Project Coordination Update

1. Project Coordination Update Peter A. Knoop Project Coordinator Sakai Foundation/University of Michigan

2. Project Coordination Update • Sakai Today – 2.4 • Sakai Today and Tomorrow – 2.5 • Sakai Today, Tomorrow, and in the Future – Project Coordination Meeting (2.6/3.0?) • Report on activities related to “Building Sakai”

3. Project Coordination Meeting • 38 participants (not just committers!) • Share plans and discuss cross-project topics • Develop proposals to help frame topics for community input and discussion

4. Release Practices • Option #1 • One or more maintenance releases through August 2008, schedule based on QA • Framework/kernel release in October 2008 • 2.6 in March/April 2009 • Option #2 • A smaller 2.6 in time for Fall 2008 • 2.6 or 3.0? • If the framework/kernel is sufficiently different from the current one, then we should call it 3.0 • Conference Session: “Whither the Release Schedule?” • Thursday, 6 December, 15:10-16:10 (3:10pm-4:10pm)

5. Assignments • Recommend best option for Sakai 2.4 • Current version of Assignments • Re-factor database configuration to improve performance • Updated version of Assignments • RSF-based • Enhance Gradebook integration • Initial release in early 2008 • Replace old Assignments in 2009

6. Cross-Tool Integration • Support contextual action: replace the wizard-like (helper tool) approach which takes user out of a tool context with 'embedded' view • Support existing wizard-like helper-tool approach as an option • Support helper tools that cross presentation technologies (e.g., Velocity, JSF, RSF) • Enable workflows; helpers that invoke helpers

7. Content Hosting Service Re-factor • Re-factor the Content Hosting Service API • Migrate db-based implementation with a JSR-170 repository • Use outside of Resources • Assignments, OSP, …

8. Framework/Kernel • Discussion evolving rapidly… • A framework/kernel “team” and/or a “set of principals” approach • Branches as opportunities for moving ideas forward; trunk is the release • Roadmap for improving and updating the Kernel; moving towards a separate kernel release

9. Community Processes • Identify and review current sources of information (e.g., Sakai Community Practices) • Bring up-to-date and share with community for further comment • Discuss how to best share outcomes • Apache processes is a good model, but not an exact fit…

10. QA • Developing a common vocabulary • Load testing • University of Michigan (LoadRunner) • Load testing of generic Sakai 2.5 with content • University of California, Davis (SilkPerformer) • Foundation Resources • Integration testing • Test Harness • Test Runner

11. Other Topics Raised • Enterprise Integration • Postponed for later discussion • Superseded potentially by ongoing work • Technical Management of Releases • Postponed to a BOF

12. Sakai Foundation Update • Goals • Create the highest quality core software • Seek to engage new members of the community • Priorities • Reliability & Scalability • Usability & Accessibility • Project Planning & Roadmap • Collaboration & Portfolio use cases • Lower Barriers to Contribution

13. Sakai Today – Community • ~80 production deployments • ~50 pilot deployments • Production Working Group • Deployment Database (Anthony Whyte) • 64 Committers • 83 Contrib Committers

14. Sakai Today – Releases • Current Releases • Sakai 2.4 (2.4.1) • Sakai 2.5 (2.5-beta) • 2.4.x Maintenance Branch is recommended as basis for production deployments • Post-2.4 Feature Branches • 2.4-compatible version of 2.5 functionality • Assignments, Citations, Content, Gradebook, Roster

15. Sakai Tomorrow (or Today) • 2.5 Release Schedule • Highlights from the Sakai 2.5 release notes • Looking ahead to 2.6 (3.0?) and beyond…

16. Sakai 2.5 Release Schedule • Updated in late October • Improve quality of .0 releases

17. Sakai 2.5 QA • Continuation of QA WG activities • Testing focused in specific areas • Load Testing (Linda Place, Univ. of Michigan) • Automated testing • Local deployment testing Dec 2007

