[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter September 10, 2009

[Margaret Wagner]

Sakai Newsletter


September 10, 2009

1.  From the Executive Director

2.  New Sakai Initiative Focused on "Instructional Visioning"

3.  Gradebook2 Upcoming 1.1 Release

4.  Update on Joint rSmart/IBM/Marist Work at Marist College

5.  Log Event Descriptions for Sakai 2.6 Now Available on Confluence

6.  Feedback on New Feature Contributions to Tests & Quizzes

7.  Another Successful Google Summer of Code Winds Up

8.  Update on Unicon Gradebook Work

9.  Kuali Foundation Job Opening

10. Recent Email Group Discussions

11. Events


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1.  From the Executive Director

This week, as I prepare to head to Australia for AuSakai 09, I want to draw your attention to an email that Sakai Product manager, Clay Fenlason, sent out just before Labor Day weekend here in the US. It provides a lot of good information about what is happening with Sakai Releases.

The email covers:
- 2.6 maintenance releases
- Preparations for 2.7, including staggered tool QA along the way to 2.7.0
- A proposed "maintenance team"
- The need for branch managers for 2.7

I encourage you to read the entire email if you haven't already and give Clay any feedback you might have:

http://collab.sakaiproject.org/pipermail/management/2009-September/000166.html

If you're interested in tracking these kinds of conversations I encourage you to subscribe to the "management" email list. You can do that here:

http://collab.sakaiproject.org/mailman/listinfo/management

See you in Bathurst!


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


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2. New Sakai Initiative Focused on "Instructional Visioning"

Following the 10th International Sakai Conference in Boston this past July, a diverse set of community members representing UX, Teaching and Learning, Portfolio, and others have been working to organize a new effort focused on the need to find new ways for our community to discuss, identify and document the types of instructional practices that Sakai needs to support now and into the near as well as distant future. In order to begin work on this new effort, the weekly Sakai Teaching and Learning phone conference is being rescheduled as well as refocused on this issue.

Any and all members of the Sakai Community are welcome to participate in this new effort.  Our first phone conference is being scheduled for the week of September 14th.  If you are interested in participating please go to our Doodle site at http://www.doodle.com/fv6feshva2wybxfs to input times when you would be available. A final time will be selected and posted, along with call-in information, sometime next week to the Sakai Teaching and Learning and Using Sakai mailing lists.  See the www.sakaiproject.org for details on subscribing to these lists.

If you have questions, comments of suggestions please email Josh Baron at Josh.Baron@....


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3. Gradebook2 Upcoming 1.1 Release

Hi All,

Just a heads up that we will be releasing the 1.1.0 tag of the new
Gradebook 2 tool next week.

Highlights Include:
- Letter Grading
- Grader Permissions
- Course Grade and Item Level Statistics
- Scantron Import
- XLS Import
- Export / Import with Comments
- Weight Items by Points in Weighted Categories mode

If you're curious for details,

1.1.0-rc1 : tasks, fixes and enhancements for the current release
candidate are visible here:
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10491&fixfor=11605

And here are known critical issues:
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10491&priority=2&resolution=-1&type=1

(For those who missed the 1.0 release:
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/secure/IssueNavigator.jspa?reset=true&pid=10491&fixfor=11585)

Best,

James Renfro
jlrenfro@...


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4.  Update on Joint rSmart/IBM/Marist Work at Marist College

Starting this fall Marist College will be providing a hosted version of Sakai for five local school districts that are part of Marist's K-12 Greystone Consortium. The Greystone Consortium program offers an online education environment that includes online undergraduate courses for high school juniors and seniors and graduate courses for K-12 teachers. This year, through this new Greystone pilot project (dubbed zSakai -- https://greystone.marist.edu/), participating teachers at each of the schools will be able to use Sakai for their own classroom instruction. There are 10 teachers signed up starting this school year with more anticipated for the spring semester. This hosted version of Sakai is rSmart's 2.6.1 CLE running on a Websphere/DB2/Linux/z platform.

