Sakai 3: A proposal and request for input

[Michael Korcuska]

(Sorry for the aggressive cross-posting, but I'm sure this is of broad  
interest.)

Greetings,

As you may have heard, a number of contributors in the Sakai community  
have begun talking about, and even working on, something being called  
"Sakai 3".  Sakai 3 would be a new version of Sakai representing  
significant change to the end-user experience and, likely, the  
underlying technology. The beginnings of this conversation go back to  
the Paris conference, at least, but have recently begun to take a more  
specific direction and garner some momentum. It is definitely time,  
therefore, to provide a substantive update about these activities. We  
also have a desire for input on the vision and want to invite  
participation in both the conversations and the work. The attached  
document describes the rationale for Sakai 3 and strives to give a  
sense of the changes in user experience and technology it would bring.  
I encourage everyone interested in Sakai's future development to read  
it.

This is an extremely important time for Sakai, both as a product and a  
community. Personally, I feel that the vision described by Sakai 3 is  
compelling and that it is worth a collective effort to move in that  
direction as quickly as practical. But, as you know, the Sakai  
Foundation does not control the direction of the Sakai software. So,  
as always, it is up to the community to determine how quickly we head  
in which direction.  To that end, we would like to initiate a  
community conversation about the idea of Sakai 3 and the timing for  
building/deploying it. While I've irresponsibly cross posted, I'd ask  
that you direct general discussions about Sakai 3 to the *advocacy*  
list. Technical topics, of course, can cross post to *sakai-dev*.

I've also built a "Sakai 3 Vision" site on the Sakai 3 experimental  
server (http://3akai.sakaiproject.org).  It contains the same content  
as the attached PDF. It also contains several poll questions about  
Sakai 3. It would be terrific if you could take a minute to respond to  
the poll questions (after reading the content, please!). You can find  
instructions for creating an account and joining the Sakai 3 Vision  
site on page 10 of the PDF. The pages in the Sakai 3 site are open for  
comment as well. And, of course, feel free to send me an email if  
you'd like.

Finally, a few of caveats:
1. The experimental server for Sakai 3 is a development box.  It  
doesn't represent a final design and there are many bugs and  
unimplemented features. The features and bugs will change on a regular  
basis. And it could be that this email results in more load on that  
server that it is ready for :-). Caveat emptor!
2. If a sufficient group decides Sakai 3 should move forward at the  
pace described in the document, we are likely to try to pull together  
a more organized development effort. So stay tuned for more  
information on what that will look like or, better yet, send your  
suggestions to the list.  We want feedback from everyone, though, so  
don't hesitate to tell us what you think regardless of whether you  
think you'll be able to participate in design and development.
3. The ideas described in the document is not mine. It represents my  
effort to document the thinking of a group of Sakai community members.  
As the saying goes: Anything you find compelling is theirs, any  
mistakes or lack of clarity are mine.

I hope you like the proposal for a Sakai 3. If you don't like it,  
though, I certainly hope you'll tell us why.

Best regards,

Michael

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


[see attachment: "Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf", size: 161202 bytes]



Attachments:

Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf
https://collab.sakaiproject.org//access/content/attachment/f6c26559-2d1a-41a6-9e33-702e8f27a1cf/Sakai%203%20Proposal%20v08.pdf

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[jrnorman]

One bit that is not implemented fully is the new Join Sites screen, so  
you will need to find the old site membership tool. It should be in  
the "Personal Tools" gadget that I believe is on the default dashboard.

John

On 15 Dec 2008, at 11:52, Michael Korcuska wrote:

>
> (Sorry for the aggressive cross-posting, but I'm sure this is of broad
> interest.)
>
> Greetings,
>
> As you may have heard, a number of contributors in the Sakai community
> have begun talking about, and even working on, something being called
> "Sakai 3". Sakai 3 would be a new version of Sakai representing
> significant change to the end-user experience and, likely, the
> underlying technology. The beginnings of this conversation go back to
> the Paris conference, at least, but have recently begun to take a more
> specific direction and garner some momentum. It is definitely time,
> therefore, to provide a substantive update about these activities. We
> also have a desire for input on the vision and want to invite
> participation in both the conversations and the work. The attached
> document describes the rationale for Sakai 3 and strives to give a
> sense of the changes in user experience and technology it would bring.
> I encourage everyone interested in Sakai's future development to read
> it.
>
> This is an extremely important time for Sakai, both as a product and a
> community. Personally, I feel that the vision described by Sakai 3 is
> compelling and that it is worth a collective effort to move in that
> direction as quickly as practical. But, as you know, the Sakai
> Foundation does not control the direction of the Sakai software. So,
> as always, it is up to the community to determine how quickly we head
> in which direction. To that end, we would like to initiate a
> community conversation about the idea of Sakai 3 and the timing for
> building/deploying it. While I've irresponsibly cross posted, I'd ask
> that you direct general discussions about Sakai 3 to the *advocacy*
> list. Technical topics, of course, can cross post to *sakai-dev*.
>
> I've also built a "Sakai 3 Vision" site on the Sakai 3 experimental
> server (http://3akai.sakaiproject.org). It contains the same content
> as the attached PDF. It also contains several poll questions about
> Sakai 3. It would be terrific if you could take a minute to respond to
> the poll questions (after reading the content, please!). You can find
> instructions for creating an account and joining the Sakai 3 Vision
> site on page 10 of the PDF. The pages in the Sakai 3 site are open for
> comment as well. And, of course, feel free to send me an email if
> you'd like.
>
> Finally, a few of caveats:
> 1. The experimental server for Sakai 3 is a development box. It
> doesn't represent a final design and there are many bugs and
> unimplemented features. The features and bugs will change on a regular
> basis. And it could be that this email results in more load on that
> server that it is ready for :-). Caveat emptor!
> 2. If a sufficient group decides Sakai 3 should move forward at the
> pace described in the document, we are likely to try to pull together
> a more organized development effort. So stay tuned for more
> information on what that will look like or, better yet, send your
> suggestions to the list. We want feedback from everyone, though, so
> don't hesitate to tell us what you think regardless of whether you
> think you'll be able to participate in design and development.
> 3. The ideas described in the document is not mine. It represents my
> effort to document the thinking of a group of Sakai community members.
> As the saying goes: Anything you find compelling is theirs, any
> mistakes or lack of clarity are mine.
>
> I hope you like the proposal for a Sakai 3. If you don't like it,
> though, I certainly hope you'll tell us why.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Michael
>
> --
> Michael Korcuska
> Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
> mkorcuska@...
> phone: [phone]
> mobile (US): [phone]
> mobile (FR): [phone]
> skype: mkorcuska
>
>
> [see attachment: "Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf", size: 161202 bytes]
>
>
> Attachments:
>
> Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal 
> ) from the DG: Teaching & Learning site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >  
> Preferences.

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[Michael Korcuska]

There are instructions on how to join the "Sakai 3 Vision" site on  
page 10 of the PDF.  Here's an alternate link for downloading it:

http://tinyurl.com/553k9l

I'm hoping people will actually read the document before commenting on  
the site or voting in the polls :-)

Michael


On Dec 15, 2008, at 13:52, John Norman wrote:

> One bit that is not implemented fully is the new Join Sites screen,  
> so you will need to find the old site membership tool. It should be  
> in the "Personal Tools" gadget that I believe is on the default  
> dashboard.
>
> John
>
> On 15 Dec 2008, at 11:52, Michael Korcuska wrote:
>
>>
>> (Sorry for the aggressive cross-posting, but I'm sure this is of  
>> broad
>> interest.)
>>
>> Greetings,
>>
>> As you may have heard, a number of contributors in the Sakai  
>> community
>> have begun talking about, and even working on, something being called
>> "Sakai 3". Sakai 3 would be a new version of Sakai representing
>> significant change to the end-user experience and, likely, the
>> underlying technology. The beginnings of this conversation go back to
>> the Paris conference, at least, but have recently begun to take a  
>> more
>> specific direction and garner some momentum. It is definitely time,
>> therefore, to provide a substantive update about these activities. We
>> also have a desire for input on the vision and want to invite
>> participation in both the conversations and the work. The attached
>> document describes the rationale for Sakai 3 and strives to give a
>> sense of the changes in user experience and technology it would  
>> bring.
>> I encourage everyone interested in Sakai's future development to read
>> it.
>>
>> This is an extremely important time for Sakai, both as a product  
>> and a
>> community. Personally, I feel that the vision described by Sakai 3 is
>> compelling and that it is worth a collective effort to move in that
>> direction as quickly as practical. But, as you know, the Sakai
>> Foundation does not control the direction of the Sakai software. So,
>> as always, it is up to the community to determine how quickly we head
>> in which direction. To that end, we would like to initiate a
>> community conversation about the idea of Sakai 3 and the timing for
>> building/deploying it. While I've irresponsibly cross posted, I'd ask
>> that you direct general discussions about Sakai 3 to the *advocacy*
>> list. Technical topics, of course, can cross post to *sakai-dev*.
>>
>> I've also built a "Sakai 3 Vision" site on the Sakai 3 experimental
>> server (http://3akai.sakaiproject.org). It contains the same content
>> as the attached PDF. It also contains several poll questions about
>> Sakai 3. It would be terrific if you could take a minute to respond  
>> to
>> the poll questions (after reading the content, please!). You can find
>> instructions for creating an account and joining the Sakai 3 Vision
>> site on page 10 of the PDF. The pages in the Sakai 3 site are open  
>> for
>> comment as well. And, of course, feel free to send me an email if
>> you'd like.
>>
>> Finally, a few of caveats:
>> 1. The experimental server for Sakai 3 is a development box. It
>> doesn't represent a final design and there are many bugs and
>> unimplemented features. The features and bugs will change on a  
>> regular
>> basis. And it could be that this email results in more load on that
>> server that it is ready for :-). Caveat emptor!
>> 2. If a sufficient group decides Sakai 3 should move forward at the
>> pace described in the document, we are likely to try to pull together
>> a more organized development effort. So stay tuned for more
>> information on what that will look like or, better yet, send your
>> suggestions to the list. We want feedback from everyone, though, so
>> don't hesitate to tell us what you think regardless of whether you
>> think you'll be able to participate in design and development.
>> 3. The ideas described in the document is not mine. It represents my
>> effort to document the thinking of a group of Sakai community  
>> members.
>> As the saying goes: Anything you find compelling is theirs, any
>> mistakes or lack of clarity are mine.
>>
>> I hope you like the proposal for a Sakai 3. If you don't like it,
>> though, I certainly hope you'll tell us why.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> Michael
>>
>> --
>> Michael Korcuska
>> Executive Director, Sakai Foundation
>> mkorcuska@...
>> phone: [phone]
>> mobile (US): [phone]
>> mobile (FR): [phone]
>> skype: mkorcuska
>>
>>
>> [see attachment: "Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf", size: 161202 bytes]
>>
>>
>> Attachments:
>>
>> Sakai 3 Proposal v08.pdf
>>
>>
>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal 
