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Recommended Reading

University of North Carolina

UNC Sakai Pilot Evaluation Final Report (3.2 MB; PDF)
The 74-page PDF provides a wealth of data collected during Fall 2008 and Spring 2009. Scan a 15-slide summary or see the faculty video interviews.

Task force on Campus-wide Support Needs for Technology Mediated Teaching and Learning, February 5, 2008

  • Recommendation:
  1. Think before we leap—Conduct an assessment of faculty needs for course management systems and evaluate a suite of open source course management tools …
  2. Map the path—Develop a migration path for all course materials to the next course management system …
  3. Finish the job—Implement the migration plan to move course materials to the new system.  (Excerpted from page 17)

Strategic Planning Committee for Information Technology Final Report, May 2007

  • Recommendation: ITS, in consultation with faculty, students and campus other instructional support organizations, should explore the use of learning management systems that enable flexible and innovative pedagogy. Implementation: ITS-TL, in cooperation with participating faculty and academic units, will pilot use of an open source learning management system for a course(s) during the 2007/2008 academic year.

Report of the UNC Chapel Hill Distance Education Task Force, February 16, 2007

  • Recommendation: Participate in the open-source community. Open source should be an underlying principle in our distance education efforts.

President’s Advisory Committee on Efficiency and Effectiveness (PACE) November 2, 2006

  • Recommendation: There are two major avenues of efficiency and cost effectiveness that can be: (1) centralized hosting and (2) replacing commercial course management systems with open source alternatives.

Gartner Reports

Registered UNC users can search for the reports below using the Gartner portal.

Lownendahl, J. et al. (2009) Hype Cycle for Education 2009.

  • Looking forward, we believe Sakai’s developing road map toward version 3, commercially supported integration such as that of Moodle and Google Apps by Moodlerooms and Google, and turbulence around the recent acquisition of Angel Learning by Blackboard are only likely to enhance the OSS trend.

DiMaio, A. and Lowendahl, J. (2007) Case study: Sakai demonstrates how community-source software works and thrives.

  • Community source provides a useful model for coordinating the efforts of participants in a large-scale open-source project when initial contributors want to retain control of their development, while setting the foundations for community growth.

ONLINE ARTICLES

Baron, J.  (2009) Innovating Teaching and Learning with Sakai. Excerpted from Courseware Management: The Official Guide.

Coopman, Stephanie. (2009)  A critical examination of Blackboard’s e-learning environment. First Monday [Online], Volume 14 Number 6

Goodrum, D. et. al. (2008) Dynamics of Supporting Sakai Through Local and Global  Collaboration. Educause ECAR Bulletin.

Lane, Lisa. (2009) Insidious pedagogy: How course management systems affect teaching. First Monday [Online], Volume 14 Number 10

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Sakai Vendors

Commercial vendors play an important and valued role in the Sakai community. Vendors offer support services ranging from planning, content migration, programming/custom code development, implementation, consulting, technical and user support.