18. Sakai 2.5 Adoption Plans • Early Adopters RC1 • University of Cape Town (Dec 2007) • Rutgers University (Jan 2008) • A few smaller organizations • Several versions behind currently • Sakai 2.4 as a fallback • Next wave • April 2008 – “small” semester rollouts • Aug/Sep 2008 – “large” semester rollouts

19. Sakai 2.5 by the Numbers… • Jira: http://jira.sakaiproject.org • 1029 Bugs Fixed • Sakai 2.5.0 Bug Fixes [Tentative] • 249 Enhancements • Sakai 2.5.0 Enhancements [Tentative] • 519 Known Issues • Sakai 2.5.0 Known Issues [Tentative]

20. Sakai 2.5 by the Numbers… • Promoted to Core Status • OSP (ePortfolio tool suite) • Tests & Quizzes (a.k.a. Samigo) • Promoted to Provisional Status • Reset Password • Retired • Discussion • Non-graded Assignments • Many new or significantly updated Contrib Projects

21. Sakai 2.5 by the Numbers… • Expanding Branch Management Team • Andrew Poland (Indiana University) is moving on • Anthony Whyte and Megan May • Stephen Marquard (UCT) and David Horwitz (UCT) • (?) Jason Shao (Rutgers) • [2.4.x - Stuart Freeman (Georgia Tech)]

22. Framework and Service Highlights • Content Review • Minor changes in APIs and to integration with Assignments; only applicable to sites running a content review implementation (e.g., Turnitin). • User Directory Service • Improved performance when retrieving provided users. • Support for login IDs (for Kerberos authentication, for example) which differ from user EIDs. • Optional short-term authentication caching to greatly improve DAV performance. • Can now enable or disable User Directory Provider implementations via the sakai.propertiesfile. • Reduced number of required methods in the User Directory Provider interface.

23. Framework and Service Highlights • Database • Addition of a faster lower memory footprint entity parser based on SAX. • Addition of an optimized binary entity serialization. • Memory Service (should be under framework) • Centralized management of Hibernate Cache provision. • Replacement of MemoryService cache with ehcache in preparation for cluster wide cache optimizations. • Upgrade to ehcache 1.3 to enable JMX capabilities.

24. Tool Highlights • Many minor bug fixes and tweaks all around • By tool…

25. Tests & Quizzes (a.k.a. Samigo) • Promoted from Provisional to Core status. • Allow ability to move/copy/remove multiple questions to other pools. • Allow ability to adjust score in edit assessment screen. • Allow ability to remove published assessments. • Add event logging for user operations. • Allow copying of all questions in a part to a selected pool. • Allow students' responses to be exported to Excel. • Allow point values of questions to be reset when a random draw from pool part is created; all questions from the pool are copied to the part.

26. Help • Support for help content in multiple languages. • No longer require restart? • Added sakai.properties setting to hide help collections. • Added tool registration property to register additional help collections. • Updates to help content from Indiana University (IU) Knowledge Base for 2.5 functionality (as provided by project leads and IU KB team).

27. Citations Helper • Import citations in RIS format from other tools such as RefWorks and Endnote. • Sort citation lists by author, title, or date. • Search for and embed citations from within the WYSIWYG Editor (FCKeditor); similar to Twin Peaks.

28. Messages and Forums • MessageCenter previously split in2.4. • Messages • Ability to bulk Move and Delete Message. • Ability to forward Messages. • Forums • Ability to delete forum messages. • Added synoptic views for Home.

29. Poll • Minor UI improvements: • rich text editor • date picker widget • Improved data validation.

30. Chat Room • Ability to delete all chat history for a given room.

31. OSP (Portfolios) • Promoted from Provisional to Cores status. • New XSLT portal. • Aggregated View of Matrix and Portfolios. • Expanded sharing capabilities for Portfolios. • Many user interface bug fixes and improvements. • Group-aware matrices. • Assignment references within Matrix/Wizards.

