Planet Sakai

Sakai 3 Basic LTI Widget Sprint

2010-02-08T19:43:17+00:00

I am pleased to update the Sakai community on the outcomes of a two day coding sprint to produce a Basic LTI consumer widget for Sakai 3. Dr. Charles Severance, Noah Botimer, and I participated in the sprint which the University of Michigan CTools team was kind enough to host. Don’t worry if you are not familiar with the Basic LTI specification. It is an up and coming specification from IMS which is currently in draft status. In a nutshell, it allows separate applications to be loosely integrated through an IFRAME. In the first iteration, known as “Basic” LTI, the remote system trusts some user information from the local system such as the identity of the user and the roles of the user (e.g. Instructor, Learner, etc.), and then automatically provisions accounts and tools appropriately. Essentially, this allows a remote tool to appear in a learning management system (LMS) as if it were a local tool. From an industry perspective, this will allow a standard way for say publishers to provide hosted textbook content to a variety of LMSs. It could also create an environment where we begin to select tools à la carte for inclusion into a local LMS implementation; i.e. selecting the tools that best fit the pedagogy used by the instructor. For a quick primer on LTI, I would suggest watching the video IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability by Dr. Chuck.

So the reason that I wanted to explore LTI was perhaps a bit less lofty. Simply, I wanted to use it as a mechanism to place a Sakai 2 tool into a Sakai 3 site as a widget on a page. The work that has been accomplished to date (see: Sakai 2+3 Hybrid Status Update) has been largely about exposing entire Sakai2 sites in the Sakai 3 portal. This work is still very much applicable, but supports a different use case than what I hoped to accomplish with an LTI widget. In this case, we want to be able to support a mixture of Sakai 2 and Sakai 3 tools and widgets within the context of a Sakai 3 site. This will help us make the transition from 2–>3 without a “big-bang” approach. For example, Sakai 3 will not have a PostEm tool day one, and that should not present a roadblock to Sakai 3 adoption. You should simply be able to place the PostEm from Sakai 2 in your Sakai 3 site along with all of the other native Sakai 3 widgets.

So after two days of intense coding, we had a widget that could consume a sample Basic LTI Provider. Many thanks again for the help from Dr. Chuck and Noah Botimer! You guys are awesome! There was certainly more work to do, but the plumbing had been laid and now I could focus on refining working code. Beyond the mechanics of creating an LTI launch, we wanted to add some settings to the widget:

Create “virtual tool” registrations so that the same widget could be provisioned many times under different names; i.e. the same widget could be reused for sakai2.calendar, sakai2.postem, sakai2.etc.).
Allow for administrative control over Basic LTI widget placements; i.e. the system administrator could define default values and/or lock settings that could not be modified by instructors. For example, you could use these locked settings to create the virtual tols described in #1.
Settings to control user privacy:
1. Should the user’s name be released to the remote system (i.e. first, last, full names)?
2. Should the user’s email address be released to the remote system?
3. Should the user’s user-name be released to the remote system?

I spent the next week wrapping up these enhancements to the code. The next step was to invoke the Basic LTI provider that is currently slated for release in Sakai 2.7.0. I mean that was the whole point of this exercise after all! In doing so, I discovered a bug that cause the Sakai 2 provide to choke – it did not like the “/” character in my context_id variable; see: BLTI-23. The shortest path to resolution was rolling my sleeves up and fixing the code. So along the way, I accepted an invitation got wrangled into becoming a committer on the BLTI project! After fixing BLTI-23, we decided that the length of the Sakai 2 siteId could be a problem as we cannot predict the length of context_id that remote systems will pass, so next came BLTI-24. A few commits later, and the we were in business! Yeah! I could display a Sakai 2 within a Sakai 3 site placed as a widget on a page.

So what is next?

At least one screencast demonstrating the work to date – probably two. One showing the Basic LTI plumbing and passing of the LTI certification tests, and another showing Sakai2 tool placements in Sakai 3 sites.
Some of the information in an LTI launch needs to be secured from end users. This will be a chance for me to learn more about access control in Sakai 3; see: KERN-591.
The widget itself needs some renovation. I will likely copy the existing Remote Content widget and add the LTI settings.
Create some virtual tools for existing Sakai 2 tools and add these to the out of box Sakai 3 experience.
Work on the Sakai 2 Basic LTI provider servlet to make it more robust and support the specific Sakai 2/3 integration use cases.

Sakai 3 Basic LTI Widget Sprint

2010-02-08T19:39:42+00:00

New wiki help document

2010-02-08T17:33:30+00:00

The WebLearn team have developed a new help document for the wiki: https://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/access/wiki/site/info/local-wiki-help.html

It has been authored in the wiki itself.

Community-based 3

2010-02-08T15:16:36+00:00

My focus is shifting ever more toward community-based activities that inform and shape Sakai 3. Again, I think Sakai 3 represents for us not just a new codebase and user experience, but also new ways in which the community comes together to produce the product.
At the end of last week I participated in a two-day virtual working session with our Teaching and Learning community, led by Josh Baron and David Goodrum. They are in the midst of trying to distill and organize the functional brainstorming that's been worked up over the last several months in a google spreadsheet. About 20 of us spent 6 or 7 hours a day, two days straight, on the phone together; I admired everyone's stamina, and was heartened by the level of interest. The practical aim of this ongoing effort is to provide clear input for the designers that are trying to shape Sakai's user experience, by laying out a clear and well-rounded picture of many of the core tasks and activities they're trying to serve. At the same time I think this group's effort may be paving the way toward what might soon become a functionally-led roadmap, as they draw rings around fundamental capabilities.
Last week also brought published results from a first round of user testing, ably led by Daphne Ogle at UCB, for a set of Sakai 3 wireframes. Several members of the UX community are moving into a new cycle of testing this week as well. One of the benefits of Sakai 3's shift client-side is that one can move from wireframes to prototypes far more quickly, and we can iterate on them relatively rapidly. The hope is that this will prove to be yet more empowering for our user experience and accessibility specialists by providing them direct, frequent and practical influence on Sakai's development. I expect in the next few weeks we'll be refining a community-based practice of feedback loops. If you're at all interested in this work, I'd urge you to join the conversation on the sakai-ux list.
Meanwhile the Product Council is going to start wrestling with the question of how it can help usher the Sakai 3 development work toward a completeness and maturity that serves the wider community. Sakai 3 as a whole has just recently formally entered incubation, and in treating it the council will need to ratchet up existing standards while also fleshing out new sets of objective criteria in cooperation with some of our expert sub-communities. You can be part of this ongoing discussion on the management list.

Sakai 3 Incubating

2010-02-07T22:16:42+00:00

This has been some time in coming, but Sakai 3 as a whole is now in incubation. It wasn't too long ago that "Sakai 3" stood as a category within which other projects were being incubated (e.g. K2, Groups), but we've come to the realization that although this compartmentalization may have made it easier to think about the issues piecemeal, it wouldn't be helpful for producing the earliest iterations of a product that needs to hang together.