>> ) from the DG: Teaching & Learning site.
>> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >  
>> Preferences.
>

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



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[James Laffey]

> Sorry for any cross postings

We’d like to throw our support behind the direction being taken for  
Sakai3 as represented in the white paper. However, we have an issue to  
raise that does not seem to be represented in the white paper.
We’ll frame it by mentioning the engaging discussion that has taken  
place around the question “is everything content in sakai3?” However,  
what if the question were “is everything activity in sakai3?” By this  
we mean that the design center for collaboration and learning should  
be what people do. Of course the purpose of the applications within  
sakai for discussions, sharing files, etc. target allowing members to  
do something. What seems lacking, in our opinion, in Sakai and in the  
description of sakai3 is a recognition that for collaboration and  
learning, in addition to activity there must be activity awareness. In  
order to collaborate I have to know what my collaborators are doing.  
In order to teach I have to know what my learners are doing? In order  
to learn I have to know what my teacher is doing and ideally what my  
fellow learners are doing?
We think this is a most prescient point for those engaged in fully  
distance learning where the entire teaching and learning experience  
must be mediated, but it is also quite relevant to hybrid forms of  
teaching and collaboration to the extent that they depend on mediated  
activity. Of course both content and activity need to be supported as  
well as identity to have a quality online collaborative or learning  
activity.
Some of you know our work on CANS (http://cansaware.com) with Sakai,  
wherein we have been developing mechanisms to provide activity  
awareness through activity notification. Basically CANS watches what  
activity takes place in a worksite, captures the event notices, and  
provides notification to members on a subscription basis. In  
developing CANS to work with past and current versions of Sakai, we've  
found that many new tools weren't setup to submit events to Sakai  
(e.g., content.new, wiki.edit, jforum.new, etc.). This limits the  
potential to use activity information as a resource for awareness as  
well as to answer many useful questions that students, instructors and  
administrators might have about what is going on in Sakai.
We feel it should be a requirement for core and 3rd party tools to  
work with a central event tracking service within Sakai to fully  
support awareness. The reasons for the oversights of submitting events  
are probably varied, but a lack of awareness of the importance of  
activity information is probably a major contributor. In our opinion,  
the submission of major activity events to Sakai should be a  
requirement for any distributed Sakai tool. The need for activity  
awareness will grow even more important as we envision and work  
towards a Sakai that is more dynamic and social.
We expect that the direction provided by the board, with the  
development of Sakai 3, will help raise the importance of social  
activity as well as social networking in the Sakai development  
community, but we don't think any assumptions should be made. We’d  
like to encourage the board to put additional emphases and policies in  
place to direct the development of a more social learning environment.  
For example, if a policy was enforced that required new apps to submit  
activity events, like content.new, to the core Sakai system before  
they became an official part of the sakai code base, this would help  
provide a more consistent environment for activity-oriented services.
Also, while we are excited by the potential that the adoption of  
Apache Shindig and the OpenSocial Specification offers for Sakai, we  
hope mechanisms are made available in the Sakai code to work around  
the OpenSocial data server if needed. In other words, we assume Sakai  
will somehow provide activity information to the Opensocial data  
server and we hope the developers of Sakai 3 make it so it’s possible  
for other developers and researchers like us to create our own data  
server type solutions.
We hope these points are clear and we welcome discussion.
Jim Laffey & Chris Amelung
CANS Project
Cansaware.com

