Project Coordination Update

Peter A. Knoop

Sakai Project Coordinator

Role of Project Coordinatorhttp://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/Xz

• Project Coordinator – face-in to community designers and developers– Report to the Sakai Community on the activities of the Community

• Maintain the Sakai Project Coordination Summary Tables• Update the Sakai Community at Conferences on community activities

– Help bring parties with common interests together• Project Coordination Meetings• 10 June 2007 Amsterdam

• Community Liaison (Anthony Whyte) – face-out to organizational representatives

Sakai Community

• Activities– Project Teams – 155 Committers– Working Groups– Discussion Groups

• Community resources for the Community– collab.sakaiproject.org – Virginia Tech / UHI– Jira/Confluence – University of Arizona– Subversion (SVN) – Indiana– www.sakaiproject.org – University of Michigan– QA Servers – Indiana, Columbia, Amsterdam,

Cambridge, Boston, Cape Town, rSmart• Always room for more…

Sakai Implementations

• Self-Report via Jira “Production/Pilot Deployments” Project - http://jira.sakaiproject.org– PROD-Production Deployments– PROD-Pilot Deployments– PROD-QA servers– PROD-JAVA_OPTS

Sakai in Productionhttp://sakaiproject.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=588

149 Production

115 Pilot

8 QA

Running Sakai

• Sakai 2.4 released 21 May 2007• September 2007 Implementation Plans

~50% Sakai 2.3

~50% Sakai 2.4

• Sakai 2.5 coming November 2007

Sakai 2.4 Overall Enhancements

• Portal– Pluto 1.1.1 integration– Support for JSR-168 portlets using Pluto 1.1

• Default Skin (CSS)– Improve use of white-space and padding– Show column borders on sortable lists– Add underlines to default links– Replace black-and-white folder icons with manila-

colored ones

Sakai 2.4 Overall Enhancements

• JSF– Support for generic spreadsheet formatting (Mostly

not JSF-specific.) – The Pager can be fully internationalized– The Pager and other JSF components can now

follow standard Sakai locale support– Customizable toolbar separators

• WYSIWYG Editor– Upgraded FCK Editor (e.g., IE7 compatibility)

Sakai 2.4 Overall Enhancements

• Internationalization– Complete localization of all core tools – Updates to existing translations (Catalan, French,

Japanese, Spanish, Swedish) – Added Arabic (requires RTL skin) – Internationalized Tool Titles and Descriptions – Internationalized date/time widget

• Component– Full spring lifecycle support – Demo optional components

Sakai 2.4 Overall Enhancements

• Content Review– Generic content-review service API– Integrated with Assignments– (TurnItIn implementation in Contrib)

• Course Management API– Default group provider now uses– Performance improvements

Sakai 2.4 Overall Enhancements

• Database– Better transaction support – Enhanced cross-vendor feature support

• Authz– Some ease-of-use enhancements for developers– New ability for enterprise-defined roles which cannot

be overridden in Site Info - the enterprise provider alone has this authority

– Improved transaction handling

Sakai 2.4 Project/Tool Changes

• Project/Tool Status: Contrib Provisional Core (Supported)• Promoted to Core (Supported)

– Messages– Forums– Post’em

• Promoted to Provisional– Mailtool – PageOrderHelper – Polls – User Membership

• Retired– Chat (Velocity)

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Announcements– Scheduled release (i.e., a future posting date) and retract

dates for announcements– Show/Hide implemented as a replacement to “draft”; aligns

with Resource’s approach

• Calendar Summary– Add week/month view option– Use color-coding for event types– Show more event info (e.g., attachments, link to schedule

event) – Way to add it to existing sites

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Chat – Thorough overhaul– Re-factored to address stability and performance issues– Support multiple concurrent chat rooms– Normalize Chat's schema into relational tables (conversion

from XML storage) – UI re-written in JSF (formerly Velocity)– Re-factored to ease plug-in integration of other messaging

platforms (e.g., XMPP)– Improved import functionality (e.g., all rooms, synoptic view

options)