The challenge for the product council in taking Sakai 3 on these terms is obviously the size of the issue. In the 2.7 release decisions the framework and the broader context was already set, and we were looking only at implications if a new piece were to be slotted into place alongside the rest. We have no such luxury with Sakai 3. A release readiness decision in this case is as big as the entire product.

At the same time we'll be weighing Sakai 3 against new standards, some of which will differ in kind as well as degree from the guidelines that ruled the earlier days of Sakai's history. Developing and clarifying these standards in cooperation with our expert sub-communities should be a central activity for the product council in the months ahead. Now that Sakai 3 is formally in incubation we can begin that work in earnest.

-Clay

Python for Informatics - Featured on Creative Commons

2010-02-06T02:09:58+00:00

My new book (thanks to Allen B. Downey and Jeff Elkner) was featured in the Creative Commons blog: http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/20559 "Chuck Severance, clinical professor at the University of Michigan’s School of Information, recently published a new textbook in 11 days because...

New Programming Language

2010-02-05T15:35:32+00:00

My new programming language that always compiles, never has bugs, has perfect style and is generally delivered on time, (all IMHO) is English. Developers must have a screw loose. Generally they refuse to write anything down, often they say the documentation is in the code, any yet, most of their leasure time is taken up [...]

Administration sites: What can the ”Audit” role do?

2010-02-05T09:35:54+00:00

This is an Administration Site role which give the participant rights to audit or view all sites managed by the Administration Site.

Specifically, a participant with the audit role may:

visit all sites managed by the Administration Site (including unpublished sites)
read announcements
read assignments and student submissions
see the site calendar
read chat transcripts
see all files in resources including hidden material
read the email archive
see all site member details
read all wiki pages
see all ’sign-up’ meeting details
use Site Stats tool
see site membership (in Site Info)

Administration sites: What is the difference between the ”Admin” and ”Member” roles?

2010-02-05T09:33:57+00:00

The admin role is more powerful than the member role.

The admin role can visit and ‘maintain’ all sites that are managed by the Administration Site. A participant with the member role has to be a participant within a site in order to visit it it, and (as usual) has to have the maintain role within a site to be able to configure it. In addition a participant with the member role in the Administration Site is able to create sites from with any site where they have the maintain role.

What is the difference between the ”access”, ”contribute” and ”maintain” roles?

2010-02-05T09:31:58+00:00

The maintain and contribute roles are very similar.

The maintain role is allowed to change tool permissions and add site participants and create new sites (so long as they are a member of an Administration Site) but otherwise the roles are almost identical. The contribute role is meant for staff members who are expected to author content, modify forum discussions, make announcements and the like but who are not actually site maintainers.

The access role is for student-type access, if ’students’ are required to author content or moderate Forum discussions then the permissions for the access role should be modified in the tool itself.

In general students should never be given the contribute role.

Sakai teaching award – free trip to Colorado US!!

2010-02-05T09:29:13+00:00

Every year the Sakai community holds a teaching award competition. The prize this year includes a free trip to the Sakai conference which will be held in Colorado, Denver. The details are given below.

The WebLearn team are happy to help anybody who is thinking of submitting an entry: simply get in touch with us via the usual email address: weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

The announcement

The deadline for the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award is fast approaching– March 15. Please consider helping your faculty apply for this award. Innovation is broadly defined, some may call it active learning or student-centered learning. Here’s an article from yesterday’s Campus Technology describing one of the past winning courses: http://campustechnology.com/articles/2010/02/03/teaching-with-sakai-innovation-award-call-for-entries-open-thru-march-15.aspx

Call for Entries: 2010 Teaching With Sakai Innovation Award (Deadline: Monday, March 15, 2010)

The Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award publicly honors successful pedagogical innovation and best practices in teaching and learning in a Sakai environment. Winners will receive a trip to the 2010 Sakai Conference, June 14-17, 2010, in Denver, Colorado, USA to give a featured presentation about their teaching with Sakai. All entries will become part of the OpenEdPractices.org repository of best teaching practices. The award is sponsored by IBM, with additional support from rSmart and John Wiley & Sons.

For more information about the award and the submission deadline, go to the Teaching with Sakai Innovation Award web site (http://openedpractices.org/twsia).

Many thanks,

Kate Ellis

Learning Technologies Consultant
Indiana University Bloomington
Teaching and Learning Technologies Center
Wells Library 305 West Tower
812-855-9024
kdellis@indiana.edu

Sakai 2.6.2 and 2.5.6 maintenance releases available

2010-02-05T08:38:21+00:00

Announcements Mailing List

Sakai Dev Mailing List

off

Release Date: 29 January 2010

The Sakai Foundation is pleased to announce the latest maintenance release for Sakai 2.6.x and 2.5.x.

-----------------------------
The Sakai 2.6.2 maintenance release provides a set of bug fixes that improve upon the Sakai 2.6.1 release. Over 80 issues have been addressed by 2.6.2.

Fixes have been applied to the following tools/services: assignments, blogger, citations, common, email archive, forums, messages, polls, post'em, preferences, providers, schedule, search, section info, site info, sites, syllabus and worksite setup.

Sakai 2.6.2 Release Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration, etc.) is on the wiki at: <http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6>
Sakai 2.6.2 fixes are listed with details at: <http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.6.2+Fixes>
Sakai 2.6.2 Release Artifacts (source, binary and demo versions) are available at: <http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/2.6.2/>

------------------------------
The Sakai 2.5.6 maintenance release provides a set of bug fixes and security enhancements that improve upon Sakai 2.5.5. Over 130 issues have been addressed in this release.

Fixes have been applied to the following tools/services: announcements, assignments, blog, calendar, content service, entity service, entitybroker, event service, forums, gradebook, mailtool, messages, post'em, polls, portal, portfolios, profile, providers, reports, resources, roster, rwiki, schedule, search, section info, site info, sites, syllabus, Test & Quizzes, user service, web content, webdav and worksite setup.

Sakai 2.5.6 Release Documentation (Overview, Installation, Configuration, etc.) is on the wiki at: <http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5>
Sakai 2.5.6 fixes are listed with details at: <http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/DOC/Sakai+2.5.6+Fixes>
Sakai 2.5.6 Release Artifacts (source, binary and demo versions) are available at: <http://source.sakaiproject.org/release/2.5.6/>

---------------------------------
Older versions of Sakai
Users of pre-2.5 versions of Sakai are strongly encouraged to update to the Sakai Community-supported Sakai 2.6.2 or Sakai 2.5.6 releases in order to take advantage of the feature, performance and security enhancements provided by the Sakai 2.5 and Sakai 2.6 series.

The Sakai open source community develops, tests, and maintains the code for all Sakai releases. For the most current release and the immediate prior release, the Sakai Foundation uses its resources to oversee and manage the development, QA testing, patching, and releasing of incremental numbered versions.