Jim Laffey
Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies
laffeyj@...
573 882 5399
--  
  "Don't teach men how to build a boat. Teach them to yearn for the  
wide and open sea."   Antoine Saint Exupery

Old Irish expression "Heres to a long life and a merry one. A quick  
death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer  
and another one!




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[jrnorman]

Hi Jim

Thanks for taking the time to work through this.

It may not be expressed in the documents, but these ideas are central  
to the vision of Sakai. I think "everything is content" is really for  
developers, to help make the point that there are ways of thinking  
about how to build applications that change if you think of everything  
as 'content'. Your comments I think, are more squarely in the user  
domain. So if activity feeds are stored in a content repository, that  
fits the "everything is content" model at the implementation level.  
However, at the user level we very definitely want to support a lot of  
activity capture and reporting because, as you say, this is central to  
what drives many online social systems.

John

On 24 Jan 2009, at 02:36, laffeyj wrote:

>> Sorry for any cross postings
>
> We’d like to throw our support behind the direction being taken for  
> Sakai3 as represented in the white paper. However, we have an issue  
> to raise that does not seem to be represented in the white paper.
> We’ll frame it by mentioning the engaging discussion that has taken  
> place around the question “is everything content in sakai3?”  
> However, what if the question were “is everything activity in  
> sakai3?” By this we mean that the design center for collaboration  
> and learning should be what people do. Of course the purpose of the  
> applications within sakai for discussions, sharing files, etc.  
> target allowing members to do something. What seems lacking, in our  
> opinion, in Sakai and in the description of sakai3 is a recognition  
> that for collaboration and learning, in addition to activity there  
> must be activity awareness. In order to collaborate I have to know  
> what my collaborators are doing. In order to teach I have to know  
> what my learners are doing? In order to learn I have to know what my  
> teacher is doing and ideally what my fellow learners are doing?
> We think this is a most prescient point for those engaged in fully  
> distance learning where the entire teaching and learning experience  
> must be mediated, but it is also quite relevant to hybrid forms of  
> teaching and collaboration to the extent that they depend on  
> mediated activity. Of course both content and activity need to be  
> supported as well as identity to have a quality online collaborative  
> or learning activity.
> Some of you know our work on CANS (http://cansaware.com) with Sakai,  
> wherein we have been developing mechanisms to provide activity  
> awareness through activity notification. Basically CANS watches what  
> activity takes place in a worksite, captures the event notices, and  
> provides notification to members on a subscription basis. In  
> developing CANS to work with past and current versions of Sakai,  
> we've found that many new tools weren't setup to submit events to  
> Sakai (e.g., content.new, wiki.edit, jforum.new, etc.). This limits  
> the potential to use activity information as a resource for  
> awareness as well as to answer many useful questions that students,  
> instructors and administrators might have about what is going on in  
> Sakai.
> We feel it should be a requirement for core and 3rd party tools to  
> work with a central event tracking service within Sakai to fully  
> support awareness. The reasons for the oversights of submitting  
> events are probably varied, but a lack of awareness of the  
> importance of activity information is probably a major contributor.  
> In our opinion, the submission of major activity events to Sakai  
> should be a requirement for any distributed Sakai tool. The need for  
> activity awareness will grow even more important as we envision and  
> work towards a Sakai that is more dynamic and social.
> We expect that the direction provided by the board, with the  
> development of Sakai 3, will help raise the importance of social  
> activity as well as social networking in the Sakai development  
> community, but we don't think any assumptions should be made. We’d  
> like to encourage the board to put additional emphases and policies  
> in place to direct the development of a more social learning  
> environment. For example, if a policy was enforced that required new  
> apps to submit activity events, like content.new, to the core Sakai  
> system before they became an official part of the sakai code base,  
> this would help provide a more consistent environment for activity-
> oriented services.
> Also, while we are excited by the potential that the adoption of  
> Apache Shindig and the OpenSocial Specification offers for Sakai, we  
> hope mechanisms are made available in the Sakai code to work around  
> the OpenSocial data server if needed. In other words, we assume  
> Sakai will somehow provide activity information to the Opensocial  
> data server and we hope the developers of Sakai 3 make it so it’s  
> possible for other developers and researchers like us to create our  
> own data server type solutions.
> We hope these points are clear and we welcome discussion.
> Jim Laffey & Chris Amelung
> CANS Project
> Cansaware.com
>
> Jim Laffey
> Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies
> laffeyj@...
> 573 882 5399
> --  
>  "Don't teach men how to build a boat. Teach them to yearn for the  
> wide and open sea."   Antoine Saint Exupery
>
> Old Irish expression "Heres to a long life and a merry one. A quick  
> death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer  
> and another one!
>
>
>
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal 
> ) from the DG: Teaching & Learning site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >  
> Preferences.

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[Michael Korcuska]

There's a couple  of points that Jim raises that others have pointed  
out to me privately that are worth mentioning. First, the Sakai 3  
vision document seems to de-emphasize teaching and learning as a use  
case. This is a failure of the document, not of the thinking of the  
group. I plan on a revision of the document to make this more clear.

Also, there are a variety of things that "tools" could do that were  
inconsistently implemented in Sakai 2. Activity awareness and  
reporting (whether for informal activity feeds to users or formal  
reports to site owners, system admins & university administration) is  
one of those. Import/Export is another. There are other requirements  
as well and the LAMS tool contract provides a good starting point for  
thinking about this. If not the implementation then the ideas about  
what a Learning Design system wants its tools to be doing.

At the same time we need to be careful about "tools," per se. I've  
felt that we're loose in our language about tools.  Sometimes we mean  
the service and the UX that uses/presents that service to the user.  
Sometimes we mean just the UX. People say "the gradebook" quite often  
and it is hard to tell what they mean.  UC Davis is working on a new  
Gradebook.  Is that service work? UX work?  Both?  Or Indiana is  
deploying Assignments 2. Again, what does that mean? In both cases  
these constitute new UX work with some modifications to the existing  
service.

Now I don't want to put too much emphasis on the language we use to  
talk about these things but I do think a little more clarity would  
help.  So I would say we have a "Grading" service.  Whether or not we  
have a "Gradebook" tool is a separate question--it could be that  
grading crops up in a wide variety of places in Sakai 3 depending on  
the context and, for some sites at least, there isn't something called  
the "Gradebook". The main point isn't the name but, rather, thinking  
about activities instead of tools.

Michael

On Jan 24, 2009, at 17:08, John Norman wrote:

> Hi Jim
>
> Thanks for taking the time to work through this.
>
> It may not be expressed in the documents, but these ideas are  
> central to the vision of Sakai. I think "everything is content" is  
> really for developers, to help make the point that there are ways of  
> thinking about how to build applications that change if you think of  
> everything as 'content'. Your comments I think, are more squarely in  
> the user domain. So if activity feeds are stored in a content  
> repository, that fits the "everything is content" model at the  
> implementation level. However, at the user level we very definitely  
> want to support a lot of activity capture and reporting because, as  
> you say, this is central to what drives many online social systems.
>
> John
>
> On 24 Jan 2009, at 02:36, laffeyj wrote:
>
>>> Sorry for any cross postings
>>
>> We’d like to throw our support behind the direction being taken for  
>> Sakai3 as represented in the white paper. However, we have an issue  
>> to raise that does not seem to be represented in the white paper.
>> We’ll frame it by mentioning the engaging discussion that has taken  
>> place around the question “is everything content in sakai3?”  
>> However, what if the question were “is everything activity in  
>> sakai3?” By this we mean that the design center for collaboration  
>> and learning should be what people do. Of course the purpose of the  
>> applications within sakai for discussions, sharing files, etc.  
>> target allowing members to do something. What seems lacking, in our  
>> opinion, in Sakai and in the description of sakai3 is a recognition  
>> that for collaboration and learning, in addition to activity there  
>> must be activity awareness. In order to collaborate I have to know  
>> what my collaborators are doing. In order to teach I have to know  
>> what my learners are doing? In order to learn I have to know what  
>> my teacher is doing and ideally what my fellow learners are doing?
>> We think this is a most prescient point for those engaged in fully  
>> distance learning where the entire teaching and learning experience  
>> must be mediated, but it is also quite relevant to hybrid forms of  
>> teaching and collaboration to the extent that they depend on  
>> mediated activity. Of course both content and activity need to be  
>> supported as well as identity to have a quality online  
>> collaborative or learning activity.
>> Some of you know our work on CANS (http://cansaware.com) with  
>> Sakai, wherein we have been developing mechanisms to provide  
>> activity awareness through activity notification. Basically CANS  
>> watches what activity takes place in a worksite, captures the event  
>> notices, and provides notification to members on a subscription  
>> basis. In developing CANS to work with past and current versions of  
>> Sakai, we've found that many new tools weren't setup to submit  
>> events to Sakai (e.g., content.new, wiki.edit, jforum.new, etc.).  
>> This limits the potential to use activity information as a resource  
>> for awareness as well as to answer many useful questions that  
>> students, instructors and administrators might have about what is  
>> going on in Sakai.
>> We feel it should be a requirement for core and 3rd party tools to  
>> work with a central event tracking service within Sakai to fully  
>> support awareness. The reasons for the oversights of submitting  
>> events are probably varied, but a lack of awareness of the  
>> importance of activity information is probably a major contributor.  
>> In our opinion, the submission of major activity events to Sakai  
>> should be a requirement for any distributed Sakai tool. The need  
>> for activity awareness will grow even more important as we envision  
>> and work towards a Sakai that is more dynamic and social.
>> We expect that the direction provided by the board, with the  
>> development of Sakai 3, will help raise the importance of social  
>> activity as well as social networking in the Sakai development  
>> community, but we don't think any assumptions should be made. We’d  
>> like to encourage the board to put additional emphases and policies  
>> in place to direct the development of a more social learning  
>> environment. For example, if a policy was enforced that required  
>> new apps to submit activity events, like content.new, to the core  
>> Sakai system before they became an official part of the sakai code  
>> base, this would help provide a more consistent environment for  
>> activity-oriented services.
>> Also, while we are excited by the potential that the adoption of  
>> Apache Shindig and the OpenSocial Specification offers for Sakai,  
>> we hope mechanisms are made available in the Sakai code to work  
>> around the OpenSocial data server if needed. In other words, we  
>> assume Sakai will somehow provide activity information to the  
>> Opensocial data server and we hope the developers of Sakai 3 make  
>> it so it’s possible for other developers and researchers like us to  
>> create our own data server type solutions.
>> We hope these points are clear and we welcome discussion.
>> Jim Laffey & Chris Amelung
>> CANS Project
>> Cansaware.com
>>
>> Jim Laffey
>> Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies
>> laffeyj@...
>> 573 882 5399
>> --  
>>  "Don't teach men how to build a boat. Teach them to yearn for the  
>> wide and open sea."   Antoine Saint Exupery
>>
>> Old Irish expression "Heres to a long life and a merry one. A quick  
>> death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer  
>> and another one!
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal 
>> ) from the DG: Teaching & Learning site.
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>

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




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[dlhaines]

If you assume that Sakai 3 services are REST based and that therefore  
there is some URL that corresponds to important activities then would  
tracking URLs provide enough information?  If that is sufficient then  
activity tracking wouldn't require active cooperation from the tools.