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Gradebook– A per-installation configurable spreadsheet download– Section/Group specific spreadsheet downloads– Support for course grades independent of calculation scheme – Simplification/clean up of student view– Participation in Sakai migration/archiving service– Participation in Sakai Event tracking– Allow comments for each assigned grade– Expanded services for client tool integration (e.g.,

Assignments)– Fix to critical grade data contention issue

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Message Center split into Messages and Forums– Message Notification synoptic view – Support for importing Forums & topics from other sites– Group awareness– Enforce enhanced privacy management settings– "Quote" feature (i.e., insert original text in forum messages) – Display statistics for user's postings and read messages in

Discussion Forums – Ability to expand-all in Forums– Ability to moderate topics

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Help– Update help content– Ability to redirect to an external help

• News– Import News feed settings– News events (e.g., read, edit) will be logged

• Page Order Helper– Now compatible with toolOrder.xml

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Resources:– Content Handlers to mount external resources and

navigate into packaged resources– Improved memory handling during file upload– New Resource Registry for identifying content types

• Separation of “form items” from Resources• Support for Citations and/or Citation Lists

– Updates to action links in UI– Support for private application collections via root level

folder

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Roster:– Add group/section support to tool. (SAK-6231) – Add new print friendly view. (SAK-7340) – Enforce enhanced privacy management settings.

• Search:– The ability to set a single app server for search indexing,

while other nodes connect to it via webservices. For performance concerns in larger installations. See sakai.properties settings above. (SAK-7494)

– Multi-site search. (SAK-8717)

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Section Info:– The automatic creation and representation of SIS-

provisioned course structures, metadata and memberships (aka Sections).

– Support for multiple meeting places and times per Section. – UI refinements for filtering view. – Configurability to ensure that the application functionality

and UI match local institutional needs and SIS data.

• Syllabus:– Print-friendly view. (SAK-8548)

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Tests & Quizzes:– Added email functionality to allow instructors to email individual students from 'Scores' screens,

(SAK-7094) – Allow instructors to give individual students permission to re-take the assessment. (SAK-7093) – A disable/enable toggle of all FCK Editors in Authoring screen. (SAK-5904) – Random questions and multiple attempts: added flavor of randomization selection for random

parts. (SAK-7696) – Allow Samigo contents to be imported from other Sakai Sites using the Site Info tool's 'Import

From Site' link. (SAK-7378) – Allow instructors to change feedback settings for after assessments are published. (SAK-3943) – Change the 'copy' function in question pool to be a deep copy, rather than a link. (SAK-3526) – Implemented IMS content packaging to allow import/export of assessments with attachments

(SAK-5419) – Allow importing of Samigo assessments to Question Pool. (SAK-6993) – Importing simple text formatted assessments to Samigo using Word-2-QTI converter. (SAK-

8642) – i18n Internationalization/localization support implemented. (SAK-8643)

Sakai 2.4 Tool Enhancements

• Web Content:– Now imports with title and URL intact. (SAK-5919)

• Wiki:– auto-save feature – includes now supported – various UI improvements (SAK-4679)

• Worksite Setup/Site Info:– Updated course creation process. – Integration with new CourseManagementService. – Ability to search for a course.

More Details on Sakai 2.4…

• Release Notes– http://source.sakaiproject.org/release

• Jira (http://jira.sakaiproject.org)– Sakai 2.4.0 Enhancements (364)– Sakai 2.4.0 Fixes (981)– Sakai 2.4.0 Known Issues (370)– Sakai 2.4.x Maintenance Branch Fixes (60)

Sakai 2.5

?????

Sakai 2.5 Planning

• Post-2.4 Releases• Contrib Projects• Project Coordination Meeting

– Information sharing – 2.5 plans– Topics of cross-project concern

Post-2.4/Pre-2.5 Functionality

• 2.5 functionality that is 2.4-compatible• “In-production” QA; not formally QA’ed• Projects currently planning to tag

– Roster– Gradebook– Assignments– Resources

Contrib Projects

• Most are compatible with 2.3 and 2.4

• Some to check out…– Agora– Breeze Link– Checklist– Config Viewer– Evaluation System– Gallery– Goal Management (OSP)– Home Page Tool

– IMS Tool Interoperability– ImageQuiz– Jforum– Melete– Mneme– OCW– Reset Password– Sakai Maps– Skin Manager – SCORM– SiteStats– TransformAble

