NYU Demo of Sakai Open Academic Environment

We’ve been tracking Sakai Open Academic Environment (OAE) progress (formerly known as Sakai 3; see project plans here) and thought you’d be interested in a recent announcement.

On November 5,  2010, New York University launched the first pre-release pilot of the Sakai OAE — a revolutionary platform for academic networking and collaboration. The NYU instance will be known as the ATLAS Network (Advanced Teaching, Learning, And Scholarship Network). The pilot will grow to include 5,000 students and faculty from six different NYU schools.

Below is a 13-minute screencast of their implementation.

The NYU pilot focuses on two important areas of need.

1. It provides a single NYU network for many diverse university communities to use.
2. And it provides a flexible set of options for implementing portfolios.

Features include:

• searchable profiles,
• group spaces and uploaded content, and
• two portfolio implementations.

The pilot is being overseen by a cross-school, academic-led committee charged with oversight of the development and implementation of the Sakai OAE environment at NYU. Initial funding for Sakai at NYU was provided by a 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Digital Humanities Start-Up grant.

It’s exciting to see the work of so many come together! Congrats!

The Community: Meet a Developer

If you are new to Sakai, one of the first things you will hear is how active and engaged the community is. This is true and you can become a contributing member whether you are a faculty, student, artist, designer, programmer, etc. There are so many ways to give!

Below is a video of Steve Githens, Indiana University, talking about a new integration he created (for fun!) with Etherpad, a real-time collaboration tool (Etherpad | Steve’s blog).

We like this video because it does two things: (1) highlights the energy and dedication of developers who “innovate” Sakai in useful and interesting directions, and (2) shows an essential segment of the community that we haven’t recognized on our blog yet. Shame on us!

We correct that wrong here and invite our talented UNC developers to check things out and get involved, too!  (Click the image to enlarge.)

Sakai Action Group & Friends Reunion: July 23

It’s been nearly a year (!) since we wrapped up the Sakai Pilot Evaluation (see published results). This informal reunion meeting (open to anyone interested) is a chance to reconnect, provide updates on the pilot status, share information from the recent Sakai Conference, and seek your collective wisdom and feedback.

You’re Invited!

Sakai Action Group & Friends Reunion: Friday, July 23
10 - 11 am
Davis Library Room 214
Agenda

We have an action-packed 1 hour meeting planned with an optional half-hour afterward for further discussion, how-to info, or anything else you’d like to discuss.

We hope to see you there!

Sneak peek: Sakai 2+3 hybrid (”pre-alpha”)

As some of our Sakai pilot participants have said earlier, one of the interesting and appealing aspects about Sakai is the ability to participate in its development and future directions. (See Phil Edwards and Bill Maisch discuss).

The 3 minute video below provides a first glimpse of the hybrid integration between Sakai 2 and Sakai 3. (Note, we are currently on Sakai 2.6). This is a very early look and is not showing finished product, but instead enough of the user interface to begin real discussion and refinement.

Sakai 2+3 Hybrid pre-alpha from Lance Speelmon on Vimeo.

If you are interested in participating in the discussions around Sakai 3, you can! Here’s more Sakai 3 information for those with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge.

Sakai 3: Improved Visual Design

Want to see the new visual design mockups for Sakai 3 wireframes?

Here is a sample for a GeorgiaTech dashboard. You can learn more about this initiative at http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/3AK/3akai+Visual+Design

Find out about GeorgiaTech’s implementation of Sakai (called T-Square) at their Center for the Enhancement of Teaching and Learning.

Sakai Summer Reading List

While you are sunning on the beach, you’ll surely want to catch up on these Top 5 recommended Sakai reads:

1. UNC’s Sakai Pilot Results (6.09)
2. Sakai Courseware Management: The Official Guide (6.09)
3. Sakai Executive Brief (PDF; 5.09)
4. Sakai Foundation Exec. Director’s blog entry about the UNC Sakai Pilot! (6.09)
5. Oracle Academic Enterprise White Paper (1.09)

Enjoy!

Sakai 3 Wireframes

Want to peek into the Sakai 3 redesign efforts? You can watch it materialize before your eyes and even join in on the discussion if you are so inclined.

Sakai Development Process

One of the benefits of participating in the Sakai community is the potential to contribute tools and functionality developed specifically for UNC -to- other Sakai institutions. UNC could benefit from tools developed at other schools -and- could collaborate with top-notch development teams at other leading research universities to develop new tools.

To learn more about the development process, you can watch a 1-hour webinar or read more about it in Confluence.

Want to see a live Sakai 3 Demo?

Bring your lunch and join us for a live demo of Sakai 3 provided by Peter Knoop, Sakai Project Coordinator from the University of Michigan.

219 Davis Library
Noon - 1 pm

Sakai 3 is a major redesign of Sakai that focuses on:

• A revamped user experience
• A powerful and easy to use content authoring capability
• Social networking features
• Improved teaching and learning workflows
• Increased scalability
• Ease of use for software developers

Want even more info to quench your thirst for knowledge? Here you go!

• http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/display/SAKDEV/3akai

Sakai 3.0 Vision Document

Sakai Foundation’s Executive Director, Michael Korcuska, shares information about Sakai future directions and opportunities for community involvement.

You can download the 10-pg PDF proposal or visit his blog for more information.

At UNC Chapel Hill, we are currently on Sakai 2.5.x.