32. Portal • Addition of site categorization. • Addition of tool categorization. • Improved experimental iFrame-less tool presentation (a.k.a. PDA portal)

33. Schedule • Performance improvements to reduce memory load of schedules with a large number of items. • iCal subscription export service and import; reoccurring events are not yet supported. (ical.experimental=true)

34. Resources • Replaced dropdown widget for Add and Action menus with an accessible one. • Improved performance by rewriting underlying Storage of entities to reduce memory usage and CPU load, • Refactoring of database to eliminate bottlenecks in the underlying content hosting service. • Preliminary support for the integration of JSR-170 repositories • Dropboxes • Students and Instructors can now choose to email each other when they upload to a Dropbox. • Instructors can now see a visual indication of which folders contain recently updated content. • Removal of inappropriate options from Dropbox interface.

35. Section Info • Download or print a roster list that provides each student's section memberships. • Better enforcement of the maximum section size.

36. Roster • New UI with a separate tabular view for profile and official institutional photos. • Integration with Course Management API to display enrollment status information. • Expanded permission scheme to retain the Roster's general use purpose while incorporating course-specific features. • Significant performance improvements.

37. Provisional Projects • Page Order Helper • Improved keyboard accessibility. • Added support for page grouping. •  Podcasts • Permissions now a reflection of permissions in Resources.

38. Provisional Projects • Linktool • Updated documentation. • Now deploy SakaiSigning.jws to webservices by default. • Added placement id to list of parameters passed. • Support for specifying additional parameters in the tool setup or URL. • Cleaned up tool formatting and validation. • Added new default verification script.

39. Provisional Projects • Search • Addressed critical indexing errors for clusters with a journaled indexer. • Reduced memory usage in indexers. • Data Warehouse • Separated from OSP to realize its general usefulness for reporting functionality.

40. Contrib Projects • BlogWow • RSF-based blog tool. • Evaluation System • Support formative evaluations by students in their courses. • Image Gallery • Allow a user to select a collection of images (a gallery) and view the images in a specified order.

41. Contrib Projects • MailArchiveWow • Performance improvements over current Mail Archive. • Uses JSR-170 and RSF. • Mneme • Assessment tool and service.

42. Contrib Projects • OCW (Open CourseWare) • Adds support to Sakai for tagging and creating OCW materials and sites. • Conditional Release • Initial focus on “workflow” solution for Resources and Gradebook. • SiteStats • Show site statistics by user, event, or resource.

43. Contrib Projects • OpenSyllabus • Create and publish model-based syllabi where faculty can finely control resources available • Unified interface with a standardized vocabulary • Sakai Groovy Shell • Sign-Up • Allows users to organize office hours, review sessions, study groups and similar activities

44. Contrib Projects • Q&A (Questions and Answers) • Enables students to ask questions anonymously. • Questions are ranked by their popularity and can be organized into categories and tagged. • Roleplay • Adds support for user aliases. • Wicket • A component set to facilitate the development of Sakai tools using Apache Wicket.

45. Project-wide User Experience Highlights • Accessibility • Outcomes from 2.4 accessibility review influenced many changes and improvements for 2.5. • Internationalization • “More” Tab • Tool Icons • PDA/iFrameless Portal

46. Internationalization Current Underway Traditional Chinese Danish German Hebrew Mongolian Portuguese Slovakian Turkish Vietnamese • Arabic • English/UK (new) • Catalan • Simplified Chinese (updated) • Dutch (updated) • French/France (new) • French/Canadian (updated) • Japanese (updated) • Korean (updated) • Russian (new) • Spanish (updated) • Swedish

47. “More” Tab (Fluid Project)

48. Tool Icons

49. iFrame-less Accessible Portal(PDA Portal)

50. Try it out for yourself… • Demo build coming with RC1 • Download from SVN • QA and Nightly servers • QA Server List(http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/confluence/x/ZT8) • Currently running 2.5.0-beta • Nightly Servers (2.5.x, trunk) • While you’re there, why not help with QA? • Megan May, QA Director (mmmay@indiana.edu)