[Announcements] Sakai Newsletter September 24, 2009

[Margaret Wagner]

Sakai Newsletter


September 24, 2009


1.  From the Executive Director

2.  NYU Releases the Simonides Memory Palace Portfolio Tool for Sakai 2.6

3.  Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative Results Now Available

4.  Sakai Kernel-1.1.0-beta1 Released

5.  Library & Sakai 3 Integration Project Update: Multi-Institutional User Research Study

6.  Kuali Foundation Job Opening

7.  Recent Email Discussion Groups

8.  Events


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1.  From the Executive Director

Clay Fenlason and I just returned from a great week in Australia, primarily for AuSakai 09.  I also had meetings with a variety of folks at Charles Sturt University in Bathurst NSW, where the conference was held.

The week started with meetings with Charles Sturt staff and faculty. CSU has just taken an official decision to provide resources for Sakai 3 development. This is great news for everyone, including CSU. They are currently running 2.4.x and have several substantial local customizations. This makes upgrading more difficult, a fact they have recognized. By engaging early in Sakai 3 development, they should be able to ensure that their requirements are met by the base version of Sakai 3 and, therefore, reduce their customization costs. It's great to see Charles Sturt getting more involved in the community and in product development efforts and we welcome their contributions.

On Wednesday, two pre-conference workshops were held. Ian Boston led an overflow session on developing for Sakai 3. Philip Uys and Janet Buchan of CSU held a session on change management. I wasn't able to attend either of these as Matt Morton-Allen and I were giving Sakai 3 briefings to a number of CSU groups. I'm told both were very interesting and successful and Ian has posted some code samples from the workshop on the Sakai wiki (see attachment Bathurst work on the K2 documentation page at http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/KERNDOC/Kernel+-+K2+-+Documentation).

Thursday and Friday were the main conference and attendance was very strong. There were representatives from CSU, Melbourne, Australian National University, Macquarie University (James Dalziel of LAMS), the North Sydney Institute, NetSpot, Sferyx and The Learning Edge. Not to mention the Sakai Foundation, Cambridge University and University of Michigan (Peter Knoop). It was a great program and I think Clay and Ian's keynotes were real highlights for me. You can check the conference website to see the full program at http://www.csu.edu.au/division/landt/ausakai09/. I'm told that many presentations will be available there soon.

A big congratulations to the conference organizers, especially Matt Morton-Allen, Philip Uys, Marian Tulloch, Kate Rose and Lorraine Stephens. The organization of the conference was exemplary. And a "thanks in advance" to the NSW North Sydney Institute who has agreed to host next year's event -- I, for one, can't wait!

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


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2. NYU Releases the Simonides Memory Palace Portfolio Tool for Sakai 2.6

New York University is pleased to announce the release in Contrib of the Simonides Memory Palace portfolio tool for use in Sakai 2.6.  To download the code, please go to:

https://source.sakaiproject.org/contrib/simonides/

Developed by a partnership of NYU's Liberal Studies Program, NYU-ITS, and Unicon, the Simonides Memory Palace provides users a reconfigurable portfolio space laid out as an architectural floor plan.  This visual representation space is laid over a standard file storage and organization structure, offering points of connection for diverse learning styles (verbal, visual, conceptual, tactile, and so on). Users implicitly model their taxonomic assumptions and decisions in an environment that allows for comment exchanges between instructors/advisors and students at every level: floor plan, room, and item. The code is written on JCR and can be integrated with Jackrabbit, Xythos, etc.  All standard file types can be uploaded to the Memory Palace from user PCs or institutional Sakai sites.  For more information, contact simonides.help@...

Lucy Appert (lga2@...), Associate Director of Educational Technology
Liberal Studies Program, NYU

Barbra Mack (barbra@...), Faculty Technology Specialist
NYU -- ITS

Robert Squillace (rs84@...), Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs
Liberal Studies Program, NYU


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3. Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative Results Now Available

Selected results from the first round of Sakai's Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative (MISI) are now online:

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org//x/NxDtAw

MISI is an endeavor between institutions using Sakai to ask similar questions of instructors and students in order to be able to compare and contrast similarities and differences between institutions, as well as provide feedback to improve Sakai development in the future. All Sakai institutions are invited to use all or a selection of the MISI core survey items and contribute their data to the initiative. All participating institutions are provided full access to the complete data set that they may use to compare/contrast their results with other MISI institutions and to also work on publishing this data in a variety of publication venues.

Are you interested in conducting a survey at your institution in October-December?

MISI is ongoing and we are interested in your instructors' and students' opinions about Sakai. We are primarily interested in institutions in the Southern Hemisphere or those that cannot otherwise conduct surveys in the March-May timeframe. If you are interested in conducting an online survey at your institution, please contact Steve Lonn (slonn@...) by October 1st.

The existing MISI survey items will be reviewed and updated in early 2010 -- stay tuned for an announcement in December.

Steve Lonn
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Usability, Support, and Evaluation (USE) Lab
-- Part of the CTools / Sakai Team --
Email:  slonn@...
Phone:  [phone]



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4. Sakai Kernel-1.1.0-beta1 Released

The kernel team is please to announce the first release of the 1.1.0 Kernel targeted for 2.7.  Kernel 1.1.0-beta01 is a technology preview of forthcoming features.