Howard Baker
hcbaker@...


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5.  Log Event Descriptions for Sakai 2.6 Now Available on Confluence

A full list of all user actions, or "events," that are logged within the Event Table for Sakai 2.6 are now available on Confluence at this URL:http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/5A7tAw

The events are grouped by Sakai tool and include the tool, event code, a general description, and whether or not the event is being tracked in SiteStats 2.0.  Also, a list of known Sakai tools (core, provisional, and contrib) are provided at the bottom of the page.

DEVELOPERS:  Please check to make sure that the events for your tools are complete and accurate, particularly those with question marks (??) next to the description. Additionally, please add any missing events for tools that you have worked on or are responsible for.

Thanks,

Steven Lonn
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Usability, Support, and Evaluation (USE) Lab
Part of the CTools / Sakai Team
University of Michigan
slonn@...


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6. Feedback on New Feature Contributions to Tests & Quizzes

The following new Tests & Quizzes features have been developed by Rice University. These features are running locally on Rice's local instance of Sakai, and Rice would like to contribute them back to the Sakai community. As part of the review process, the Tests & Quizzes team would like to gather feedback from the Sakai community on the desirability of these features. For those Sakai schools currently using or considering using Tests & Quizzes, would any of these features fill an existing need at your particular institutions?  Please review the specific JIRA entries and accompanying specs from Rice University for details on each feature.

Please send your comments directly to me at jamai@... by Tuesday, September 22.

Partial Credit for Multiple Choice  Assessments
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-16823

Sakai Samigo Pause Between Quiz Retakes
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-16824

Partially anonymous assessments
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-16821

The ability to choose "Average" for the "Recorded Score if Multiple Submissions"
http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-11690

Thanks for your feedback,

Jacqueline Mai
User Experience Specialist
CourseWork Team
Stanford University
jamai@...


-------------------------------------
7. Another Successful Google Summer of Code Winds Up

Google Summer of Code has now ended for 2009. Sakai's three students all had a great summer and passed all their programme evaluations!

Congratulations and many thanks to Shashank Agrawal, Andre Leger and Yuri Vishnevsky, who have all written useful code for Sakai and made really valuable contributions as GSOC students.

Many thanks for guidance and advice to the mentoring team, Oszkar Nagy, Amyas Phillips, Nicolaas Matthijs and Claude Coulombe. Our mentors all got good reviews from their students and did an excellent job.

It's been a great learning experience figuring out how the GSOC process works, and helping bring together volunteers to make more wonderful software.  Google seems really happy with our progress -- Sakai now counts as an experienced and successful project in GSOC terms!  If anyone is interested in mentoring or administering GSOC next year, do get in touch (laura@...) -- the more the merrier.

You can find out more about GSOC here:  http://socghop.appspot.com

Laura James
CARET, University of Cambridge
laura@...


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8.  Update on Unicon Gradebook Work

Unicon contributes monthly development to assist with the growth of the Sakai application.  The progress made in August on the Sakai Gradebook Jiras SAK-14173 (http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-14173) and SAK-14520 (http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/SAK-14520) is a representation of work done within the Unicon Cooperative Development Team.  We are happy to say there are many more hours of development to come and some exciting work ahead.  We hope many institutions within the Sakai Community can take advantage of the output of our development.

Charise Arrowood
carrowood@...


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9.  Kuali Foundation Job Opening

The Kuali Foundation is looking for an exceptionally talented technology professional who has the vision and execution skills to lead a rapidly growing open source community's technical direction. This unique opportunity is for the Kuali Rice Lead Architect position. Kuali Rice is an enterprise middleware suite that provides the foundation for Kuali's enterprise applications such as the Kuali Financial, Student, and Research Systems. Kuali Rice is also being adopted by educational institutions as a core part of a next generation enterprise architecture. This position offers the right candidate an opportunity to have an important impact improving the use of technology to further education globally. The successful candidate will have proven leadership abilities, experience with open source communities, exceptional communication and collaboration skills, and strong service-oriented architecture and design expertise. For more information please see: http://kuali.org/news/2009/architect.html.

