The Open Source Sakai Project.

Any instructor knows only too well that running a course requires much more than standing in front of students and delivering a lecture. Students are quite aware of the fact that attending class, doing homework and taking exams do not make a course. Similarly, people working together on a large project are constantly reminded of the limitations brought on through a lack of shared consciousness with their coworkers. All of these people have to deal with organizational overhead. Tracking grades, checking when new assignments are posted, creating tasks and establishing deadlines are absolutely necessary. Yet informing everyone when such events occur frequently seems insurmountable. Universities and corporations are turning to course management and collaboration software to tackle such problems. Collaboration applications are interesting because they are large and complex pieces of software that are regularly used by non technical end-users for mission critical applications. As needs grow and change, the software needs to accommodate these changes. Some universities using proprietary packages did not find vendors to be as responsive as their in-house developers, and so some development was conducted in-house. When these packages needed to plug into the campus-wide collaboration tools, there was a problem because the proprietary systems did not allow locally developed components to be plugged into their systems. The University of Michigan and Indiana University were independently working on course management tools. Similar teams at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University along with the uPortal consortium and the Open Knowledge Initiative soon joined them and they formed the Sakai Foundation with the help of a grant from the Mellon Foundation. The issues that led to the formation of the Sakai Foundation were not unique to the founding members. Other organizations were also experiencing frustration at having to deal with the high prices and lack of customizability of the commercial offerings.

The pricing, combined with the agility of a team developing for its own consumption, made the Sakai Project a very compelling alternative to the equivalent shrink-wrapped products. Chief Information Officers were excited about not having to adapt their infrastructure to the inflexible requirements of un modifiable collaboration and course management tools. Instead they could make Sakai function with the infrastructure that was currently in place at their organizations. Instead of having to solve internal problems in isolation, developers could collaborate in the development of software and accommodate the unique requirements of their own organization. Open source was obviously cheaper because there was no licensing fee to pay, but it also offered greater flexibility coupled with extensibility. Many organizations ' decided that joining the Sakai Project was a really good idea.

As new members joined and the developer community grew, the Sakai Project benefited greatly from the network effect. The Sakai Partners Program allows the project to sustain itself and offset the considerable cost of development since there is no licensing cost. Membership to the program requires an annual fee and is restricted to educational organizations. Partner organizations are able to participate in the planning and future direction of the Sakai Software framework. The developers at Sakai Partner organizations receive training related to Sakai development and receive invitations to Sakai Educational Partner conferences. They also receive access to early releases of the source code. There are currently over 80 Sakai Partners all over the world. While the majority of them are in the United States, other countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, South Africa, Denmark, Sweden, Australia and Canada are also represented in the Partner Program.
After reading about the organization and some of the workings of the project, you're probably wondering what Sakai itself is. Well, without any further delays, Sakai is an open-source framework for Web based course management and collaboration. The only software required on the end-users' machines is a modern Web browser. The primary development language is Java, which allows implementation on any platform for which an appropriate Java hosting environment is available. Certain modules have further requirements such as a database, but it doesn't require a particular database. Any SOL database can be used to host Sakai.

That's all very well, but what can the end user do with it? The course management functionality currently allows instructors to post course syllabi and schedules and to distribute readings and assignments online. An e-mail group of all students in a particular class is automatically created and any messages sent out are archived on the course site. Sakai also has modules for discussion lists, quizzes and assignment submissions. The chat tool allows course members to communicate using instant messaging, which can sometimes save students a trip to the instructor's office to ask a quick question. Students can also help each other out using the class chat room. Additionally, teachers can also manage course grades within the application, and students can track their performance on the course site. The administrative burden the instructor has to deal with is somewhat reduced by the tools provided for menial, time consuming tasks.

People collaborating on projects need tools that are very similar to those used in course management. Because collaborators frequently have trouble remembering meeting times and keeping track of the various milestones during the course of a particular project, the online schedule can be used to display this information. Phone conversations and videoconferences can be supplemented with the online discussion and chat tools, which provide archives for later reference. Electronic files can be shared using the resource tool and emerging events can be noted in the announcements section. Because of the similar requirements, the same software can be used for course and project management.

While there are hundreds of different applications available to accomplish each of these tasks, the list of applications that can do all of the above is significantly shorter. Sakai provides users with a consistent, standardized user interface so they don't have to learn to use a different tool to accomplish each task. Instead the familiarity gained from the use of one tool can be carried over to a different tool and training time is significantly lowered when compared to the time required to learn several different pieces of software.

All this is very well, but how is it useful for someone in Pakistan. Well, it's free, so adopters don't have to pay huge licensing fees. It is extensible and has support for non-Latin scripts such as Chinese, Japanese and Arabic, which makes it possible to set up a localized version of the software. The open-source development model benefits greatly when any new functionality such as a particular localization is contributed to the project, so the efforts of one organization trickle down and benefit all users of the software.

The next time you have to teach a class, take a class or manage a project, don't be intimidated by the "administrivia" that is going to prevent you from getting any work done. Now that you know about the functionality offered by Sakai, taking the time to set it up may be a very wise investment. Installing Sakai can provide a service that your students, teachers or coworkers may benefit greatly from. Better still if there's something that you think can be done better, you can let the developers know, and you may just see your idea in a future version. How many times has that happened with the software you use.

_{source Spider Mag.}