For earlier versions, the Foundation no longer provides this oversight and coordination of the community contribution to the codebase. This does not mean that these earlier versions are not used and maintained by some institutions in the community, they are. Institutions running an older version may of course continue to do so, applying patches, bug fixes, and enhancements as they wish. These modifications are committed to the Sakai SVN code repository and are available for others to use if they wish. But the Foundation does not coordinate testing or validation of the code changes, and does not create a concomitant roll-up into an incremental release.

A run-in with Tomcat SSL and Java keytool

2010-02-05T03:20:46+00:00

I recently had the pleasure of setting up a Jasig CAS server on campus. The install went without a hitch. I initially brought it online with a self signed certificate, which was a no brainer as the Tomcat docs are great.

Once we got our SSL certificate though, I realised that the private key and keystore I had initially generated for the self signed certificate wasn't used for the the Certificate Signing Request that the sysadmin's had sent away to the Certificate Authority. So I had a private key for the SSL certificate but the one in the keystore was different. Problem 1. And it's not possible to import a private key into a keystore using keytool because it doesn't have this ability. Problem 2.

Thankfully, this is fixed in Java 6: keytool can now import a PKCS12 file into a keystore. But first you need to get your certificate and private key into that format. You can use OpenSSL for this:

openssl pkcs12 -inkey /path/to/private/key -in /path/to/certificate -export -out bundle.p12

Now we have a file called bundle.p12 which we will import into our keystore via keytool:

keytool -importkeystore -deststorepass changeit -destkeypass changeit -destkeystore /path/to/keystore -srckeystore /path/to/bundle.p12 -srcstoretype PKCS12 -srcstorepass changeit -alias 1

The alias 1 is required to tell keytool to import the first certificate in the PKCS12 file.

Finally the Tomcat config:

<Connector port="8443" protocol="HTTP/1.1" SSLEnabled="true"
maxThreads="150" scheme="https" secure="true"
clientAuth="false" sslProtocol="TLS"
keystoreFile="/path/to/keystore" keystorePass="changeit" />

Apple iPad Review: Awesome and Perfect - From Sobbing to Cheering!

2010-02-04T17:44:45+00:00

Like most of the nerd world, I sat in my office listening to streamed pirate audio from the Apple announcement of the iPad last week. Like most of the nerd world, I had high hopes for the iPad - I...

Academic Study of Blackboard vs. Sakai at UNC School of Medicine

2010-02-04T16:49:37+00:00

Brian Moynihan has posted his Masters Thesis on University of North Carolina School of Medicine’s LMS evaluation, which eventually came down to a shootout between Blackboard and Unicon-supported Sakai. There’s a lot that’s of interest in this paper, particularly around the complexity of higher ed IT environments and the need for integration, but these two paragraphs particularly caught my eye as being relevant to the general LMS evaluation process of many schools:

(...)
Read the rest of Academic Study of Blackboard vs. Sakai at UNC School of Medicine (1,039 words)

© michael.feldstein for e-Literate, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Blackboard-Inc., Sakai, Sakai Project

2010 Sakai Conference - tell us who you want for Keynote Speaker

2010-02-04T08:17:37+00:00

The Conference Program Committee has come up with a list of candidates for Keynote Speaker. We'd like you to tell us who you would like to hear speak at the conference. Please take a couple of minutes and mark your 1st, 2nd, and 3rd choices on this online survey <http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/FNQP2NG>.

We appreciate your input.

A Serendipitous Social Media Story.

2010-02-04T00:37:15+00:00

You know how we always think of the Internet as a web of facts that are interconnected to one another? Well, here's a story of random interconnected stuff that led me to step out of my comfort zone. Warning: This blog post jumps from one thing to the other a lot. About 2 months ago, I finally got rid of my dino-phone (circa 2007) to make a leap into 2009 and bought a Motorola Droid (I know, the

the JISC Institutional Innovation Exchange at Birmingham

2010-02-03T21:01:24+00:00

On Thursday 28th and Friday 29th of January, Laura and Anne-Sophie went off to Birmingham for the JISC Institutional Innovation Exchange meeting.

One of the activities was the Trade Fair... With 7 sold products, we didn't do such a bad job! Thanks for all who bought our products. For those who would still like to have a look at them, you can find all the information you need below.

Overall, it was good to see all projects and people again, and to find out what progress they made.

DEADLINE: EuroSakai Early Bird registration ends Feb. 15

2010-02-03T20:09:15+00:00

Announcements Mailing List

Sakai Dev Mailing List

Sakai User Mailing List

Information on the conference can be found at http://sakaiproject.org/sakai-european-regional-conference-2010

Remember to register before 15th of February to get the benefit of the Early Bird Registration Fee at https://www.upv.es/pls/sosak/sic_eusakai.REGISTRATION?p_vista=poliformat&P_IDIOMA=i

The Schedule for 3rd European Conference that will be held in Valencia, Spain from 1 to 3rd of March 2010 is NOW available at http://www.upv.es/var/eurosakai_schedule.html

If you have any questions, doubts, or you just need more information, contact eurosakai2010@upv.es

WE HOPE TO SEE ALL OF YOU IN VALENCIA

Open Ed 2010 Call for Papers open thru May 15

2010-02-03T19:39:14+00:00

None

off

Sakai User Mailing List

The Open Ed conference theme for 2010 is OER: Impact and Sustainability.

November 2-4, 2010, the seventh annual Open Education Conference moves to Barcelona for its first convening outside of North America! The 2010 conference venue is CosmoCaixa, designated Europe’s best science museum in 2006.

The Call for Papers is open through May 15. Submit your paper now!

The Open Education Conference has been described as “the annual reunion of the open education family.” Each year the conference serves as the world’s premiere venue for research related to open education, while simultaneously creating the most friendly and energetic atmosphere you’ll find at any academic conference.

Open Ed 2010 is jointly organized by the Open University of Catalunya, the Open University of the Netherlands, and the David O. McKay School of Education at Brigham Young University

Assignments 2 Incubating

2010-02-02T19:05:37+00:00

Assignments 2 has entered incubation.

As many of you know, assignments 2 has been baking for some time at IU. Although it's another unavoidable case of a project not entering incubation until it's rather far along in its development - and so our Sakai 2 precedents may mislead the casual observer about the process - I'm still happy to have it incubated so far in advance of any release decisions. More room to breathe and do the right thing.

So far I see a feature-driven development process which is then polished with usability testing. I think the Product Council could use the occasion to flesh out our review criteria, eg. those for accessibility with the help of the WG already making big strides.

I'd also like to point out the fronts along which assignments 2 has been compelled to engage - with gradebook and a variety of helpers, with OSP, TurnItIn, and maybe others. This may be a challenge for UX coherence in Sakai 2 contexts, but I think it helps confirm that the underlying capability is pivotal, and should inform the Sakai 3 UX at an early stage, provided we can trace it back to its essentials well enough. As with many things in Sakai 3, it won't be enough to first develop a tool and then look for horizontal integration points after the fact.

Sakai in Small "Schools"

2010-01-31T23:14:54+00:00

I was pleased to see Michael Feldstein's blog post about Sakai at smaller organizations (he also alluded to the strength of Sakai's teacing and learning leadership). Coincidentally, that's exactly what I was planning to blog about.

