and clarity in our thinking.

Synchronized Development and Deployment “All institutions are committing to an initial implementation of the Sakai tools, as a campus-wide CMS and/or campus-wide enterprise Portal by Fall of 05 when the tools are fully released.” [Synchronization] will greatly facilitate further shared developments in the years beyond the Sakai Project.”

Sakai Project Core Universities Commitments –5+ developers/architects, etc. under project leadership – no local responsibility for 2 years –Public commitment to implement Sakai –Open/Open licensing Project –$4.4M in institutional staff (27 FTE) –$2.4M Mellon Foundation –Additional investment through partners

Contributions University of Michigan’s CourseTools (CTNG)and Work Tools (WTNG) for group collaboration (from the CHEF project) Indiana University’s Navigo Assessment, Oncourse Course Management System, Eden Workflow, and OneStart enterprise portal MIT’s Stellar Course Management and Administration System; OKI OSIDs Stanford’s CourseWork Course Management System, Navigo development JA-SIG’s uPortal

Sakai Project Deliverables 1.Tool Portability Profile  Specifications for writing portable software 2.Pooled intellectual property…best of  JSR-168 portal  Course management system  Quizzing and assessment tools, etc  Research collaboration system  Workflow engine  …modular & pre-integrated 3.Synchronized adoptions at Michigan, Indiana, MIT, Stanford with open-open licensing

Michigan CHEF Framework CourseTools WorkTools Indiana Navigo Assessment Eden Workflow OneStart Oncourse MIT Stellar Stanford CourseWork Assessment OKI OSIDs uPortal SAKAI 2.0 Release Tool Portability Profile Framework Services-based Portal SAKAI Tools Complete CMS Assessment Workflow Research Tools Authoring Tools Primary SAKAI Activity Refining SAKAI Framework, Tuning and conforming additional tools Intensive community building/training Activity: Ongoing implementation work at local institution… Jan 04 July 04May 05Dec 05 Activity: Maintenance & Transition from a project to a community SAKAI 1.0 Release Tool Portability Profile Framework Services-based Portal Refined OSIDs & implementations SAKAI Tools Complete CMS Assessment Primary SAKAI Activity Architecting for JSR-168 Portlets, Refactoring “best of” features for tools Conforming tools to Tool Portability Profile Sakai Core Project

Open/Open Licensing “..all work products under the scope of the Sakai initiative for which a member is counting matching contribution and any Mellon Sakai funding” will be open source software and documentation licensed for both education and commercial use without licensing fees.

MIT’s Stellar

Stanford’s CourseWork

uPortal

Indiana’s OnCourse

Sites are accessed via their tab Synoptic views Foreign Language support Customizable page menu Presence Michigan’s CTNG

Michigan’s WTNG

More examples – chat, lab notebook, schedule, web page Michigan’s WTNG

Tool Portability Profile The Open Knowledge Initiative’s (OKI) OSIDs OKI Service Interface Definitions The JSR-168 portlet specification –Built into Michigan’s CHEF and –JA-SIG’s uPortal User interface abstraction for localization

Services – OKI, CHEF implementations/extensions JSR 168 Portlet Container CHEF JSR 168 Portal uPortal Tools use the services (storage, notification, workflow, …) made available to them by the framework. Tool aka portlet … Tool aka portlet Tool aka portlet Tool aka portlet uPortal talks to portlets, aka tools, across the JSR 168 interface, aggregates their content, and presents their content to users. CHEF Provides the place for the tools to run, the services, and communication between them.

JSR-168 Instant Tutorial JSR-168 leverages the Servlet API – anything Servlet references, JSR168 just adopted The concepts of actions and context are there (basic MVC with some separation of logic and presentation)(enough C that you can do M&V separately) Great support for JSP as rendering language, or the portlet could choose to call Velocity or XSLT to do the rendering. The API is very rich and solves many of the complicated problems of living inside of a portal. WSRP and JSR-168 are well aligned (i.e. remote and local portlets will play well together) There is a Jakarta project to develop JSR-168 middleware (Pluto) Pluto does not implement a portal – it can be used by many portals, that’s the portlet container concept, and one of the main points of 168 So, we really like JSR 168

