[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter July 23, 2009

[Margaret Wagner]

Sakai Newsletter

July 23, 2009


1.  From the Executive Director

2.  Sakai 2.6.0 Officially Released

3.  Profile2 v 1.2 Released

4.  10th Sakai Conference Videos

5.  New Sakai-Related Research Papers and Articles

6.  rSmart Welcomes the Kuali Foundation

7.  Build a Course in Sakai with rSmart's Sakai Summer Institute

8.  Recent Email Group Discussions

9.  Events

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1.  From the Executive Director

I just got back to Berkeley after an amazing week in Boston at the 10th Sakai Conference. It was an exhausting week, starting with Project Coordination meetings on Monday, a Sakai Foundation Board meeting on Tuesday, the Newcomer's Reception Tuesday evening, the main conference and associated receptions and dinners from Wednesday - Friday, and a post-conference Project Coordination meeting on Saturday.

But more than exhausting, it was exhilarating. I don't know if you had the same experience, but I felt an exceptional amount of energy and enthusiasm at the conference. Why was that?

With over 500 attendees this was the largest Sakai Conference in terms of actual attendance and we had a large proportion of first-time attendees (over one-third).  We also had a large number of faculty and instructional design staff (also about one-third) -- the people who are using Sakai every day and stretch its capabilities. The mix of developers, designers, users and organizational decision-makers was superb. The presentations were extremely high quality. The food was excellent. All of this contributed to the great energy.

But there is more than that. First, it is extremely clear that the Sakai community has been successful in creating an excellent alternative to commercial products. It is no longer just the early adopters or the large research universities -- there are too many success stories to dismiss Sakai as a niche solution or as a project that depends on external funding for sustainability. Second, while our success is clearly evident, the community also has an awareness that we haven't come close to realizing our potential. And finally, the desire to do even better is now accompanied by a new vision -- represented in many ways by Sakai 3 -- for how we can get to where we really want to be.

We see the challenges and potential that lie ahead while simultaneously knowing that we have the skills and resources to successfully meet those challenges. In many ways it reminds me of the psychological concept of "flow" from my days studying Cognitive Psychology.

Suffice it to say that I'm more excited about Sakai than I've ever been. And, as usual in Sakai, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone.

Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska@...
phone: [phone]
mobile (US): [phone]
skype: mkorcuska


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2. Sakai 2.6.0 Officially Released

Greetings Sakai Community,

It is with no small amount of exuberance that we pen (key) the following words:  Sakai 2.6.0, the latest release of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment, is now officially released and available to the Sakai community worldwide. We are also simultaneously releasing Sakai 2.5.5, the latest maintenance release of the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment in the 2.5.x series. These releases represent the efforts of many dedicated designers, developers, testers  and others. We want to thank all of you for your efforts, skills and time in these endeavors.

SAKAI 2.6.0

Sakai 2.6 addresses over 1500 issues and enhancements, including a number of security and performance enhancements.

DETAILS OF THE RELEASE

Overview

- Features a number of functionality enhancements, internationalization and performance improvements, and support for IBM Websphere and DB2.
- Binds to a reorganized, repackaged set of low-level "kernel" services that are now released separately.
- Features a new license: the Educational Community License, version 2.0.

Sakai 2.6.0 Distributions

Source, binary and demo are available at:
http://source.sakaiproject.org/release or http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6

Documentation and Overview
- Sakai 2.6 Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration, etc.)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6
- Sakai 2.6 Overview (PowerPoint)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/download/attachments/3440646/Sakai+2.6+Overview+29-Apr-2009.pptx?version=3

QA and Instances
- QA/Testing Results
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/2.6+QA+SUMMARY
- Test Instances
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/QA/Test+instances

We want to thank everyone who has contributed and participated to the Sakai 2.6.0 release effort.  Special thanks goes out to Anthony Whyte, David Horwitz, Noah Botimer, Beth Kirschner, Matthew Jones, Jean-Francois Leveque, Adam Hocek, Michael Lavacca, Karen Tsao, Lydia Li, Peter Knoop, Thomas Amsler, Megan May, Angela Joyce Henry, Nancy Wilkison, Vern O'Connor and everyone who participated in the weekly release management meetings. We also want to take a moment to express our thanks to the early-adopter institutions (University of Cape Town, Indiana, Rutgers, Yale, and others) who are currently running release candidates of 2.6.0 successfully in production or test environments. Their efforts and feedback played a significant role in helping to identify critical issues, test installations and overall increase the quality of this release dramatically. And a last thank you to all the developers who volunteered their time to step up and address many unforeseen issues in the last few months.



SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT SAKAI 2.4 AND EARLIER

Sakai 2.6.0 contains a number of security enhancements that have been applied to Sakai 2.5.5 but not to earlier Sakai releases. The Sakai 2-4-x and 2-5-x maintenance branches have been patched as necessary and the code can be checked out using a Subversion client. However, as of 20 July 2009 the 2.4.x maintenance branch will no longer be supported. Organizations running Sakai 2.4 or earlier versions are strongly encouraged to upgrade to Sakai 2.5 or Sakai 2.6.



SAKAI 2.5.5 MAINTENANCE RELEASE

Sakai 2.5.5 addresses over 200 issues, including a number of security and performance enhancements.

DETAILS OF THE RELEASE

Sakai 2.5.5 Distributions

Source, binary and demo are available at:
http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/2.5.5 or http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5

Documentation and Overview
- Sakai 2.5.5 Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration, etc.)
http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5

We want to thank everyone who has contributed and participated to the Sakai 2.5.5 release.  Special thanks goes out to Matthew Jones, Jean-Francois Leveque, Karen Tsao, Lydia Li, Anthony Whyte, Peter Knoop, Michael Lockett, Angela Joyce Henry, Thomas Amsler, Nancy Wilkison, Vern O'Connor, and everyone who participated in the weekly release management meetings, for all their efforts and assistance to make this release a reality.

Regards,

Pete Peterson
QA Director, Sakai Foundation
plpeterson@...
Phone: [phone]


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3. Profile2 v 1.2 Released

I am very pleased to announce the 1.2 release of Profile2 for Sakai.

Profile2 is a complete redevelopment of the existing Profile tool in Sakai and brings social networking to Sakai2. A Facebook-like interface for editing your profile, comprehensive privacy controls, post status updates including Twitter integration, searching for people with common interests and adding them as a connection, are what Profile2 is all about.

Over 41 fixes and new features are incorporated into this release, including:

- full EntityBroker support for all Profile, Privacy, Preference and Status entities (including a business card-style entity)
- extensive control over the configuration
- full internationalisation support
- improved conversion from the original Profile, including image urls
- the ability to lock down profiles and privacy settings
- improved AJAX processing
- improved performance
- a full set of API Services for other tool or system integrations
- and continued support for 2.4.x, 2.5.x and the 2.6.x releases of Sakai.

More information, including screenshots and installation instructions for all three Sakai flavours are available on Confluence here:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/PROFILE/Profile2

For the full list of entities supported, see this page on Confluence:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PROFILE/EntityBroker+support+for+Profile2

For the full list of features and fixes for the release, please see the issue Navigator for Profile2 in the Sakai Jira:http://jira.sakaiproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10500&fixfor=11411

Cheers,

Steve Swinsburg
steve.swinsburg@...
Portal Systems Developer
Lancaster University, UK


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4. Conference Videos

After returning to Berkeley from the 10th Sakai Conference in Boston I took a minute to glance at the results of the "citizen journalists" who recorded various presenters during the conference. I'm sure there's more to come but the results are already impressive.

There is a YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/sakaivideo  and a uStream channel athttp://www.ustream.tv/channel/sakai09

I'm sure more will be uploaded during the next few weeks, but there is already some great content at both of these locations. Check them out!

Cheers,

Michael Korcuska
Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
mkorcuska@...


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5. New Sakai-Related Research Papers and Articles

Hi all,

I have started a new page in Confluence in an effort to keep track of the different research papers and articles that are published by members of the Sakai community or are of interest to our community. Please feel free to add your papers and articles to the list.

The page is available on Confluence:  http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/p4DWAw

It is a child page of the Teaching and Learning group, but the content of the paper does not have to be confined to teaching and learning subjects.

Steve Lonn
CTools/Sakai Staff Graduate Student Research Assistant
slonn@...


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6. rSmart Welcomes the Kuali Foundation

This month rSmart welcomes the Kuali Foundation to the Sakai Community as one of its most recent Sakai CLE support customers. The Kuali Foundation is a non-profit organization [501(c)(3)] responsible for sustaining and evolving administrative software that meets the needs of all institutions of higher education. Kuali started in 2005 as a collaboration between seven university partners, NACUBO and rSmart, and received a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to produce Kuali Financial System based on Indiana University's Financial Information System. Kuali currently has over 30 member schools and organizations, and nine commercial affiliates, who use an open-community software development model to produce enterprise-grade, open-source, modular software. Kuali has grown to include additional projects including Kuali Coeus, a research administration system based on MIT's Coeus project; Kuali Student for student administration; and Kuali Rice, a set of middleware components and a rapid development environment that supports the other Kuali applications.

The Kuali Foundation relies heavily on listservs for internal communications and collaboration, and uses Sakai to manage this mission-critical service. Sakai CLE 2.6 offers important improvements to Kuali's previous listserv, including the ability to send HTML-formatted emails and attachments. Additionally, the Kuali board of directors and various project boards use Sakai extensively for collaboration, taking advantage of Sakai's Site Resources tool to share important documents.  rSmart is playing a critical role in Kuali's Sakai implementation. "Since rSmart already has deep expertise in Sakai deployments, this contribution to the Kuali community is especially helpful. Kuali software has been built using Sakai for collaboration, and rSmart's work to upgrade us to Sakai's latest tools is timely for our work," said Brad Wheeler, chairman of the Kuali Foundation board and vice president for IT at Indiana University.