Sakai Maps

• Integrates Google Maps into Sakai

• Create points of interest (POIs)

• Filter on POI type• “Bookmark” views

Skin Manager

• Manage Sakai skins• Uploaded skins as a

zip file• Archive with versioning

and roll-back

Breeze Link

• Schedule integration: update in any, reflected in all

Evaluation System

• Formative and Summative Course Evaluations

• Conference

Mneme

• Assessment System• Early focus on delivery; later focus on

authoring and grading• Mneme 0.5 available; Mature 1.0 June 2008

Config Viewer

• Helps for configuring and troubleshooting

• 319 configuration properties for 2.4

• Current value• Description and hints• Searchable

Sakai 2.5

• Project Summary Tables

• Important Dates– “Code” Freeze mid-

September 2007 – Release early-

November 2007

Project Coordination Meeting

• 11 June 2007 in Amsterdam• Report out by Project Teams on 2.5 and beyond plans• Group discussion on cross-project topics:

– Initiation of discussion on “technical governance”– Upgrade plans for 3rd-party software– Proposal for new Entity model– Best-practices discussions on supporting unit testing,

internationalization– Authz (permissions) in the context of hierarchy support and

scalability

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Assignments– Allow instructors to enter a grade for students who

haven't posted a submission– Assignment type which has no submission– Email confirmation for students on submission– Upload a zip file containing submissions– Increased granularity for time; 5 minute

increments– Added an event for viewing assignments

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Samigo/Tests & Quizzes– Performance improvements– Retaking assessments without republishing– Email students from scores screen– QTI converter– Editable without high stakes testing

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Gradebook– Categories and weighting– Percentages– Enhance Assignments-Gradebook integration– Migration of legacy system – binding sites, but

parts need refinement (GB)

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Resources – Improve UI based on large-scale user survey– JSR-170– JCR and Jack Rabbit– Integrate Sakai and dSpace– Registry

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Schedule – iCal import/export

• Help– in maintenance mode– Internationalization– Dynamic FAQ tool

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Poll tool– Make group aware

• Worksite Setup– Improving worksite set-up

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Melete– Conditional release of modules for Melete– Next major item on grading/peer review

• IMS tools– Tool Interoperability guidelines– Second generation Tool Interoperability getting

under way

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• RSF– Working on what features need to support apps

in Sakai– More formal releases for cross-project use

• Webservices– Lock things down and review for security

Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Portal– Align OSP Portal with Sakai Portal

• Hierarchy service• Gradebook service

Cross-Project Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Gradebook service• Hierarchy• QA

– Automation– Load testing (Performance WG)– Improve Development cycle

Working Groups: Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Internationalization WG– Evolve best-practices: separate data

into .property and .config files– Standardized Date-Time widget; implement for

Velocity, JSF, RSF, etc.

• Migration WG– IMS common cartridge

Working Groups: Sakai 2.5 Plans

• Performance WG– Stress testing of Samigo and Mneme– Expand large-scale testing expertise (UCB)

• Documentation WG– Sysadmin Guide– Clean-up and consolidate

Working Groups: Sakai 2.5 Plans

• User Experience (UX) WG– U-Camp– Build community around addressing UX Jira’s– One gigantic user report synthesis

• SCORM WG– Improved Content Hosting - SCORM integration– Experimenting with Wicket

Sakai 2.5 Related Projects

• Fluid (Kuali Student, Moodle, uPortal)– Vibrant community around user experience

cutting across community– Range of studies – prioritize– Fix new UI issues with design work and

technology– FLUID community to do heuristic on Sakai:

usability, Heuristic, workflows

Getting Started…

• Reading about Sakai– http://sakaiproject.org

• Hearing about Sakai– Announcements– Newsletter

• Following Sakai– Sakai-dev– Sakai-user

Where to go from here…

• Many interesting sessions…– Introduction to Sakai

• Overview– Project Summary Table

• Management / Project Coordination • (http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/)

• Details– Confluence – Project Teams– Jira Roadmap

• Roadmap: Sakai 2.5 • (http://jira.sakaiproject.org)

• Get involved and volunteer!