Some Standards OKI – services interfaces JSR 168 – portals, portlet containers SCORM – looking for someone to build portlet, service – interchange format - zipformat, manifest, etc; runtime environment - pop-up frame set, database-persistent scratch space – island? Out of band agreements need to be codified for integration into Sakai LOM – Looking at it, like IMS standards IMS – where applicable, like QTI for assessment –Increasingly coordinated with OKI efforts – what/how –Emerging effort for common architectures XML/XSLT - sure, as part of, say, QTI spec, or for display rendering RDF – of increasing interest to Chef team – stay tuned

Chef Project Encompasses CT.NG, WT.NG, NeesGrid, NMI, other users of Chef Is the core software development effort –Providing framework for tools that go to make up the other offerings, eg, CTNG, WT.NG, DissertationTool (cTools) We are currently running Chef 1.2 for CT.NG Chef 2.0 is foundation for Sakai

CourseTools.NG  SAKAI Tools Administration User presence Schedule Announcements Resources Assignments Discussion Archive Dropbox Chat News (RSS) Webpage Tool Synopsis Notification Anonymous comment Public view WebDav Search

Gateway to CTNG – supports non authorized view of sites, general info about the application Gateway to CTNG – supports non authorized view of sites, general info about the application

Sites tool – non-authorized users can see site content designated as Public Sites tool – non-authorized users can see site content designated as Public

Personal tool list for user, customizable create, edit, configure worksites join sites summary of sites – announcements, schedule private resources RSS feeds, links to web pages Personal tool list for user, customizable create, edit, configure worksites join sites summary of sites – announcements, schedule private resources RSS feeds, links to web pages Each user has their own private worksite – My Workspace

Example summary in My Workspace – schedules from all sites in which you are a member Example summary in My Workspace – schedules from all sites in which you are a member From the Educ 100 site From the Sample site

Various views Recurring events Custom fields Various views Recurring events Custom fields

Hierarchy of folders Optional permissions by role on folders Hierarchy of folders Optional permissions by role on folders

Resources accessible via WebDav Drag/drop to/from CTNG resources Resources accessible via WebDav Drag/drop to/from CTNG resources

Multiple layout options Threaded, star formats Categories, topics for organization Multiple layout options Threaded, star formats Categories, topics for organization

Open, Due, Close date control Inline, attachments, both for submissions Return for resubmission, review Open, Due, Close date control Inline, attachments, both for submissions Return for resubmission, review

Instructor view creating an assignment Instructor view creating an assignment

Student view creating a submission Student view creating a submission

Instructor’s view Student’s view

Presence – users focused on site Users present In Chat Users present In Chat Multiple chat rooms via Options

Archive of all sent to the site User’s preferences control how they receive none, as they come in, digest Archive of all sent to the site User’s preferences control how they receive none, as they come in, digest

News tool – display any RSS feed

Web content tool – display any URL

Permissions per role can be set per tool Support can add additional roles Permissions per role can be set per tool Support can add additional roles

Permissions per folder per role can be adjusted Let Students post files to this folder

Sakai Community Support Developer and adopter support –Sakai Educational Partner’s Program more below Commercial support –No exclusive deals – talk with everyone –Open-open licensing – open source, open for commercialization –For fee services will probably include… Installation/integration, On-going support, Training

Sakai Educational Partner’s Program Fee: $10k per year, 3 years Access to SEPP staff –Community development manager –SEPP developers, documentation writers Knowledgebase Developer training for the TPP Exchange for partner-developed tools Strategy and implementation workshops Early access to pre-release code

SEPP Support Developers to provide technical support for partners and liaison with the Sakai Core development team, Support tools of immediate and specific interest to partners, such as a shared knowledgebase, Technical documentation and specifications, Administrative Support person to aid SEPP staff members and partners.

SAKAI Partners “institutions of higher education, both large and small … participating in the Sakai Project in ways that suit their local needs and timing. These may include: –contributing to funding the project to ensure an open source option for higher education, –participating in the discussion of strategic directions for the Sakai Project –developing educational tools based on Sakai’s Tool Portability Profile, and/or –adopting Sakai Project software at their institution.”