I've been spending some time reaching out to Sakai users that I don't typically speak to on a regular basis to find out how things are going with their Sakai experience. And it seems that a bunch of these conversations have been with liberal arts colleges and other smaller institutitions. They are all doing extremely well with Sakai, typically but not always, in conjunction with a Sakai Commercial Affiliate that provides hosting and support. Here are a few that I've spoken with recently:

Allegheny College, a liberal arts college in western Pennsylvania with 2100 sutdents. Hosted by The Longsight Group.
Washington and Lee, a liberal arts college in Virginia with approximately 2100 students as well. Also hosted by Longsight.
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine (NEOUCOM), a medical school that servers several universities and has an enrollment of less than 1000. Longsight again (I'm detecting a pattern...hmmm).
The University of the Arts in Philadelphia with its 2400 students have been using Sakai for a long time. They are self-hosted.

The experiences of these organizations clearly illustrate that Sakai isn't only for large research universities. I know the commercial affiliates are working to get these stories out. I hope we will see folks from some of these schools present at the upcoming 2010 Sakai Conference and, of course, at other conferences where those considering a new system might hear what they have to say.

(FWIW...I put "schools" in quotes because in the UK, "schools" fairly unambiguously refers to primary/secondary education while in the US it can refer to any type of educational institution. Here I'm obviously using it in the US-sense))

Sakai, Small Schools, and Pedagogy

2010-01-31T19:25:24+00:00

Update: Michael Korcuska has a blog post up about some small colleges that have been successful with Sakai.

Sakai has a reputation for being technology-driven and focused on the needs of large research universities. There was some truth to both of those claims in the early years of the project. However, the recent election of the Sakai Foundation Board Chair and Vice Chair are strong indicators that neither claim is true anymore. The community recently elected the Sakai Foundation board members and the board members, in turn, elected Josh Baron and Maggie McVay Lynch as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively.

Both Josh and Maggie come from small schools. Josh represents Marist College, a small liberal arts school in Poughkeepsie, NY with about 4,200 undergraduates. Maggie represents College of the Redwoods, a community college in Eureka, CA with 6,774 students. These are not tiny schools, but neither are they huge. Both of these schools hire an external support company (rSmart) rather than managing their Sakai instances with their own IT department.

Equally importantly, both Josh and Maggie are teachers and not technologists. Both have advanced degrees in education. Both run their educational technology programs at their respective schools. And both came to prominence within the Sakai community for their contributions to developing the Teaching and Learning committee and, more generally, bringing pedagogy to the forefront of the Sakai community’s work and focus.

© michael.feldstein for e-Literate, 2010. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Josh Baron, Maggie McVay Lynch, Sakai

Mellon Foundation RIT Project Concludes a Success

2010-01-31T18:59:49+00:00

This is a guest post by Jim Farmer. Apologies to Jim; this has been sitting in my inbox for a couple of weeks now.

“The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is closing a grant program that financed a series of high-profile university software projects, leaving some worried about a vacuum of support for open-source ventures.”

- Marc Parry, “In Potential Blow to Open-Source Software, Mellon Foundation Closes Grant Program,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 5 January 2010

A closer analysis suggests the Mellon Foundation’s “Research in Information Technology” had already met its objectives. This announcement should be an opportunity for reflection and appreciation of what was accomplished.

(...)
Read the rest of Mellon Foundation RIT Project Concludes a Success (748 words)

© michael.feldstein for e-Literate, 2010. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Chris Mackie, Ira Fuchs, JSTOR, Kuali Foundation, Marc Parry, Sakai, Sakai Project, The Chronicle of Higher Education, UPortal

Abstract: Teaching Informatics to Everyone: The End of Dilbert

2010-01-29T15:29:58+00:00

People will look at old Dilbert comics in 50 years and will no longer understand why they are funny. The word "nerd" will simply be a "funny arcane word" like the word "flapper". In this presentation we look past the...

Non-functional

2010-01-29T14:44:06+00:00

You may not have noticed, but e-Literate had a brief outage yesterday which was fixed for me by the good folks at my ISP, SiteGround. Meanwhile, e-Literate’s operator (i.e., me) has been experiencing a longer outage due to a nasty bout of bronchitis. I am starting to feel slightly more human today and will begin catching up on the backblog this weekend, starting with a treat—a guest post from our old friend Jim Farmer. I’ll also have a couple of shorter, newsy posts, after which I hope to get back to writing some decent-sized pieces.

Sorry for the long quiet period.

No related posts.

Abstract: Building Real Teaching Tools for any LMS Using IMS Basic LTI

2010-01-29T05:57:21+00:00

his presentation will cover IMS Basic Learning Tools Interoperability and show how a tool or element of content which supports IMS Basic LTI can be quickly and easily integrated into Sakai, Moodle, BlackBoard, WebCT or Desire2Learn. IMS Basic LTI provides...

Old WebLearn: Test Building will become read only from 8th Feb

2010-01-28T17:15:41+00:00

It will no longer be possible to create new material in the old WebLearn Test Building from 8 Feb 2010

As part of the migration to the new WebLearn, it is our intention to stop allowing the creation of new materials in Old WebLearn’s Test Building from Monday 8 Feb 2010, Wk4 HT2010. This is the first phase of the process of closing the Test Building.

This will only affect you if you wish to create rooms, webpages or other resources, or upload files in the Test Building.

It will not have any impact if you or your students or colleagues merely access material hosted in the Test Building, although you should be aware that the Test Building will be closed on 21 June 2010 (Wk9 TT2010).

What should I do if this affects me?

We suggest creating your material within your Departmental Floor instead. If you do not have permission to do this then you should speak to your Floor Manager. If this proves impossible then you could consider using your personal ‘MyWebLearn’ area instead.

If you have any questions then please contact weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

What will happen when the Test Building closes?

All material in the Test Building become inaccessible on 21 June 2010 (Wk9 TT2010), it is your responsibility to move anything that you want to keep by this date.

We would recommend that you either move the material elsewhere in old WebLearn or into new WebLearn. There is an ITLP training course outlining the process of moving material into new WebLearn, to book a place, visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVC. You may also download the ‘Migration’ course booklet.

If you have any questions then please contact weblearn@oucs.ox.ac.uk

Contributing to 'Wicket By Example'

2010-01-28T02:45:37+00:00

I'm now a contributor on Wicket By Example and have just posted my first article about using the Wicket ObjectAutoCompleteTextField component from the WicketStuff library.

http://wicketbyexample.com/autocomplete-with-an-object/

Check it out!

This article was based on my experience creating the private messaging component in Profile2 where you get a list of your connections and can narrow down that list by typing the name of a connection you want to send a message to.

You can try out the messaging feature of Profile2 on the nightly trunk+experimental server hosted by the Sakai Foundation (rebuilt daily at 2.30am Eastern US).

