draft – not final – expect changes from conception to production -- the yale sakai story chuck...

Draft – not final – expect changes


From Conception to Production-- The Yale Sakai Story

Chuck Powell

May 31, 2006



Agenda

• Some history to understand:– Why we chose Sakai– What we did to make it a good solution at Yale

• Culturally

• Technically

• “In the trenches”

– Why we’re headed in certain directions

• How we’re doing things today• What we learned along the way



Humble Beginnings

From: Chuck Powell To: Lois BrooksDate: Nov 10 2003 - 3:10pm

Lois,

Any chance I could set up a time to call and learn more about "Sachi (?), Saki (?)"? Intrigued at this end and would always rather be ahead of the wave rather than behind it.

Chuck

From: Chuck PowellSent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:13 PMTo: Wheeler, Bradley C.Subject: Re: Announcing the Sakai Project and the Sakai Educational Partners Program

Brad,

Please count Yale in as a SEPP member. I'll be the initial contact point.

Chuck> > Wheeler, Bradley C. wrote:> >>We believe the time is right for advancing a set of open source…



Today’s toddler

Date: May 18, 2006 4:34 PM EDT

From: Drew Mazurek [email protected]

Subject:Testing again

We're now in production with 2.1.2. No need to respond if you receive this message.

- Drew



Vision

Yale will deploy a next generation collaborative learning environment to provide excellent online support for the administration of courses, a rich set of tools to support teaching and learning and with integrated access to the emerging digital materials under development at the Library, museums and across Yale. Yale will develop and deploy an institutional strategy for continuous evolution of the learning environment to accommodate accelerating technology change and development of digital material.



Original Schedule

• Phase I – Pilot replacement for classes.yale.edu (5-10 courses) and draft portal views

for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty which highlight access to the course web system and related services

– Goal: Begin immediately and conclude Spring Semester, 2005

• Phase II– Expand number of courses in pilot (few hundred) and add one content

tool/service.– Introduce full SAKAI-based portal with improved views for undergraduates,

graduate students and faculty– Goal: Begin immediately following phase I and conclude within Fall 2006

• Phase III– Full replacement of classes.yale.edu– Phased integration of library content and services– Goal: Begin immediately following phase II, conclude within Fall 2007



Progress Summary

• Classes*V2 adoption exceeding our expectations and straight line projections. ~60% on V2, ~40% on the original.

• No measurable progress on new/revised portal views for faculty and staff.

• No new content tools or services built. We’ve focused on modifying or integrating existing Yale tools like the Photo Roster and Online Course Selection

• Still aiming for retiring the original Classes server by Fall semester 2007.



News and Updates

• Classes*V2 continues to be very successful– Already noted adoption rate for courses but also increased

usage by non course groups large and small– Fruitful adoption discussions with Nursing, EPH, & YSM– No surprises to date in supporting the faculty & students

• Yale Library part of a Mellon Grant to build tools for integrating licensed library content into Sakai



The Road Ahead and Priorities

• Lot’s of opportunities to do more! The 40+ items on the current spreadsheet are a good start not an exhaustive list.

• Current estimate given current resourcing is that it would take us 3-4 years to complete just these.

• How to balance needs, impact, transition costs, future expansion and patience waiting for others to help us?



A Quick Tour of Classes*V2


Draft – not final – expect changesCurrent

HR Records Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources

Cla

sses

Web

CT

Bla

ckbo

ard

Orb

is

Ban

nerW

eb

Fac

eboo

k

OC

I

OC

E

Web

Mai

l

New

s, e

tc.

Student Portal


Draft – not final – expect changesFuture?

