sakai solo: taking sakai offline with google gears 2 july 2008 martilene orffer louis botha
TRANSCRIPT
Business case
• Africa not well connected!
• Bandwidth low• High connection costs=> Slow and expensive e-Learning
Business case
• “Our tests of actual Internet speeds indicate that, while users at large European or American universities enjoy Internet connections which deliver 17 million bits per second, users at African institutions operate at speeds that are 500 to 600 times slower (~30 thousand bits per second). We also routinely test hundreds of Internet servers at African institutions and find that the typical server is online only about six hours per day and has frequent disconnects lasting days or weeks.” (Appropriate information-communications technologies for developing countries, Bulletin of the World Health Organization, Volume 85: 2007, Volume 85, Number 4, April 2007, 245-324 )
• SOLO also effective for other reasons:– Commuting students– Learning/working anywhere, any time
Business case
• “Disconnected learning” requirement identified in 2001
North West University - South Africa• Traditional university• Supports their distance learning students with eFundi
Unisa• Distance/Correspondence university • Support their students with My Unisa Vision “Towards the African
university in the service of humanity” drives us to find answers to Africa’s education and developmental problems. By forming partnerships in Africa and throughout the world, we are able to help the people of Africa achieve their dreams.
The application: Requirements
• Sakai in an offline mode• Small initial setup• Melete, Resources and Announcements• Synchronisation managed by Solo client• Large resources via CD-ROM• Windows-like user interface• For Sakai 2.5
The application: The user interface
Site navigation
Corporate Banner
Toolbar
Content IFRAMETool navigation
• Google Gears (GG) with SQLite and local server
Architecture: Technologies used
• Google Web Toolkit (GWT) – Apache licence
• Remote Procedure Calls
Architecture: Technologies used
• CSS Stylesheets
• Native JavaScript
• Eclipse Java IDE
Architecture: Schematic diagram
Gears SQLite
Gears Cache
GW
T - A
JAX
JAVA development - ECLIPSE IDE
Solo Entry Page
SynclistXML
Navigation Treeview
PDA Content
gears.google.com
GG Sync Sakai Auth
Synclist Generator
Solo Servlet
Resource
Announce
Melete
Mneme
PD
A P
OR
TA
L
User Profile
CD-ROMLarge Resources
Resource Export
On
line
/ Offlin
e
Synclist Generator
Configuration Tool
Web browser Sakai 2.5
Architecture: Client-side navigation
Navigation XML generator
Site navigator
Site XML generator
Clean Tool content (PDA)
Tool navigator
Sakai Tool content
Sakai SERVERWEB BROWSER
Goo
gle Gears
Architecture: The offline cache
GG SQLite
GG Cache
SAKAI
GG Sync engine
Browser Application
Local server
(Switch)
Architecture: Challenges
• Early adoption of GWT • Write in Java, run in JavaScript• Asynchronous methods• Unstable connections• Calling tool API’s in SAKAI• RPC calls• CDSync
Pilot projects
• Unisa– Pilot with a (relatively) small group– 162,000 students off campus
• North West University– Initial Pilot with Pharmacology group – 20 students– Followed by bigger group 2000 – 4000 students– 14,000 students off campus
Conclusion: Possible future development
• Additional tools: Schedule, assignments, assessments, drop box, glossary, etc.
• Offline authoring with upload synchronization.
http://www.itu.int/AFRICA2004/media/mobile.html
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
Su
bs
crib
ers
(m)
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
African Region Total Fixed and Mobile
Fixed line Mobile
• PDA / mobile phone applications
• Sakai SOLO + Freedom Toaster
Conclusion: Possible future growth
A widening gap between the
Developed and developing
Worlds ("digital divide")
in this area
(Wolff and MacKinnon, 2002)
..A Fourth World exists
everywhere, but is inevitably
dominant in Africa
(Castells, 2000).
Sakai Map
Bandwidth map
Conclusion: Contributors
• The South African HE institutions • Team of architects from the Sakai foundation• Psybergate a commercial partner
Conclusion: More information
• Sakai Contrib : SOLO
Resources• http://gears.google.com/• http://code.google.com/webtoolkit/• http://www.gwt-ext.com/demo/ (good example)• http://groups.google.com/group/gwt-ext• http://www.sqlite.org/• http://www.freedomtoaster.org/
Website: www.psybergate.co.za
E-mail:[email protected]