Portfolios, Used Well, Are Transformational

2010-01-27T15:00:00+00:00

My entire career has been about the enhancement of learning and teaching. It began in graduate school when I noticed that how we teach does not necessarily match what we say we believe about learning. It was as if we unconsciously imitate the teaching we have received, rather than exploring the learning we yearn for.

In the early 90s I became a business expert for what was to become the Open Source Portfolio (OSP) in Sakai. Since then I have interacted with a great many institutions experimenting, succeeding, and in some cases failing, with ePortfolios. The failures seem to happen when leadership expects the tool to create the transformation, rather than understanding that transforming how we foster learning requires continued strategizing for change.

Since the 1950s and more recently on National Public Radio, a series of This I Believe essays have helped us separate what truly matters from what does not.

I believe that portfolios, used well, are transformational.

WebLearn newsletter 26-Jan-10

2010-01-26T17:27:35+00:00

Contents

“WebLearn: Migration” ITLP course – 1 Feb 2pm, OUCS
Evaluations (survey) tool pilot – call for volunteers
Closure of the Test Building
Request space in the new WebLearn
“WebLearn: Fundamentals” ITLP course – 28 Jan 10, OUCS
“WebLearn Drop-in surgery” every Friday morning in OUCS
Visit the WebLearn guidance site

1 “WebLearn: Migration” ITLP course 1 Feb 2pm, OUCS

All users must migrate their content from old to new WebLearn over the next year and a half.

OUCS are running a migration course every month to help with this process. There are still places on the next occurrence of the course (on 1st Feb 10). Visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVC to book a place.

2 Evaluations (survey) tool pilot – call for volunteers

The Evaluations tool allows the creation of on-line surveys which can be delivered to Oxford staff and students or to the general public. Such surveys may be used for course evaluation, obtaining feedback, questionnaires or general data gathering purposes.

If you want to be involved in the pilot of this tool then have a look at: http://blogs.oucs.ox.ac.uk/adamweblearn/2010/01/20/create-on-line-surveys-for-free-using-new-weblearn/ and / or send an email expressing interest to wl-eval@weblearn.ox.ac.uk

3 Closure of the Test Building

As part of the process of moving from the old to new WebLearn system, it is our intention to close the Test Building at the start of this year’s long vac.

We recommend that if you currently use the Test Building you consider either moving your material to the new WebLearn or move it elsewhere in old WebLearn with a view to moving it again to the new WebLearn at a later date.

We will be reminding you about this closure over the coming months but why not act quickly and address the issue early.

4 Request space in new WebLearn

To establish a presence in new WebLearn, each Department or College will need to authorise one or more staff members to become a ‘Local WebLearn Coordinator’ and complete the Request for an Administration Site form. If you are intending to move to the new WebLearn then at some point this form will need to be filled in.

We will be reminding you about filling in this form over the coming months but why not act quickly and address the issue early!

5 “WebLearn: Fundamentals” ITLP course – 28 Jan 10, OUCS

The next instance of this hugely popular course is taking place at 2pm on Thursday 28 Jan in OUCS. There are still a few spaces left, please book a place via: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TOVB

6 “WebLearn Drop-in Surgery” every Friday morning in OUCS

If you have already attended a WebLearn course then extra face-to-face help is available most Friday mornings by booking a place at the “WebLearn drop-in surgery” at Computer8. To book a place please visit: http://www.oucs.ox.ac.uk/itlp/courses/detail/TECE

7 Visit the WebLearn Guidance site

This site within new WebLearn contains lots of useful resources including a FAQ, a series of step-by-step guides, case studies, bite-sized “least you need to know guides”, copyright and plagiarism resources and showcase WebLearn sites. Visit http://weblearn.ox.ac.uk/info.

Combining jUnit’s @Ignore and @AfterClass

2010-01-26T17:12:58+00:00

Interesting – in jUnit 4.4 – combining @Ignore and @AfterClass (haven’t tried the other static’s like @BeforeClass) don’t seem to do what I’d expect – e.g. the @AfterClass annotated method seems to execute regardless.

Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #3

2010-01-26T16:31:34+00:00

These comments relate to the JISC-funded Thema Project Executive Summary for the University of Oxford: http://tinyurl.com/themasummary.

Section 4: Recommendations relating to taught postgraduates

The first part of section 4.2 of the report focuses on learner expectations. The rport highlights that many students find themselves in awe when they arrive and worry greatly as they do not really know what to expect over the coming year.

This University has partially addressed the problem by developing a web gateway http://www.ox.ac.uk/students but we feel that WebLearn can offer further support at the departmental rather than University level.

The Thema report includes the following:

Ensure that applicants for taught postgraduate courses receive clear information about the pedagogic approach of courses in order to help them to negotiate a fit between their aspirations for the course and the resources and structures available:

The following types of information might be useful additions to descriptions in prospectuses and on course Websites:

Expectations of the department towards students in terms of their readiness to take on the role of autonomous learner:
- Detailed descriptions of what it means to be a learner in the department
- Explication of reading approaches that the student will need to develop
- Specifications of the expected levels of academic writing and research
- Expected levels of participation during classroom activities
- Expected disposition towards learning, such as critique and analysis
What students can expect from their course:
- Descriptions of pedagogical approach, including an explication of what terms like “seminar”, “tutorial”, “discussion session” etc., mean in the context of the particular course
- Details of formative feedback mechanisms both during taught and research-based parts of the course
- Reasonable assessment of the workload and suggestions for ways to manage it

As mentioned elsewhere in this blog departments can use WebLearn to disseminate information and to allow the peer mentoring of students before they arrive. Information relating to the above list can be stored in a department’s area within WebLearn and existing students can be quizzed on various aspects via a discussion forum or in a chat room.

Now that students receive their Oxford SSO credentials before they arrive, this can all be done in a secure area and not in the public gaze on social networking sites such as Facebook and My Space.

Product 3 – Find out how to do user testing!

2010-01-26T16:21:42+00:00

Another outcome of this exciting project is a brief example video which shows you a real user testing session so you get an idea of what user testing is like.

We also run a workshop on Friday 5th of March 2010 which gives you concrete tips on how to get started on doing a user testing session yourself, and a chance to ask questions and explore your ideas with others who’ve done it before!
After the workshop, you’ll be invited to see the sights of Cambridge!

This workshop will take place at CARET (16 Mill Lane, CB2 1SB Cambridge). It will probably be a full day (morning and afternoon), but further details will follow later.

Apply for attending this workshop by emailing Laura (laura @ caret.cam.ac.uk) or Anne-Sophie (asd38 @ caret.cam.ac.uk), and definitely have a look at the video!

> Watch the video
> Download the flyer

This outcome is one of the products presented at the JISC Innovation Exchange at Birmingham 28th-29th January

Product 1 – Find out how to use user-centric design!

2010-01-26T16:20:10+00:00

Desperate to understand what your faculty and students REALLY want (because it’s never what they ask for)?
This handbook gives you the methodology description of the JISC Academic Networking project.
A run-through, with real examples, pictures and lots of ‘how-do-I-start-on-this’ should enable you to get started on a project, using this methodology yourself.

