Transcript The e-Learning Landscape

From Conception to Production
-- The Yale Sakai Story
Chuck Powell
May 31, 2006
Agenda
• Some history to help understand:
– Why we chose Sakai
– What we did to make it a good solution at Yale
• Culturally
• Technically
• “In the trenches”
– Why we’re headed in certain directions
• How we’re doing things today
• What we learned along the way
Humble Beginnings
From: Chuck Powell
To: Lois Brooks
Date: Nov 10 2003 - 3:10pm
Lois,
Any chance I could set up a time to call and learn more about "Sachi (?), Saki (?)"? Intrigued at this end
and would always rather be ahead of the wave rather than behind it.
Chuck
From: Chuck Powell
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:13 PM
To: Wheeler, Bradley C.
Subject: Re: Announcing the Sakai Project and the Sakai Educational Partners Program
Brad,
Please count Yale in as a SEPP member. I'll be the initial contact point.
Chuck
>
> Wheeler, Bradley C. wrote:
>
>>We believe the time is right for advancing a set of open source…
Today’s toddler
Date: May 18, 2006 4:34 PM EDT
From: Drew Mazurek [email protected]
Subject:Testing again
We're now in production with 2.1.2. No need to respond if you receive this
message.
- Drew
Classes*V2
In the beginning (circa 2003)…
• Classes.yale.edu had served central campus well
since the late 90’s
– Homegrown, every line of code written at Yale, built in Java
running on Windows
– Easy to use, basic instructional tools, well known space, full
support for end users
– Strong buy-in and heavy usage
– Features lagging behind “the competition”, organic growth of
code difficult to support
• Law School running Bb, Med campus using a
different version of Bb and School of Management
using WebCT
In the beginning (continued)…
• Student portal (using uPortal) was “quietly” rolled out
in summer 2003 with no incremental budget/staffing
• Student Financial and Administrative Services was
also increasing its online services in response to
growing student and faculty demand, e.g. online
access to Banner, Online Course Evaluation, Photo
Roster and the Facebook.
• The Library was invested in a significant array of
online resources and had extensive plans for more
integrated access to digital materials. Also a growing
number of Web-based library services such as
reference and reserve, course support and more.
Current
HR Records
Banner Data
Directory Info
News, etc.
WebMail
OCE
OCI
Facebook
BannerWeb
Orbis
Blackboard
WebCT
Classes
Student Portal
Library Resources
Future?
The Portal
WSRP
CWeb
Quiz Tool
iChannel
Check Grades
Post Grades
Library Loan
WebMail
Facebook
JSR-168
Weather
OCE
Jive
Authz OSID
HR Records
OSID
Banner Data
OSID
Reserve Classroom
JStor
Search Engine
Sakai GUI
Term Bill
eReserves
OCI
News
OPAC
OSID
Directory Info
OSID
Library Resources
Vision
Yale will deploy a next generation collaborative learning
environment to provide excellent online support for the
administration of courses, a rich set of tools to support
teaching and learning and with integrated access to the
emerging digital materials under development at the
Library, museums and across Yale. Yale will develop
and deploy an institutional strategy for continuous
evolution of the learning environment to accommodate
accelerating technology change and development of
digital material.
For Those Who Don’t Speak “Vision”
• Replace our homegrown CMS with Sakai
• Deploy Sakai with a strong interest in supporting
research and administrative collaboration – “common
tools different groups”
• Aim for a future framework where uPortal and/or
Sakai interoperate seamlessly and tools are
interchangeable
Governance
• Provostially appointed T&L Portal Committee with
cross campus faculty participation and sponsored
jointly by ITS, Library and SFAS
• High level steering and guidance not a committee to
compare products
• General assistance with prioritizing work and
acquiring additional resources
• Additionally, a lot of grassroots communication has
paid huge dividends around the campus
Original Schedule
•
Phase I
– Pilot replacement for classes.yale.edu (5-10 courses) and draft portal views
for undergraduates, graduate students and faculty which highlight access to
the course web system and related services
– Goal: Begin immediately and conclude Spring Semester, 2005
•
Phase II
– Expand number of courses in pilot (few hundred) and add one content
tool/service.
– Introduce full SAKAI-based portal with improved views for undergraduates,
graduate students and faculty
– Goal: Begin immediately following phase I and conclude within Fall 2006
•
Phase III
– Full replacement of classes.yale.edu
– Phased integration of library content and services
– Goal: Begin immediately following phase II, conclude within Fall 2007
Deployment Summary
When
Usage Level
Version
Comments
Jan ’05
8 courses
< 1%
1.0
Prototyping
June ’05
~30 courses
(only choice)
1.5.1
Solved several important real
world challenges
Aug ’05
~200 courses
~20%
2.0.1
Declared a production pilot on
campus
Jan ’06
~650 courses
>~60%
2.0.1
Reached a tipping point, more
using Sakai than our legacy
May ’06
~100 courses
(only choice)
2.1.2
Whew, another major upgrade
under our belt.
Aug ’06
est > 800 courses
~75%
? 2.2 ?
On the cusp for going to 2.2
Aug ‘07
Planned 100%
???