Qualified candidates should send a resume and letter of interest to jfoutty@....


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10.  Recent Email Group Discussions

[Building Sakai] Question pool slowness
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Question-pool-slowness-td3606539.html#a3606539

[Building Sakai] qa2-us to be updated with new sakai-2.6.x.-qa tag
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-qa2-us-to-be-updated-with-new-sakai-2-6-x-qa-tag-td3626169.html#a3626169

[Building Sakai] about configuration of the new site
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-about-configuration-of-the-new-site-td3624492.html#a3624492

[Building Sakai] Sakai Slow Down
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-Sakai-Slow-Down-td3620984.html#a3620984

[Building Sakai] Calendar widget problem with IE7
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-Sakai-Slow-Down-td3620984.html#a3620984

[Building Sakai] YAFT: Single User View & Gradebook Integration
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-YAFT-Single-User-View-Gradebook-Integration-td3577139.html#a3621606

[Building Sakai] Base64 encoding/decoding, commons-codec 1.4, and K1
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Base64-encoding-decoding-commons-codec-1-4-and-K1-td3620694.html#a3620694

[Building Sakai] AssignmentAction.readGradeForm -> readAllowResubmitParams? Alert "Accept submissions deadline set to be in the past"
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-AssignmentAction-readGradeForm-readAllowResubmitParams-Alert-Accept-submissions-deadl-td3621027.html#a3621027

[Building Sakai] how to deal with figure in the test and quiz
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-how-to-deal-with-figure-in-the-test-and-quiz-td3619747.html#a3619747

[Building Sakai] When (if) plugin repositories go down..
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-When-if-plugin-repositories-go-down-td3620476.html#a3620476

[Building Sakai] IE6 users as percent of total
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-IE6-users-as-percent-of-total-td3614912.html#a3619214

[Building Sakai] PERL SOAP on Windows Gotchas
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-PERL-SOAP-on-Windows-Gotchas-td3611347.html#a3611347

[Building Sakai] rudimentary clicker device using report in email archive
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-rudimentary-clicker-device-using-report-in-email-archive-td3606527.html#a3606527

[Building Sakai] Log Event Descriptions for Sakai 2.6 Now Available on Confluence
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-Log-Event-Descriptions-for-Sakai-2-6-Now-Available-on-Confluence-td3605044.html#a3605044

[Building Sakai] 2.5.x maintenance and Entity Broker
http://n2.nabble.com/WG-Sakai-QA-2-5-x-maintenance-and-Entity-Broker-td3603524.html#a3603524

[DG: Teaching & Learning] Tell us about your users: Rethinking the capabilities of learning activities tools, such as Tests & Quizzes, for 3.0
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-Teaching-Learning-Tell-us-about-your-users-Rethinking-the-capabilities-of-learning-activities-too0-td3629076.html#a3629076

[DG: Teaching & Learning] unconverted pinyin
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-unconverted-pinyin-td3615507.html#a3615507

[Portfolio] MetaAnalysis - Verbs and Primitives
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-MetaAnalysis-Verbs-and-Primitives-td3610266.html#a3610266

[Portfolio] Global template
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-Global-template-td3625815.html#a3625815

[Portfolio] Collaborative Portfolio Editing
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-Collaborative-Portfolio-Editing-td3529271.html#a3529271

[DG: User Experience] Creating groups without leaving current context...
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Creating-groups-without-leaving-current-context-td3627537.html#a3627537

[Using Sakai] Feedback on new feature contributions to Tests & Quizzes
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-Feedback-on-new-feature-contributions-to-Tests-Quizzes-td3616799.html#a3616799

[DG: User Experience] Swapping text links for icons
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Swapping-text-links-for-icons-td3603714.html#a3603714

[DG: User Experience] Searching Resources
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Searching-Resources-td3602749.html#a3602749


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11.  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
http://www.ja-sig.org/wiki/display/JCON/Fall+2009+Unconference+-+Urbana+Champaign

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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