Best,

Jonny Brown
Sr. Information Architect
rSmart
jonny.brown@...


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7. Build a Course in Sakai with rSmart's Sakai Summer Institute

August 31, 2009
9:30 AM - 2:00 PM PDT (GMT -7)
(There will be a 60-minute lunch break from 11 AM - 12:00 PM)

Join us August 31, 2009 for a half-day workshop!

During this half-day workshop, attendees will create a pilot course in a live, hosted instance of Sakai. Participants will learn to build content, assessments, and encourage collaboration with Sakai tools. They will learn how to configure Sakai tools and course permissions and add students into the course. At the end of the workshop, each participant will have a course built that they can run for an entire semester.

Attendees need a computer with internet connection for the workshop. It is recommended that attendees have a syllabus on hand, as well.

To register: https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/580074513

Megan Perrone
Marketing Representative
rSmart
megan.perrone@...


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8. Recent Email Group Discussions

[Building Sakai] [DG: Teaching & Learning] Sakai 3 groups, roles, and course sites
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Sakai-3-groups%2C-roles%2C-and-course-sites-to24650151.html#a24650151

[Building Sakai] [WG: Sakai QA] [DG: User Experience] User Experience] why a separate step to join sites?
http://www.nabble.com/-DG%3A-User-Experience--why-a-separate-step-to-join-sites--to24645663.html#a2464575444

[Building Sakai] Sakai Confluence dashboard
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Sakai-Confluence-dashboard-to24647754.html#a24647754

[Building Sakai] Better contrib/confluence documentation was: Who do I ask for contrib svn access?
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Better-contrib-confluence-documentation-was%3A-Who-do-I-ask-for-contrib-svn-access--to24641266.html#a24641436

[Building Sakai] content hosting versioning
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--content-hosting-versioning-to24644559.html#a24644559

[Building Sakai] logging into SakaiAdminX
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--logging-into-SakaiAdminX-to24625073.html#a24625073

[Building Sakai] GMT installation on 2.6.0
http://www.nabble.com/forum/Search.jtp?query=GMT+installation+on+2.6.0&local=y&forum=18101&daterange=0&startdate=&enddate=

[Building Sakai] what is in 2.6's org.sakaiproject.kernel ?
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--what-is-in-2.6%27s-org.sakaiproject.kernel---to24633701.html#a24635697

[Building Sakai] SAK-16024: 2.6.0 conversion script: site.add.course backfill issue
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--SAK-16024%3A-2.6.0-conversion-script%3A-site.add.course-backfill-issue-to24630203.html#a24630203

[Building Sakai] Auto adding Forum Synoptics to home page in 2.6
http://www.nabble.com/-Building-Sakai--Auto-adding-Forum-Synoptics-to-home-page-in-2.6-to24612361.html#a24625109

[Portfolio] XSL displaying HTML code in presentation
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--XSL-displaying-HTML-code-in-presentation-to24499476.html#a24499476

[Portfolio] 3 OSP requirements, proposed changes
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--3-OSP-requirements%2C-proposed-changes-to24490034.html#a24490034

[Portfolio] Assignment & matrices
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--Assignment---matrices-to24477276.html#a24477276

[Portfolio] T&L Pie-in-the-sky (PITS) thinking and most complex scenarios (MCS)
http://www.nabble.com/-Portfolio--Come-Join-the-Sakai-Community-Gathering-on-Reinventing-the-Requirements-Process-to24296873.html#a24429269

[DG: Teaching & Learning] OpenEd Practices
http://www.nabble.com/-DG%3A-Teaching---Learning--OpenEd-Practices-to24501797.html#a24501797


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9. Events

AuSakai '09
September 17-18, 2009
Charles Sturt University Bathurst Campus
Bathurst NSW, Australia
http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/ausakai09/ausakai09.htm

1st Workshop: Learning Management Systems meet Adaptive Learning Environments  (LMS-ALE'09)
September 29 - October 2, 2009
EC-TEL
Nice, France
http://wwwis.win.tue.nl/lms-ale-09

The Jasig Fall 2009 Unconference
September 28 - 30  Unconference sessions; October 1-2  Developer meetings
Urbana Champaign I Hotel and Conference Center
University of Illinois
Urbana - Champaign, Illinois

Assessment Institute in Indianapolis
October 25-27, 2009
The Westin Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
http://www.planning.iupui.edu/institute

Online Educa Berlin 2009
December 2-4, 2009
Hotel InterContinental Berlin
Berlin, Germany
http://www.online-educa.com/the-conference

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