Shutdown legacy system
Technical Architecture (a.k.a. the “lineup”)
Apache & Load Balancing
(Stengel & Ruth)
Multiple Tomcat Sakai App Servers
NFS Servers
iSCSI SAN devices
(Gehrig, Scooter, Guidry
Winfield, Howard, Maris
& Mantle)
(Torre & Jeter)
Oracle Shared Server
Progress Summary
• Classes*V2 adoption exceeding our expectations and
straight line projections. ~60% on V2, ~40% on the
original.
• No new content tools or services built. We’ve
focused on modifying or integrating existing Yale
tools like the Photo Roster and Online Course
Selection
• Still aiming for retiring the original Classes server by
Fall semester 2007.
Things We’ve Done
• Tweaked the syllabus tool and a few others plus
develop local scripts/tools for administration
• Lot’s of integration with existing systems on campus
• Selective replacement of Sakai tools with local
preferences like Jive and the “Shopping Cart”
• Continuous work with Sakai and AuthZ (via CAS)
• Lightweight integration of other Yale resources and
services (e.g. the Librarian role, the Photo Roster)
• Customized and augmented the documentation for
Yale faculty and students
• Focus on faculty support
Things We Haven’t Done
•
•
•
•
Incremented staffing by more than one!
Stopped supporting both systems well
Skimped on infrastructure
Let wants and needs become show-stopping
“requirements”
• Solved our final technical hurdle (i.e. Sakai as web
server)
The Road Ahead and Priorities
• Lot’s of opportunities to do more! We have 50+ items
currently that we’d like to work on -- they are a good
start not an exhaustive list.
• Current estimate given current resourcing is that it
would take us 3-4 years to complete just these.
• How to balance needs, impact, transition costs, future
expansion and patience in a community setting?
What Chuck Learned
• It’s the support stupid!
• Collaboration and communication on campus were
essential to success and a “good thing”™ in and of
themselves
• Community source and collaboration within the
Academy are hard, frustrating, and slow but worth it
• Think globally, act locally
• Community source breeds freedom of choice not
freedom from cost or freedom from risk!
Two Quotes to Remember
• “I figure I only get one course management system
conversion in my career” – Malcolm
• “I never want to beg, borrow, or buy another CMS in
my lifetime” -- Chuck
Sir Isaac Newton said…
• “If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the
shoulders of Giants.”
–
–
–
–
–
–
David Hirsch (david dot hirsch at yale dot edu)
Gloria Hardman (gloria dot hardman at yale dot edu)
Mike Appleby (michael dot appleby at yale dot edu)
Cheryl Wogahn (cheryl dot wogahn at yale dot edu)
Jen Bourey (jennifer dot bourey at yale dot edu)
Plus many more like Kalee Sprague, Andy Newman, Paul
Lawrence, Andy Zygmunt, Drew Mazurek, Greg Soltesz,
Hong Ko, Cheryl Boeher, Emily Horning, Matt Wilcox and on
and on and on…
Background materials
Feedback & Requests (new things)
Improved WebDAV functionality
Photo Roster & Integrated student roster
Resources: increase permissions granularity
Dropbox: email notification when new submission
Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons
Web Content: launch in a separate window
Personal image asset management/publishing/analysis tool
Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually
WYSIWYG editor improvements
Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?
Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook
Scheduling tool for office hour appointments, discussion section sign-up, seminar discussion leaders…
Bulk downloading of drop boxes
Installing & using Melete
Plagiarism detection tool(s)
Upload functionality for quizzing and testing so everything doesn’t go through a web form
Feedback & Requests (Systemic)
Full integration with Online Course Selection
New web server for freestanding sites on Classes
Full integration with Online Course Info site
Non-course db feeds into site participant list (e.g., undergrad majors)
Automatic creation/population of Jive forums for non-course sites (projects, umbrellas)
Better content migration tools, including email
Course Evaluations
Discussion forum upgrade: Jforum?
Friendly URLs to course sites
Library e-reserve integration
Integrated linking to available resources (Twin Peaks)
Integration with Learning Object repository (includes searching)
Better tools for the creation of “one-off” non Yale credentials for collaborators and visitors
Db integration for Med/Nursing School auto-population of course sites
Better quota management tools for individuals, projects and course sites
Translation tool to move quiz items between personal response systems and ClassesV2
Continue to develop alternate skins for individual course/project tabs
Multiple entry points or brands for the overall system
Improvements to distributed administration of courses and the concept of hierarchies
Automated access to courses for certain roles (e.g. department chair, DUS, DGS, etc).
Feedback & Requests (Bugs & fixes)
Faults in Mac WebDAV implementation
Resources: increase permissions granularity
Resources: permissions should not affect Drop Box
Dropbox: display correct last modified date, plus time stamp
Instructor control over sequence and naming of site main navigation buttons
Web Content: launch in a separate window
Resources: visible/invisible option by date or manually
WYSIWYG editor improvements
Friendly URLs to course sites
Graded assignment tool better integrated with Gradebook
Syllabus tool improvements
Purpose
To evaluate and adopt a next generation collaborative
learning environment that will improve faculty and
student access to and utilization of web-based services
and capitalize on the campus investment in information
and learning resources.
Why Not Buy?
• A suite of collaboration and learning tools have
become core to the IT infrastructure and
simultaneously is perceived as core and unique to
the University’s “business” something we shouldn’t
necessarily outsource to a vendor
• We’re better positioned to integrate these tools with
other campus infrastructure and enterprise tools
• We (collectively) have vastly more experience in what
is needed than any vendor
Classes.yale.edu usage