- Dave

David Haines
CTools Developer
Digital Media Commons
University of Michigan
dlhaines@...




On Jan 23, 2009, at 9:36 PM, laffeyj wrote:

>> Sorry for any cross postings
>
> We’d like to throw our support behind the direction being taken for  
> Sakai3 as represented in the white paper. However, we have an issue  
> to raise that does not seem to be represented in the white paper.
> We’ll frame it by mentioning the engaging discussion that has taken  
> place around the question “is everything content in sakai3?”  
> However, what if the question were “is everything activity in  
> sakai3?” By this we mean that the design center for collaboration  
> and learning should be what people do. Of course the purpose of the  
> applications within sakai for discussions, sharing files, etc.  
> target allowing members to do something. What seems lacking, in our  
> opinion, in Sakai and in the description of sakai3 is a recognition  
> that for collaboration and learning, in addition to activity there  
> must be activity awareness. In order to collaborate I have to know  
> what my collaborators are doing. In order to teach I have to know  
> what my learners are doing? In order to learn I have to know what my  
> teacher is doing and ideally what my fellow learners are doing?
> We think this is a most prescient point for those engaged in fully  
> distance learning where the entire teaching and learning experience  
> must be mediated, but it is also quite relevant to hybrid forms of  
> teaching and collaboration to the extent that they depend on  
> mediated activity. Of course both content and activity need to be  
> supported as well as identity to have a quality online collaborative  
> or learning activity.
> Some of you know our work on CANS (http://cansaware.com) with Sakai,  
> wherein we have been developing mechanisms to provide activity  
> awareness through activity notification. Basically CANS watches what  
> activity takes place in a worksite, captures the event notices, and  
> provides notification to members on a subscription basis. In  
> developing CANS to work with past and current versions of Sakai,  
> we've found that many new tools weren't setup to submit events to  
> Sakai (e.g., content.new, wiki.edit, jforum.new, etc.). This limits  
> the potential to use activity information as a resource for  
> awareness as well as to answer many useful questions that students,  
> instructors and administrators might have about what is going on in  
> Sakai.
> We feel it should be a requirement for core and 3rd party tools to  
> work with a central event tracking service within Sakai to fully  
> support awareness. The reasons for the oversights of submitting  
> events are probably varied, but a lack of awareness of the  
> importance of activity information is probably a major contributor.  
> In our opinion, the submission of major activity events to Sakai  
> should be a requirement for any distributed Sakai tool. The need for  
> activity awareness will grow even more important as we envision and  
> work towards a Sakai that is more dynamic and social.
> We expect that the direction provided by the board, with the  
> development of Sakai 3, will help raise the importance of social  
> activity as well as social networking in the Sakai development  
> community, but we don't think any assumptions should be made. We’d  
> like to encourage the board to put additional emphases and policies  
> in place to direct the development of a more social learning  
> environment. For example, if a policy was enforced that required new  
> apps to submit activity events, like content.new, to the core Sakai  
> system before they became an official part of the sakai code base,  
> this would help provide a more consistent environment for activity-
> oriented services.
> Also, while we are excited by the potential that the adoption of  
> Apache Shindig and the OpenSocial Specification offers for Sakai, we  
> hope mechanisms are made available in the Sakai code to work around  
> the OpenSocial data server if needed. In other words, we assume  
> Sakai will somehow provide activity information to the Opensocial  
> data server and we hope the developers of Sakai 3 make it so it’s  
> possible for other developers and researchers like us to create our  
> own data server type solutions.
> We hope these points are clear and we welcome discussion.
> Jim Laffey & Chris Amelung
> CANS Project
> Cansaware.com
>
> Jim Laffey
> Professor, School of Information Science and Learning Technologies
> laffeyj@...
> 573 882 5399
> --  
>  "Don't teach men how to build a boat. Teach them to yearn for the  
> wide and open sea."   Antoine Saint Exupery
>
> Old Irish expression "Heres to a long life and a merry one. A quick  
> death and an easy one. A pretty girl and an honest one. A cold beer  
> and another one!
>
>
>
>
>
> This automatic notification message was sent by Sakai Collab (https://collab.sakaiproject.org//portal 
> ) from the DG: Teaching & Learning site.
> You can modify how you receive notifications at My Workspace >  
> Preferences.

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