Configuration Considerations – Get your faculty members involved Kara Stiles rSmart July 2, 2008

Agenda Tales from the support desk Example implementations Functional configuration decisions Benefits: Involving faculty in the decision- making process Question and Answer

Tales from the Tier 2 and 3 support desk There are two types of supportable implementations: Those who have had the opportunity to involve faculty representatives in their implementation and those who have not. –Configuration can continue from now until the end of time –Configuration changes can be frustrating for existing users –A non-configured instance may not perform as users expect –Faculty generally accept a system they’ve “built” –The emotional impact of building a system together

eTech Ohio Commission 5 installations (three schools and two state agencies) Legacy systems were Angel and Interact Each installation had different needs Needed a common base configuration to ensure supportability Training: eight hours Configuration: eight hours for large group, three additional hours for each implementation = 23 hours of configuration decisions (plus extra work/additional meetings offline) 3 hours per instance to apply configuration

Tan Tock Seng Hospital, Singapore Multiple requirements that Sakai did not, by default, accommodate Blackboard 6.X User acceptance was the greatest concern Needed different roles and permissions for users within sites Complex content storage/access/permissions needs Change tool names and tool availability per site type (we had to blackboard-ize some things) Training: eight hours Configuration: sixteen hours of configuration meetings (plus additional work offline) six hours to apply configuration to instance

TAFE NSW – Northern Sydney Institute Each division within TAFE attended training prior to making configuration decisions Faculty were not convinced that Sakai was the best solution Legacy system: Janison Changed tool names, tool placement, roles & permissions Training: twelve hours Configuration Meeting: twelve hours Four hours to apply configuration to instance

Roles and permissions at TAFE

Functional Configuration Decisions Gateway Page –How should it look? –What tools should exist there? –Should we remove the “new account” tool Tool names, arrangement and stealthing –Should we change any tool names? –What tools should we stealth? –What tools should we unstealth? –How to arrange the tools per site type

Functional Configuration Decisions Roles and Permissions within Sites –What roles should exist within each site type? –Are you using groups? –What permissions should each role have within each site type for each tool? Property Settings –Content Upload Max and Site Quota –User Presence –Section Settings –The “unjoin” link in the Membership tool –Editable site types –Guest Users –…and more

The legacy system What did you like about it? What didn’t you like about it? Can Sakai do what your legacy system did? Can Sakai be configured to do what your legacy system did? What can Sakai do better than your legacy system? How can we configure Sakai to be as good as or better than your legacy system?

Users and Courses How do you plan to manage user accounts? What permissions will users have? What tools/content exist in the User My Workspace? How do you plan to get the users into their course sites? Do you have specific SIS integration needs?

Faculty Participation in Configuration Decisions Configure, don’t customize Configuration is easy to maintain at upgrade time Decrease support calls Users accept it Question and Answer, Comments