HR Records Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources

The Portal

Facebook News

WebMail OCE OCI

OPAC

JStor Term Bill

Reserve ClassroomCheck Grades

Post Grades

Jive

Weather

Library Loan

Quiz Tool

eReservesSearch Engine

Authz OSID OSID OSID OSIDOSID

CWeb WSRP iChannel Sakai GUIJSR-168



Background materials



Feedback & Requests (new things)

Improved WebDAV functionality

Photo Roster & Integrated student roster

Resources: increase permissions granularity

Dropbox: email notification when new submission

Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons

Web Content: launch in a separate window

Personal image asset management/publishing/analysis tool

Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually

WYSIWYG editor improvements

Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?

Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook

Scheduling tool for office hour appointments, discussion section sign-up, seminar discussion leaders…

Bulk downloading of drop boxes

Installing & using Melete

Plagiarism detection tool(s)

Upload functionality for quizzing and testing so everything doesn’t go through a web form



Feedback & Requests (Systemic)Full integration with Online Course Selection

New web server for freestanding sites on Classes

Full integration with Online Course Info site

Non-course db feeds into site participant list (e.g., undergrad majors)

Automatic creation/population of Jive forums for non-course sites (projects, umbrellas)

Better content migration tools, including email

Course Evaluations

Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?

Friendly URLs to course sites

Library e-reserve integration

Integrated linking to available resources (Twin Peaks)

Integration with Learning Object repository (includes searching)

Better tools for the creation of “one-off” non Yale credentials for collaborators and visitors

Db integration for Med/Nursing School auto-population of course sites

Better quota management tools for individuals, projects and course sites

Translation tool to move quiz items between personal response systems and ClassesV2

Continue to develop alternate skins for individual course/project tabs

Multiple entry points or brands for the overall system

Improvements to distributed administration of courses and the concept of hierarchies

Automated access to courses for certain roles (e.g. department chair, DUS, DGS, etc).



Feedback & Requests (Bugs & fixes)

Faults in Mac WebDAV implementation

Resources: increase permissions granularity

Resources: permissions should not affect Drop Box

Dropbox: display correct last modified date, plus time stamp

Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons

Web Content: launch in a separate window

Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually

WYSIWYG editor improvements

Friendly URLs to course sites

Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook

Syllabus tool improvements



Purpose

To evaluate and adopt a next generation collaborative learning environment that will improve faculty and student access to and utilization of web-based services and capitalize on the campus investment in information and learning resources.



Background (ITS)

Classes.yale.edu has been in service since the late 90’s and usage has grown dramatically– Easy to use, basic instructional tools, well known space, full

support for end users– Features lag behind “the competition”, organic growth of

code now difficult to support– Service was developed and deployed with no specific

programmatic funding



Background (SFAS)

SFAS has also been increasing its online services in response to growing student and faculty demand.– Core services such as online access to Banner and key

student and faculty tasks– Additional highly valued services such as Online Course

Evaluation and the Facebook.– These additional services were not always tied to specific

programmatic funding and sometimes not well integrated into end user support structures



Background (Library)

The Library has invested in a significant array of online resources and has extensive plans for more integrated access to digital materials. All of these materials and services should be readily available for access by faculty and students via a T&L portal. Examples include:– Library and museum catalogs and collections;– Web-based library services such as reference and reserve;– Course support digital library content (for example, the ELI

program);– With more to come in the future.



Background (other)

• SOM, Law, and ITS-Med all run their own course management systems with their own separate end user support systems

• Student portal was “quietly” rolled out in summer 2003 with no incremental budget

• Summary: A lot of good new services here, but also end user confusion on how to find and use. Limited institutional planning or funding to date.



Issues & Barriers

• Resources• Support• Transition from current systems in production• Availability and prioritization of functional services



Why Not Buy?

• A suite of collaboration and learning tools have become core to the IT infrastructure and simultaneously is perceived as core and unique to the University’s “business” something we shouldn’t necessarily outsource to a vendor

• We’re better positioned to integrate these tools with other campus infrastructure and enterprise tools

• We (collectively) have vastly more experience in what is needed than any vendor



Classes.yale.edu usage

draft – not final – expect changes from conception to production -- the yale sakai story chuck...

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