The release addresses 134 issues that can be viewed here:

http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/KNL/fixforversion/11345

Highlights include:

- Terracotta clustering (contributed by Unicon KNL-75)
- Upgrades to numerous libraries such as javax.mail & commons-lang
(KNL-105)
- Support for authenticated and SSL on SMPT connection (contributed by
Adrian Fish KNL-253)
- Support for files greater than 2G in content hosting (KNL-205)

NOTE ON BINARY COMPATIBILITY:

As KNL-205 changed the method signature of
ContentResource.getContentLength() from int to long in order to support
files > 2G in size, code compiled against the 1.0.x kernels that make
calls to this method will not be compatible with a system running a 1.1
kernel and vice versa.

David Horwitz
david.horwitz@...

---------
Additional note from Beth Kirschner (bkirschn@...):

This new kernel release also fixes the long-standing internationalization problem, where page and tool titles were not dynamically localized to a user's preferred language/locale. In past releases, this resulted in a confusing mix of English and non-English (e.g., tool menu and column headers were in one language, while page/tool titles were in English). Now the page/tool titles will dynamically change to reflect a user's preferred language/locale.



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5. Library & Sakai 3 Integration Project Update:  Multi-Institutional User Research Study

The Library & Sakai 3 Integration Project is embarking on a distributed, multi-institutional user research study to understand the goals and workflow of instructors using scholarly resources while preparing and conducting their courses.  Ten institutions are closely involved in this effort (Berkeley, HEC Montreal, Indiana University, Mount Holyoke, Rice, Stanford, Universidad Nacional de Rosario-Argentina, US Naval Postgraduate School, Yale and the University of Michigan) with seven committed to conducting user interviews on their campus and three others interested.

We are following a goal-directed design process, which is particularly useful for Sakai 3 because it focuses on user goals and workflow as opposed to specific tasks, features or frustrations.  Given the major changes occurring with Sakai 3, we can be more certain of putting our best foot forward with Sakai 3 with a broader understanding of users at this time.  A number of others within the Sakai community are also using goal-directed design including Berkeley, Cambridge and Stanford.

For more information on the project or to get involved, please visit one of the following links:
- Library and Sakai 3 Integration Project homepage: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org//x/PwCX
- User Interviewing Process & Timeline: http://confluence.sakaiproject.org//x/wRHtAw

Gaurav Bhatnagar
gbhatnag@...



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6. 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 tojfoutty@....



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7. Recent Email Group Discussions

[Building Sakai] How can I take out the portfolio tools since we are not using them?/ Sakai mini build profile (delete?)
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-How-can-I-take-out-the-portfolio-tools-since-we-are-not-using-them-td3709456.html#a3714484

[Building Sakai] Subject Drop Down of SAKAI worksite is empty
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Subject-Drop-Down-of-SAKAI-worksite-is-empty-td3647145.html#a3654088

[Building Sakai] [Jira Admins] Git plugin for JIRA
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Git-plugin-for-JIRA-td3711455.html#a3711455

[Building Sakai] LDAP Integration Step by Step Guide
http://n2.nabble.com/Deploying-Sakai-LDAP-Integration-Step-by-Step-Guide-td3711528.html#a3711528

[Building Sakai] SAKAI_EVENT.EVENT_DATE off by one hour?
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-SAKAI-EVENT-EVENT-DATE-off-by-one-hour-td3708395.html#a3708625

[Building Sakai] updating qa2-us to latest sakai-2.6.x-qa branch
http://n2.nabble.com/WG-Sakai-QA-updating-qa2-us-to-latest-sakai-2-6-x-qa-branch-td3706947.html#a3706947

[Building Sakai] Time-out warning
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Time-out-warning-td3707685.html#a3707685

[Building Sakai] [WG: Sakai QA] Updating QA1-OSP Test Server
http://n2.nabble.com/WG-Sakai-QA-Updating-QA1-OSP-Test-Server-td3706970.html#a3706970

[Building Sakai] sakai technical flow and business (request) flow from front-end to back-end(database)
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-sakai-technical-flow-and-business-request-flow-from-front-end-to-back-end-database-td3705694.html#a3705694

[Building Sakai] Link from one tool to another
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Link-from-one-tool-to-another-td3705712.html#a3705712

[Building Sakai] Site Stats jobs that fail
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Site-Stats-jobs-that-fail-td3673745.html#a3673745

[Building Sakai] Coverity scan
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-Coverity-scan-td3702103.html#a3702103

[Building Sakai] sakai-trunk-qa branch update
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-sakai-trunk-qa-branch-update-td3704120.html#a3704120

[Using Sakai] Design patterns I mentioned on this mornings call
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-Design-patterns-I-mentioned-on-this-mornings-call-td3701485.html#a3701485

[Portfolio] Sections and Groups, Part II
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-sections-overriding-groups-td3518399.html#a3700209

[Portfolio] experimental assignments
http://n2.nabble.com/Portfolio-experimental-assignments-td3666637.html#a3666637

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

[DG: User Experience] MISI Results Now Available - Multi-Institutional Survey Initiative
http://n2.nabble.com/Building-Sakai-MISI-Results-Now-Available-Multi-Institutional-Survey-Initiative-td3658464.html#a3658464

[DG: Teaching & Learning] [libsakai] Library & Sakai 3 Integration Meeting Summary
http://n2.nabble.com/Using-Sakai-libsakai-Library-Sakai-3-Integration-Meeting-Summary-td3671207.html#a3671207

[Using Sakai] [Management] [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: User Experience] Sakai 3 frontend QA info
http://n2.nabble.com/DG-User-Experience-Reporting-bugs-for-3akai-td3682237.html#a3711553


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8. Events

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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