Open Syllabus and Sakai

There is a syllabus tool in Sakai, but it is generally just a static document. There is no semantic or tool integration. There is a need for a tool to organise all the resources in one place. This sounds like the concept around Moodle. All of the information, lessons, assessments are linked to one page. This new tool allows for greater flexibility in editing and provides a single page to deliver all components of a class. I have been wanting to add templates to our instance of Sakai. Another interesting piece is that this tool is being created by a working instructor which means that the tool looks more like a teaching tool than the product of database administrators. He is asking questions about file type that not only describe what the file is (text, video, etc.), but how it is used. You have to give a context to the materials in your class. The open syllabus provides licensing and permissions for individual files. When you publish the syllabus, it posts a message in the Announcements. Unlike most tools in Sakai, when you move the Open Syllabus, it will update the links in the syllabus. In the Sakai syllabus, all the links are broken. One cannot currently embed media in this syllabus.


OpenSyllabus Sakai 2.7 Contrib Tool from Jacques Raynauld on Vimeo.

http://vimeo.com/24932699

Title:	Open Syllabus: Building a Coherent Learning Environment in Sakai 2.x
Date:	06/14/2011
Presenter(s):	Jacques Raynauld (HEC Montreal)
Description:	Open Syllabus (OSyl) is now a fully functional Sakai 2.7 contrib tool that helps instructors quickly organise their course's material to provide a coherent learning environment for students. It has been tested successfully in a large pilot with 9 000 students. In this presentation, we sketch the most important features of the tool. OSyl is easy to use and provides templates to organize all the resources (files, citations, urls, etc.), assessment activities (assignment, quiz, forum, etc.) and other elements (description of the course, etc.). OSyl is an XML model-based approach to syllabi so all the information is organized and kept in a general semantic format. Simple configuration rules can be set to reflect different university practices. OSyl course websites are very flexible and can be shared, exported, printed and archived easily. Osyl can also generate a public Open Courseware gateway. Osyl now includes a simple and powerful course site manager.

Sakai 2011 Conference Keynote

These are basically my personal notes of the presentations. These notes are not transcriptions but notes that I found interesting or useful.

Katzuo Yana spoke a little about about what is happening in the Sakai community in Japan. They call their project Ja-Sakai ("Ja" stands for Japan but also means "go for it!") in Japanese. He talked about the fact that despite all of the earthquake and nuclear issues they are moving forward and held their annual conference in March right after the earthquake. They started in 2008. Their mission includes the development of a Japanese language version of Sakai; promoting its use in Japanese universities. There are three major universities using Sakai campus-wide. A number of universities use it as well. The students get a life-long account.

There was a review of what happened over the last year. The foundation is now seen as a facilitator of communities rather than a software house. They have expanded internationally and with commercial partners.

Jens Haeusser spoke on "Open Source in Higher Education." He described the Jasig organization in great detail - a global coalition of educational and commercial partners focused on higher ed infrastructure projects. The board facilitates CAS (single sign-on project), uPortal, Bedework (enterprise-wide calendaring), etc. and communities of interest around open source.  They are also working on a mobile framework called uMobile - allows users to deploy native and mobile web apps. The communities of interest address the strategic use of open source, evaluating software, free identity framework for education and research, and reference architecture. Jasig has 8 graduated projects and 23 in incubation. Newcomers are going to need a glossary for all of these acronyms and jargon.

He then went on to talk about the role of open source in education. He described open source and the history of open source. His timeline of open source points out that open programming languages came first, then operating systems, and servers. Open source is good for education because ed institutions know how to share - "collaboration is in our DNA."  Commercial companies can't do this because they monetize proprietary code, processes, and information.

Do there really need to be 20 foundations that support open source for ed? Jasig and Sakai can get a lot out of merging. This would bring together 97 education institutions and 18 commercial partners. The foundation could free up the communities from licensing and translation work. It would provide better and stronger infrastructure.

Josh Baron got up to talk about "Higher Education Trends, Challenges, & the Next Five Years." He talked about the growth of Apple, Amazon, and Netflix and how they adapted to challenges by changing their business model. Some of the challenges include the cost of tuition, student loan debt, yet students are not better educated. Only 36% of our graduates complete a degree in four years. The challenges for the education will require the same kinds of changes that we see in other businesses. How will higher ed meet these challenges? "Open" will play a big role. He used MIT's open course ware, directory of open access journals, open textbooks, personal learning environments ("how long before we can integrate formal and informal learning opportunities into one environment?"), electronic portfolios, (he asked "how long before students are hired based on an e-portfolio rather than a diploma and transcript?" - ironically, I am in a room where phd's and credentials are very important.).

Openness trends will reduce costs, free instructors for innovation rather than content creation, provide new means for credentialing, empower self-directed learning.