In the kitchen with Sakai!
Adam Hauerwas Providence College
April 11, 2013
http://bit.ly/nercomp_sakai13
Why are we in the kitchen?
• Sakai started with University of Michigan – Collaborative
Higher Education Framework (aka CHEF)
• Chef Hiroyuki Sakai, Iron Chef French
http://hungrysormuijai.blogspot.com/2010/06/iron-chef-sydney-event-hilton-2010.html
Sites in Sakai are like meals…
• Different ingredients make up a meal (rice, fish, vegetables)
• Different components make up a site – people – roles – tools – content
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Onigiri_bento_by_dwittkower.jpg
As meals, Course and Project Sites are like bowls of rice (gohan)
• Why? Well, they’re pretty plain! – You need to do something to it in order
to make it interesting
• It’s a foundation (asagohan, hirugohan, bangohan)
Project Site • Roles
– Organizer
Participant Guest
• Tools – Whatever!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricephotos/4763112266/sizes/n/in/photostream/ • Talk about boring!
Course Site • Roles
– Instructor
Student
– Course Assistant Course Designer Demo Student Guest Lecturer Librarian Observer Tutor
• Tools – COURSE TOOLS
Syllabus Resources Announcements Calendar Assignments Messages
– SITE MANAGEMENT Roster Site Editor Site Statistics
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ricephotos/4763112266/sizes/n/in/photostream/
So what’s for dinner?
• Can you make a site that helps me in my job? – Communicate with my advisees – Arrange advising visits
• How about communication in a discipline? – Enroll people by major? minor?
class year? – Communicate with seniors?
juniors?
Advising Sites are rice balls (onigiri) • Roles
– Advisor
Advisee
– Assistant
• Tools – COMMUNICATION
Announcements Calendar Messages
– PROJECT TOOLS Resources Sign-Up
– SITE MANAGEMENT Sections Site Editor
http://www.flickr.com/photos/philman/4213399077/sizes/z/in/photostream/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/framboise /182229930/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Program Sites are hand rolls (te maki)
• Roles – Chair/Director
Faculty Major Minor Student
– Assistant
Guest
• Tools – COMMUNICATION
Announcements Calendar Messages
– PROJECT TOOLS Resources
– SITE MANAGEMENT Roster Sections Site Editor
http://www.flickr.com/photos/strausser/131237280/
To make these dishes, you make a template first
• Create a project site in Sakai • Grab its Site ID from the Sites tool
(or by copying the URL from a hyperlink) • Use the Realms tool to create roles • Make these new sites be templates
(the Sites tool for within the UI, or in the local.properties for SIS)
A template is like plastic food
• It’s a copy of a dish that you can point to, and say “I want one of those”
• Unfortunately, changing the template doesn’t change dishes made from that template
http://www.flickr.com/photos/megadem/143836743/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Put the food in the window
• Templates get put “on display” in the local.properties
• Don’t forget shiso (roles to synchronize)!
Raw ingredients come from “the server farm”
• The SIS knows courses, users, and rosters
Ingredients aren’t limited to “just rice”
• The SIS knows about more than just the basics, so we created our special dishes
A “sous chef” could prep the ingredients…
• We created a middleware server to slice and dice data for Sakai!
The sous chef gives ingredients to Sakai – not the farm
Sakai
members
users courses
Three files are sent to Sakai using “Basic SIS”
Sakai doesn’t really care what’s in the sausage!
but you can put whatever you want in each file (as long as it’s internally consistent).
How does it work?
• Virtual Machine with Win2K8 R2 and SQL Server Express
• Free or open source tools to deal with data – Logparser to read files into SQL – Batch scripts to run queries – BCP to output courses.csv, users.csv, members.csv, sections.csv
– WinSCP to copy files rSmart
The courses.csv file places an “order” by template
• Rows in the file specify the template
• The file “points” to the “plastic food” in the local.properties
So what else can you make?
• Student Congress Elections (okonomiyaki) – Students enrolled by Class Year – Uses the Evaluations tool to
vote for candidates
http://www.flickr.com/photos/weasel-on-wheels/6812266556/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Anything else?
• Placement Testing (sushi on a conveyor belt!) – Language and Math tests for incoming students – Photos uploaded for student ID’s – Undeclared students asked for interests
prior to registration
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tiptoe/2581698058/sizes/z/in/photostream/
Every kitchen’s different
• You might use CM API and not Basic SIS – Create additional .csv files based on
student attributes / relationships – Create templates in the system for
manual site creation
• Unclear to me how much of what we do is vendor-specific (e.g. role maintenance)
Questions?
Digestif
• Hope I haven’t stuffed you too full • Hungry for more?
– Reach out to “Iron Chef Adam” at [email protected]
• Fill out the comment card at http://bit.ly/nercomp_sakai13