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The Future of JA-SIG and uPortal. Jonathan Markow Columbia University Patty Gertz Princeton University Bill Thompson Rutgers University Tuesday, June 14, 2005. JA-SIG . “JA... What?” Some History Our Mission Community and Collaboration Clearinghouse and Tools uPortal …and Beyond.
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The Future of JA-SIG and uPortal Jonathan Markow Columbia University Patty Gertz Princeton University Bill Thompson Rutgers University Tuesday, June 14, 2005
JA-SIG • “JA... What?” • Some History • Our Mission • Community and Collaboration • Clearinghouse and Tools • uPortal • …and Beyond
What’s in a Name? • “Jay-Sig”? • “Jah-Sig”? • “Jayay-Sig”?
JA-SIG – A Brief History • Established in 1999, as “an independent organization designed to increase the flow of information between educational institutions and companies involved in the development of administrative applications using Java technology.” • The first JA-SIG Conference was held in Orlando, Florida in 1999. Early discussions focused on a range of applications of Java. At a round-table discussion on portals, the seeds of the first major JA-SIG project – the open-source uPortal portal framework – were sown.
Early Mission Statement “1) Nurture communication of best practices, new technologies, and innovative methodologies and projects related to Java 2) Increase pier review, collaboration, and enhancement of Java administrative applications via an open applications web clearinghouse 3) Broaden Java technology cross-fertilization between firms and schools on both a functional and geographic basis.”
More History • An Andrew Mellon Foundation grant for uPortal development • Vendor alliances • Steady growth of uPortal: Over 200 implementations; 14 countries; hundreds of thousands of users • uPortal in 2003 InfoWorld Top 5 • Sakai partnership
2004: A New Mission • To provide education and research in the applied use of open technology architectures and systems in higher education • To develop a global academic community of interest among practitioners and institutions and to inform that community of international activities, projects, and opportunities in the field of open technology architectures and systems in higher education
Mission (cont.) • - to educate by coaching, collaborating, and sharing good practices, and disseminating the results of innovative approaches in this field • - to create, through its various activities including conferences, projects, and outreach, an atmosphere of trust, goodwill, and mutual respect amongst all participants
Activities • Conferences • Clearinghouse • Partnerships • Projects • uPortal • HyperContent • CAS
JA-SIG HyperContent • June, 2004: v. 1.4. Full-featured enterprise content management based on Java, XML, XSL • Manager and administration channels run in uPortal. • June, 2005: v.2.0. Runs standalone without a portal requirement. • Only dependencies are Java SDK 1.4, servlet engine, and hard disk. • Highly customizable; enhanced ease of use/navigation. • Full multi-server transaction support at level of individual files, such as XML documents, serialized objects, etc. • Projects can define custom workflows, groups and permissions, in addition to their own assets and processing pipelines.
JA-SIG CAS • Centralized Web Authentication • Proxy Authentication / Delegated Authority • Interoperability • Java, JSP, PL/SQL, ASP, Apache, PAM, Perl, Zope, WebObjects, ColdFusion, Acegi, CAS Generic Handler • CASifying Applications • Sakai, Oracle Calendar, Oracle Portal, Oracle Financials,... • CASified Applications • uPortal, Mantis, pNews, Sympa, TikiWiki
What Defines Us • JA-SIG is Community and Collaboration among Higher Ed institutions world-wide • JA-SIG supports its community through knowledge sharing • JA-SIG is Developers, Managers, Content Providers, Vendors • JA-SIG sponsors Open Source projects • JA-SIG partners with vendors and the extended community to foster new Open Source business models for higher ed
JA-SIG Community & Collaboration Strengthen it two ways: Formalize the organization Take the Clearinghouse to a new level
JA-SIG Organization Moving from a fun club (with good, supportive friends,) to the real world Long term sustainability Legal status
JA-SIG, Inc. • Incorporated as a non-profit organization in the State of New Jersey on Valentine’s Day, 2005 • Rutgers Law Clinic provided free legal services • Filed with IRS for 501(C)(3) status (Tax Exempt) • pending, late summer?
Why be real? • Opportunities • Financial independence • Distributed fundraising • Protect our intellectual property • Slush /scholarship fund to seed projects or sponsor members • Ability to protect our community’s investments
Why be real? • Challenges • Financial independence • Distributed fundraising • Need to be more formal, accountable • Membership Definition • What does being part of the JA-SIG mean to you?
JA-SIG Clearinghouse • Two meanings – machine and application • Machine is owned by the JA-SIG. Central repository for software that is considered of general use to the community • Application is vehicle for making contributions to the community.