> Download the Handbook
> Download the flyer

This outcome is one of the products presented at the JISC Innovation Exchange at Birmingham 28th-29th January

Product 2 – Find out how to involve stakeholders efficiently!

2010-01-26T16:19:57+00:00

Looking to try something new with your next project, or you simply want to find out how to involve your stakeholders efficiently? Then this product is something for you!

It can sometimes be really hard to get your stakeholders involved. This tick-box-shaped document isn’t a walkthrough roadmap, but a list of initiatives you can choose from, in order to involve your stakeholders in an efficient way.

> Document on how to involve stakeholders efficiently
> Document about personas - Adds to the information in the previous document
> Find out more information on 'Stakeholder buy-in' on the BRII blog
> Download the flyer

This outcome is one of the products presented at the JISC Innovation Exchange at Birmingham 28th-29th January

Product 4 – Academic Networking in your Virtual Learning Environment!

2010-01-26T16:18:50+00:00

One of the outcomes of the JISC Academic Networking project is that the results of the project will be integrated in future releases of open source Online Learning Environment Sakai.
Keep an eye on SakaiProject.org!

> Download the flyer

This outcome is one of the products presented at the JISC Innovation Exchange at Birmingham 28th-29th January

Default Text in Sakai Portfolio forms

2010-01-26T14:42:42+00:00

Last night I was building a series of reflection forms for a large matrix (15 rows). Each reflection form had a rich text editor to hold the reflection.

The design of these reflection forms included some "default text" that would help to guide the student's thinking about their reflection. Each row of the matrix was to have slightly different default text in that field. There are two ways I could accomplish the task.

Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #2

2010-01-26T12:45:46+00:00

These comments relate to the JISC-funded Thema Project Executive Summary for the University of Oxford: http://tinyurl.com/themasummary .

Section 3: student’s use of digital technologies. Recommendations.

Content Provision in WebLearn

In relation to the institutional VLE, WebLearn, lecturers within the same course should:

Provide students with the same “base level” of service (i.e. in making PowerPoint presentations, lecture notes and so forth available), even if they do not all use the other tools and features provided.

We would wholeheartedly support this recommendation. Remember there’s lots of training available for WebLearn.

Podcasting as a Revision Aid

In relation to the use of digital technologies in lectures and other classes, lecturers are
encouraged to:

Consider the recording of lectures as podcasts to aid students’ revision, without fear that
students will cease to attend lectures as a consequence.

There is a ‘Podcast’ tool within WebLearn, this allows podcasts to be uploaded and access restricted to site participants. Alternatively public podcasts can be hosted on the University’s public ‘Oxford Podcasts’ website (and on iTunesU) and re-used in WebLearn via the ‘News’ tool.

Reading Lists

In compiling students’ reading lists, lecturers should:

Make photocopied study packs of print-based materials available where possible, subject to copyright restrictions and cost implications.

It should be pointed out here that the University’s CLA licence allows material to be scanned and hosted in WebLearn within ‘Resources’ on a course site. This will be more cost effective than producing reams of photocopies each year.

Support for Mobile Phones

The Erewhon project is enhancing WebLearn for use on Smartphones. This technology should be available in the 2010/11 academic year and lectures are encouraged to think how they may use the new functionality.

For Training Providers

When planning the delivery of training through the academic year, providers are encouraged to:

Be mindful of students’ preference for “just-in-time” training.
Consider the creation of online “refresher” guides to supplement face-to-face training.

Just-in-time training and refresher guides can be hosted within WebLearn. Think about recording lectures and hosting within WebLearn or on the Oxford Podcasts site.

We are planning a special ’study skills’ area in WebLearn where generic training material can be deposited and used by students. Details to follow.

Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #1

2010-01-26T10:50:54+00:00

These comments relate to the JISC-funded Thema Project Executive Summary for the University of Oxford: http://tinyurl.com/themasummary .

Section 3: student’s use of digital technologies.

“Although over 90% of students have laptops, they tend not to take them to classes for a range of reasons …”

One of the deliverables of the JISC-funded Erewhon project is to develop a ‘Smart-phone’ interface to WebLearn. The relevant work-package in the project is divided into two parts: authentication and a new tools interface.

Authentication

Here we will develop a new method of authentication that allows a registered WebLearn user to remain logged into the system for a very long time but with a reduced permission set.

This approach strikes a balance between ease of use and security: i.e., not having to negotiate the fiddly process of logging in every time WebLearn is to be accessed whilst at the same time maintaining integrity. This is achieved using ‘three-legged oAuth’ – this technology is also used by Flickr amongst other.

Every user will have an oAuth management tool in their My Workspace which allows them to specify what external applications are allowed to see and do in WebLearn.

The Smartphone interface to WebLearn will always be accessed via the Mobile Oxford portal (m.ox.ac.uk) so permission must be granted to m.ox to view specific classes of data such as calendars and announcements.

In the future it is envisaged that other applications such as Nexus SharePoint could also use oAuth to retrieve information stored within WebLearn.

New Tools Interface

Here we provide a vastly simplified interface to a handful of the most suitable WebLearn tools. These include

Polls – for conducting opinion polls in a classroom setting
Tutorial sign-up – allow students to book a tutorial session (or any other kind of event) without needing to find a ‘big computer’
Announcements – view course-related announcements
Schedule – view a collated course events calendar
Resources – what new documents or links have been added?

In the future, we also hope to allow students to access the survey tool (’Evaluations’) via m.ox – this will allow course experience feedback to be completed via a mobile phone. It is hoped that this will result in higher completion rate than if the survey were only available via a desktop computer.

[FIXED] Eclipse Issues with Clicking on Ubuntu/GNOME

2010-01-25T18:39:59+00:00

For the last few months, have moved most of my work programming from the Mac to Ubuntu (first convenience via VMs, recently because I switched jobs and at the new employer it was that or Windows) which has mostly gone will, though there were some issues around Eclipse UI gotchas, notably:

Sometimes buttons wouldn’t let you click them (though keyboard focus mostly worked find)
Sometimes windows wouldn’t paint properly – contents, toolbars, etc.

At first I thought it might have been Virtualbox’s mouse driver, but it looks like it’s a generic Eclipse/GTK issue, with some notes at http://blogs.gurulabs.com/dax/2009/10/what-gdk-native.html on the root cause, and how to fix it. For the time being I’ve created scripts to launch Eclipse (and STS) and before I fire off Eclipse, do a:

1	export GDK_NATIVE_WINDOWS=1

This seems to resolve the painting issues, though it feels a bit less smooth/fast (UBUNTU+GNOME+COMPIZ) – still usable, though admittedly have tried this on a pretty fast machine (recent 2xQuad-Core w/lots of RAM)

2010 Sakai Conference website goes live - Call for Proposals now open

2010-01-23T06:09:23+00:00

The website http://sakaiproject.org/static/conference-2010.htm with details about the Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado is now live. And the Call for Participation section is open to accept your proposals for both Conference Presentations and for Technical Demos.