SEPP Objectives (1of 3) The objectives of the Educational Partner’s Program are to: actively develop a large, self-sustaining community of institutions that share the Sakai Project’s open source vision carry on a discussion of strategic directions for the Sakai Project as it emerges and evolves, provide a Sakai Project roadmap describing the timing and features for Sakai software releases,

SEPP Objectives (2 of 3) provide in depth developer and adopter training, develop a leveraged support infrastructure of a common (or locally implemented) knowledgebase, and helpdesk mobilize distributed resources for development and support of Sakai tools, provide a marketplace for the sharing and exchange of Sakai-based tools/components, facilitate purposeful interaction with the Sakai Core development team,

SEPP Objectives (3 of 3) coordinate activities with other organizations, such as IMS or country-level agencies, build on the experiences of the JA-SIG, CHEF, and OKI training and conferences, facilitate Sakai community sharing of best practices in development, implementation, and support.

SEPP Meetings The initial SEPP meetings are planned for June and September of The semi-annual SEPP meetings will have a technical track for training software developers and implementers and an administrative track for Sakai strategy and user support. Partners may send two developers to each meeting for formal training in the Sakai Tool Portability Profile by the lead technical staff of the Sakai Project.

What Can Be Done Now - Look At: OKI Chef JSR 168 J2EE/EJB/JBoss –Tools won’t be built this way, won’t even see EJB’s –Services should be built this way Clustering, scaling, caching, cache coherency – rely on entity beans Avalon, Spring, Pico –Inversion of Control models –Levels 1,2, 3 –Loader models

The OKI Initiative The Open Knowledge Initiative™ is a collaboration among leading universities and specification and standards organizations to support innovative learning technology in higher education. The result of this collaboration is an open and extensible architecture that specifies how the components of an educational software environment communicate with each other and with other enterprise systems. O.K.I. provides a modular development platform for building both traditional and innovative applications while leveraging existing and future infrastructure technologies. O.K.I. is designed for broad adoption in the higher education domain. It provides a stable, scalable base that supports the flexibility needed by higher education and commercial developers of educational software.

The OSIDs “Common Services” Authentication Authorization SQL Logging Shared Filing Dictionary Hierarchy Group ID User Messaging Scheduling Workflow Domain Specific Services “Educational Services” Course Management Digital Repository Assessment Grading

Existing Campus Infrastructure elements that Map to OSIDs Authentication/Authorization Enterprise File Systems Data Warehouses Student Information Systems Digital Libraries/Educational Content Repositories Unique ID/Campus Namespace Systems Group Management Systems Enterprise Calendaring Systems Enterprise Workflow Systems , Chat, Discussion Systems

OKI - What Can be Done Now? Enterprise systems developers/managers should familiarize themselves with Version1.0rc6.1 of the O.K.I. OSIDs All the JavaDoc, Developer Docs, Reference Docs, Solutions Guides as well as reference code and other developer aids can be found there.

OKI - What Can be Done Now? Begin developing implementations of appropriate OSIDs to integrate with campus systems The O.K.I team and others actively scan and respond to issues that are raised on the SourgeForge OKI project forums. Developers should be encouraged to post questions/issues/gripes/etc.

OKI - What Can be Done Now? In many cases there will be opportunities for institutional collaboration, especially where common technologies are in use: –LDAP/Kerberos etc. for AuthN –PeopleSoft for Student Information Data –CorporateTime/Meeting Maker/etc. –AFS for campus file systems –Etc…

Sakai Educational Partners Program Initially the SEPP can provide developer training opportunities as well as help in coordinating common OSID implementation efforts across member institutions.

Chef – What Can Be Done Now? Source code Developer docs Installation docs Run it Look inside

uPortal – What Can Be Done Now? Source code Developer docs Installation docs Run it Look inside

Sakai Educational Partners Program What can be done now? Join. So you can: Get access to early docs, knowledge base Get invited to June and September meetings to: –Get developer training on Sakai –Learn about, give input on development directions –Learn about, give input on strategic directions Build the HigherEd open source community