Clearinghouse Machine • Collaboration tools have a home • Jira, Confluence • Discussions surrounding our sanctioned products are centralized • Fisheye, CruiseControl • Clearinghouse App • JA-SIG now owns the domain ja-sig.org
Clearinghouse Stats • Clearinghouse app • 1187 users from 530 institutions, 49 contributions • Jira • 313 users • Confluence • 241 users
Jira Projects and Issues • Bookmarks – 15 • Briefcase Portlet – 8 • CAS – 186 • Clearinghouse – 8 • UBC Webmail – 40 • uPortal – 1132 • uPortal documentation – 31 • uPortal3 - 66
Confluence Spaces & Pages • CAS – 220 • Channels – 26 • Groups and Permissions – 9 • JA-SIG – 15 • JA-SIG conferences – 7 • Portlets – 5 • uPortal – 288 • uPProgCom - 9
Clearinghouse MachineFuture • Move CVS and JA-SIG website to clearinghouse machine • Any new tools for which we can negotiate open source licenses and someone will step up to govern • Search for the Clearinghouse App • Conference materials – registration, program, post slides, etc.
JA-SIG uPortal Our Flagship Product
JA-SIG uPortal • State of the Project • The Sakai Connection • Community Building, Software Development and Quality Assurance • The Future Looks Bright
A Portal Framework • Developed for education, by education • Build a community and share expertise across institutions • Influence vendors and agencies • Promote open standards
Bootstrap • JA-SIG Project • $700,000 Mellon Funding • University of Delaware administration • 3 year project, completed 12/03 • Sakai Project • $580,000 Mellon Funding • University of Michigan administration • University of Delaware subcontractor • 2 year project, ends 12/05
Development • University contributors • Columbia, Yale, British Columbia, Delaware, Princeton, Cornell, Memorial Union of Newfoundland, Rutgers,… • Contracted commercial developers • Instructional media and magic • UNICON
Community Relationships OKI Institutional Channel Developers Columbia Groups and Permissions Yale CAS Columbia HyperContent Open Source Portfolio Initiative Rutgers Alerts System CHEF, Sakai Shibb, Chandler, IMS, JISC…
Commercial Relationships • UNICON Academus, Support and Consulting • SCT Luminis ( 200+ sold) • WebCT • Blackboard Building Blocks • iAssessment K12 ASP • Sigma Systems • Computer Aid Support • RSmart – Sakai, OSPI, Kuali
Wide Adoption • Over 200 production, 50 implementing • 16 countries • 5 commercial vendors • Hundreds of thousands of users • Large, small, k-12, government, commercial
Recent Developments • Standard Packages • Concurrency • XML • Springing forward • Yale PersonDirectory • Evolutionary • Backward Compatibility • Memory / Performance Enhancements • Rutgers / Unicon Collaboration • Release Strategy
Release Strategy • PATCH - a conservative incremental improvement that includes bug fixes, enhancements and new features and is absolutely backward compatible with previous PATCH releases of the same MINOR release. (i.e. 2.4.15 is a drop in replacement for 2.4.14, 2.4.13, 2.4.12, etc.) • MINOR - an evolutionary incremental improvement that includes all PATCH release improvements along with fixes and enhancements that could not be accommodated without breaking backward compatibility. • MAJOR - a revolutionary change accommodating sweeping architecture, approach, and implementation changes.
uPortal 2.5 • XML API standardization • Concurrency standardization • Support for J2SE 5.0 (JDK 1.5) • More robust JSR-168 support • Improved Exception Handling • Springified PersonDirectory
uPortal 2.x Roadmap • Stability, Stability, Stability • Improved Theme Support • Complete WSRP support • Layout Management • uPortal 2.6 or 2.5.x October 2005 • uPortal 2.7 or 2.5.x April 2006
uPortal 3.x Roadmap • Configuration flexibility • JSR-168 at the core • IChannel support • Complete WSRP support • Stability, performance and maintenance • uPortal 3.0 Beta August • uPortal 3.0 Final October • uPortal 3.1 or 3.0.x April 2006
The Sakai Connection Sakai is a wealth of learning and collaboration content, tools, services. uPortal ought to be able to federate, summarize, present Sakai content. So it will…
tool tool Sakai uPortal WebSphere Home Athletics Courses Home Athletics Courses …via WSRP MS-Portal Courses Home Athletics
…via native Channels and Portlets uPortal’s JVM uPortal • New Channel • UBC Mail • Sakai Chat • Sakai Presentation • Sakai Discussion • Cartoon channel • ….. Sakai Velocity Tool Sakai JSF Tool Sakai Services, APIs, Components
myPortal tool tool tool tool tool tool tool tool Sakai Sakai Sakai uPortal uPortal “Federates” Sakai
Tools and Techniques • Community & Collaboration • Confluence, Fisheye, CVSMonitor, Maven Reports and Mailing Lists • Software Development • CVS, JIRA, Ant / Maven, YourKit, Eclipse • Quality Assurance • JUnit, Clover, YourKit, CruiseControl