The deadline for proposal submissions is Feb. 28, 2010.

The conference Tracks are:

Building Sakai
Deploying Sakai
Using Sakai
Portfolio
Sakai Showcase
Multiple Audiences

This year you will also be able identify the focus of your presentation by selecting a "subtrack" area of interest to help attendees in their session planning.

The subtrack tags are:

Newcomer
Research
Pedagogy
QA
Faculty Practices
Sakai3
Student Involvement
Innovation
User Support

We look forward to your proposals. --- 2010 Sakai Conference Planning Committee

Sakai Foundation Executive Brief Webinar - slides

2010-01-22T21:28:21+00:00

The slides from the webinar are on the Sakai Foundation page along with a link to download the .ppt file and a pdf version too.

I clicked ”Switch to access role” on an unpublished site and now I can’t see my site. What to do?

2010-01-21T13:38:39+00:00

Site participants with the access role cannot see unpublished sites so the above-mentioned behaviour is to be expected (if not entirely useful). Logging out and then logging in again will cure the problem!

How does the Forums notification work?

2010-01-21T13:28:44+00:00

The Watch option has 3 settings.

The default option is ‘Notify me by email when a thread that I have contributed to receives a new message’. The other options are ‘no notification’ and ‘Notify me by email whenever a new message is posted’.

A user can change their individual setting by clicking on the Watch link at the top of the Forums page. It is not possible for a site maintainer to stipulate what the ‘watch-level’ is on their site.

Off to the programme meeting...

2010-01-21T12:28:47+00:00

Next week, Laura and Anne-Sophie will be off to Aston for the Institutional Innovation JISC programme meeting.

We're looking forward to meeting the other projects, and figuring out what to buy in the Trade Fair... watch this space for posts about what we'll have available in the Fair!

2010-01-21T10:13:18+00:00

Rather than keeping up an individual blog for myself, I'm now posting my thoughts on teaching and technology within the blogs for the projects I'm currently working on. These are:

Arcadia Fellows blog, Cambridge University Library
http://arcadiaproject.blogspot.com/

CourseTools project blog, CARET, University of Cambridge:
http://coursetools.caret.cam.ac.uk/project-blog

Reazon Systems Officially Releases 'iRubric For Sakai'

2010-01-21T08:31:01+00:00

(Newswire Today) — Irvine, CA, United States, 2010-01-21 - Announcing the official launch of iRubric-for-Sakai, a comprehensive assessment and analysis suite for Sakai CLE.

"We are excited to have accomplished a seamless integration between the two platforms and to allow Sakai users to easily build and grade rubrics with a few simple clicks," said Ramesh Sabetiashraf, the creator of iRubric. "Equally important was student privacy and security as sensitive student data transmitted between the two systems. From the onset, our integration effort placed a strong emphasis on ease-of-use and security. We are happy to have fulfilled both objectives to meet our users' high standards."

iRubric-for-Sakai is available to K-12 and Higher Education through a variety of flexible licensing and hosting options, designed to meet the needs of a wide range of organizational sizes. Hosting plans eliminate the need for internal infrastructure, IT support, and server maintenance. Schools may also select a licensing plan to host iRubric internally.

See more on the iRubric for Sakai website.

AAC&U Essential Learning Outcomes and VALUE Rubrics for Sakai

2010-01-20T21:48:38+00:00

We had a little time in between some projects recently, so we decided to try an in-house project that ended up being something we thought should be out there in the community.

I've been hearing about the AAC&U VALUE project for quite a while now and had been anticipating the project deliverables (a well researched set of rubrics for assessing ePortfolio work) as something we could refer clients to as an excellent example of how to assess student work. It took us a few days to get it done, but the result is something that I think may be useful for the community.

Create on-line surveys for free using new WebLearn!

2010-01-20T18:15:44+00:00

You may be aware that OUCS are currently piloting new WebLearn’s Evaluations Tool with a view to introducing this tool in the 2010/2011 academic year.

The pilot is divided into two phases and most people who were involved in phase I have provided positive feedback about the tool. Now that the project has entered phase II we are choosing a further selection of units to participate.

What’s in it for me?

You will become an early adopter and will be able to save money and effort by replacing paper-based evaluations, questionnaires or forms with an on-line equivalent;
Your suggestions will be considered for improving the tool before it goes into production;
Discuss and share ideas with other members of the pilot;
Receive help and training in using the tool and running on-line surveys.

What will it involve?

Attending a free workshop at OUCS during wk5 HT2010 (18-Feb-2010 at 2pm);
Testing your survey(s);
Delivering your survey(s) to users; (the timing is such that we hope that you’ll be able to deliver your survey(s) to your students by the end of TT2010)
Viewing and processing your survey results
Providing feedback to the WebLearn team by completing a pilot project survey

Please let us know if you would like to participate in this pilot project by sending an email to wl-eval@weblearn.ox.ac.uk at your earliest convenience.

New Version of WebLearn Released

2010-01-20T15:58:03+00:00

Both WebLearn systems were upgraded on 19th January 2010, new WebLearn to 2.6-ox2 and old WebLearn to 2.32. New WebLearn incorporates the latest version of Sakai, v2.6.2.

New Facilities – The Highlights

Sites can be restricted to ‘All staff’, ‘All students’ and ‘All Oxford users’. Sites can also be restricted based on card status.
New version of the Tutorial Sign-up tool.
Old WebLearn MCQs can now be exported and imported into the Tasks, Tests and Surveys tool.
WebLearn will send an email notification of a new posting to a Forum.
Provision of an ‘Audit’ role within Administration Sites. This will allow individuals who are added with this role to visit all sites that are managed by the Administration Site in question.
Old WebLearn Structured Documents can now be exported as a single page (with optional index).
Sites can specify different permissions for ‘Anyone’ (ie, general public) and ‘All logged-in users’.
Updated copyright status: the previous copyright statuses were based on American terminology and were not particularly useful in the UK

Bug Fixes

URL of Reading List is now correct within ‘access view’ of resources.
All reported bugs in the Tutorial Sign-up tool have been fixed.
The RSS feed for public announcements no longer includes the site’s long description.

More Information

There is a separate document containing a more detailed list of changes.

EuroSakai 2010 and call for Papers

2010-01-20T15:40:19+00:00

This year the EuroSakai 2010 Conference will be in Valencia, Spain. Valencia is a lovely Mediterranean city with a warm weather.

The conference will consist of a BootCamp/Workshop on the 1st of March followed by 2 days of conference presentations and BOF meetings on 2nd and 3rd of March.

About PRESENTATION PROPOSALS
Please we need all your collaboration for the conference presentations. If you think you have any good experience to talk about, a new tool to show or any good practice you want to share, please think about doing a presentation in the conference.

Presentation proposals can be sent to the conference e-email address eurosakai2010@upv.es

About the BOOTCAMP/WORKSHOP
In the schedule it is included a Bootcamp/Workshop focused on configuration and maintenance for the sakai 2.x instance.
As you may know, sakai 3 is coming now strongly and may be you are interested also in a second and parallel BOOTCAMP for sakai 3.

