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 BrooksDate: 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 PowellSent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:13 PMTo: 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 drew.mazurek@yale.edu

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 Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources

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Student Portal

Future?

HR Records Directory InfoBanner Data Library Resources

The Portal

Facebook News

WebMail OCE OCI

OPAC

JStor Term Bill

Reserve ClassroomCheck Grades

Post Grades

Jive

Weather

Library Loan

Quiz Tool

eReservesSearch Engine

Authz OSID OSID OSID OSIDOSID

CWeb WSRP iChannel Sakai GUIJSR-168

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(Gehrig, Scooter, Guidry Winfield, Howard, Maris

& Mantle)

NFS Servers (Torre & Jeter)

iSCSI SAN devices 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