Registration & Information
You can find all the information about the conference in the sakai website http://sakaiproject.org/sakai-european-regional-conference-2010

Registration and payment can be done in https://www.upv.es/pls/sosak/sic_eusakai.REGISTRATION?p_vista=poliformat&P_IDIOMA=i

The registration fee is 100 EUR and includes all the meals for the conference.

If you are from Europe or you are planning to attend this conference please visit the web site and register as soon as possible.

Launching the UX framework site

2010-01-20T15:27:45+00:00

For a little while now, the latest design phase for Sakai 3 has had issues with how it communicates with the Sakai community. On the one hand, while our contracted designers need to access the accumulated practical wisdom and user insight lodged in our collective heads, there’s nevertheless a limit to how many voices and perspectives [...]

Thema project: executive summary and other project outputs

2010-01-20T15:05:10+00:00

LTG conducted an investigation (”Thema”) into the use of digital technologies by students on taught Master’s programmes in Oxford from 2007-8. It was funded by the JISC Learner Experiences of E-learning programme.

We are pleased to announce that the project outputs are now finally available. Executive summary: http://tinyurl.com/themasummary

Board Thoughts: Thinking About an Umbrella Organization

2010-01-19T20:17:18+00:00

This is the first in a series of posts where I contemplate Sakai Strategic stuff - after all I am a Sakai Board member for the next few years. I think that it is incumbent on board members to gather...

Abstract: New Opportunities for Teaching and Learning: Extending Learning Management Systems Using Standards

2010-01-19T01:33:33+00:00

The IMS Learning Tools Interoperability standard is available in Blackboard, Desire2Learn, Sakai, Moodle, and WebCT so a learning tool can be written that integrates into these LMS systems. This presentation will give an overview of IMS LTI, show its use...

Etudes Users' Summit

2010-01-18T21:13:23+00:00

Date and Time:

05/13/10 - 05/14/10

Location:

Crowne Plaza Hotel, San Francisco CA

Etudes Users' Summit

Etudes develops the Melete, Mneme, and JForum tools for the Sakai communityand uses the Users' Summit to showcase the latest and planned features forthese tools as well as gather user requirements for the roadmap for thesetools going forward. The Users' Summit also showcases how teacherseffectively teach with Sakai.

This year's Summit will be held on May 13 & May 14, 2010, in Burlingame /San Francisco, California, at the Crowne Plaza San Francisco International. Last year's Etudes Users' Summit was held in Los Angeles, California and had over 125 attendees.

Dr. Ed Gould, Superintendent/President from Imperial Valley College, will kick off the Summit on Thursday, May 13, with the keynote address. The program will include show & tell sessions, tool demos, roundtable discussions and breakout sessions on best practices, retention strategies, tips and tools to become a better teacher, and much more.

CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

We are now accepting presentation proposals. The DEADLINE for submissions is February 12, 2010. For more information on program themes, presentation types, and to submit a proposal, see:
http://etudes.org/summit/summit-proposal-call.htm

Fun Python Syntax - operator.itemgetter(), sorted(), and lambda functions - Oh MY!

2010-01-18T20:57:34+00:00

This is perhaps the coolest idiom of Python I have seen yet. Thanks to Clint for stopping by my office for a Python versus Perl versus PHP smackdown that got me thinking. This is a great way to sort a...

Writeup on Josh Baron, new Sakai Foundation Board Chair

2010-01-18T17:20:08+00:00

Press release from Marist College about their Director of Academic Technology and eLearning being electing chair of the Sakai Board of Directors. http://www.sys-con.com/node/1250611

Profile2 1.4 preview release available

2010-01-17T13:31:15+00:00

I am very pleased to announce that a preview release of Profile2 1.4.0 is available. This release gives a sneak peek into some of the new features that Profile2 v1.4.0 will bring.

Notable features included in this release:

Private messaging
An image gallery and the ability to choose your profile image from your gallery
Improved Wicket AJAX performance
Direct, easy bookmarkable URLs to various pages and views
and dozens of other fixes and features!

For the full list of issues and features in this release, see Jira:

http://jira.sakaiproject.org/browse/PRFL/fixforversion/11740

As always, the full installation/upgrade/configuration guide is available in Confluence:

http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/display/PROFILE/Profile2

How to get it:

This release is available in the Sakai subversion repository at:

https://source.sakaiproject.org/svn/profile2/tags/profile2-1.4.0-preview-01/

and as a binary Tomcat overlay in the Sakai Maven repository at:

http://source.sakaiproject.org/maven2/org/sakaiproject/profile2/profile2-assembly/1.4.0-preview-01/

A big thanks to everyone who has contributed to the development of Profile2, and a special thanks to the Centre for e-Science, Lancaster University, UK, who contributed the Image Gallery feature!

Planet Sakai

Sakai 3 Basic LTI Widget Sprint

Sakai 3 Basic LTI Widget Sprint

New wiki help document

Community-based 3

Sakai 3 Incubating

Python for Informatics - Featured on Creative Commons

New Programming Language

Administration sites: What can the ”Audit” role do?

Administration sites: What is the difference between the ”Admin” and ”Member” roles?

What is the difference between the ”access”, ”contribute” and ”maintain” roles?

Sakai teaching award – free trip to Colorado US!!

The announcement

Sakai 2.6.2 and 2.5.6 maintenance releases available

A run-in with Tomcat SSL and Java keytool

Apple iPad Review: Awesome and Perfect - From Sobbing to Cheering!

Academic Study of Blackboard vs. Sakai at UNC School of Medicine

2010 Sakai Conference - tell us who you want for Keynote Speaker

A Serendipitous Social Media Story.

the JISC Institutional Innovation Exchange at Birmingham

DEADLINE: EuroSakai Early Bird registration ends Feb. 15

Open Ed 2010 Call for Papers open thru May 15

Assignments 2 Incubating

Sakai in Small "Schools"

Sakai, Small Schools, and Pedagogy

Mellon Foundation RIT Project Concludes a Success

Abstract: Teaching Informatics to Everyone: The End of Dilbert

Non-functional

Abstract: Building Real Teaching Tools for any LMS Using IMS Basic LTI

Old WebLearn: Test Building will become read only from 8th Feb

Contributing to 'Wicket By Example'

Portfolios, Used Well, Are Transformational

WebLearn newsletter 26-Jan-10

Combining jUnit’s @Ignore and @AfterClass

Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #3

Section 4: Recommendations relating to taught postgraduates

Product 3 – Find out how to do user testing!

Product 1 – Find out how to use user-centric design!

Product 2 – Find out how to involve stakeholders efficiently!

Product 4 – Academic Networking in your Virtual Learning Environment!

Default Text in Sakai Portfolio forms

Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #2

Section 3: student’s use of digital technologies. Recommendations.

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Comments on Thema Project Executive Summary #1

Section 3: student’s use of digital technologies.

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Links

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