Using Sakai in Research
at Rutgers University
Gayle K. Stein, Ph.D.
Associate Director for Instructional Technology
Tom Grzelak
Associate Director for Research Technology
Office of Instructional and Research Technology (OIRT)
What is Sakai?
 A community and foundation—a group of
people and resources supporting the code and
each other, realizing large scale Open Source
efficiencies
 A collaboration and learning product with:
 A set of tools which have been tested and released
as a unit
 An extensible framework for building
collaboration to support a wide range of
teaching and research
Sakai 2.1.1 Tools
Announcements
Assignments
Chat Room
Threaded
Discussion
Drop Box
Email Archive
Gradebook
Melete Content Editor
Message of the Day
News/RSS
Roster integration
Resources
Samigo - QTI
Assessment
Schedule
Section Management
Syllabus
Web Content
Wiki
History
The University of Michigan, Indiana
University, MIT, Stanford, the uPortal
Consortium, and the Open
Knowledge Initiative (OKI) have
joined forces to integrate and
synchronize their considerable
educational software into a preintegrated collection of open source
tools.
To begin, the Sakai Project received a $2.4
million grant from the Mellon Foundation
More Sakai project history
 Each of the 4 core universities committed
5+ developers/architects under Sakai Board project
direction for 2 years
Public commitment to implement Sakai
Open/Open licensing—“Community Source”
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 Overall project levels
$4.4M in institutional staff (27 FTE)
$2.4M Mellon, $300K Hewlett
Additional investment through partners
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 The “Sakai Project” became the Sakai Foundation
in January, 2006
The Sakai Foundation
The Foundation manages a small staff to:
- coordinate evolution of the Sakai software
- provide advanced developer support for members
- conduct quality assurance work on Sakai releases
- track contributor agreements and manage the Sakai IP
- manage conferences and meetings for the Sakai Community
Sakai Foundation members
Albany Medical College
Monash University
University of California, Los Angeles
Arizona State University
Nagoya University
University of California, Merced
Australian National University
New York University
University of California, Santa Barbara
Boston University School of Management
Northeastern University
University of Cambridge, CARET
Brown University
North-West University (SA)
University of Cape Town, SA
Carleton College
Northwestern University
University of Colorado at Boulder
Carnegie Foundation for Advancement of Teaching
Ohio State University
University of Delaware
Carnegie Mellon University
Portland State University
University of Hawaii
Ceritos Community College
Princeton University
University of Hull
Coast Community College District
Rice University
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Columbia University
Ringling School of Art and Design
University of Melbourne
Cornell University
Roskilde University (Denmark)
University of Michigan
Dartmouth College
Rutgers University
University of Minnesota
Florida Community College at Jacksonville
Simon Fraser University
University of Missouri
Foothill-De Anza Community College
Stanford University
University of Nebraska
Franklin University
State University of New York
University of North Texas
Georgetown University
Stockholm University
University of Oklahoma
Harvard University
SURF/University of Amsterdam
University of South Africa (UNISA)
Hosei University IT Research Center
Syracuse University
University of Texas at Austin
Indiana University
Texas State University - San Marcos
University of Toronto, Knowledge Media Design Institute
Johns Hopkins University
Tufts University
University of Virginia
Lancaster University
Universidad Politecnica de Valencia (Spain)
University of Washington
Loyola University, Chicago
Universitat de Lleida (Spain)
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Lubeck University of Applied Sciences
University College Dublin
Virginia Polytechnic Institute/University
Maricopa County Community College
University of Arizona
Whitman College
Marist College
University of California, Office of the Chancellor
Yale University
MIT
University of California Berkeley
University of California Berkeley
105 and Growing
University of California, Davis
How Sakai got to Rutgers
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Version of WebCT used in NB/P and Camden at end of
useful life
Wanted to see what other options were
Learned about Sakai in Campus Technology magazine –
January, 2004
Liked community source concept
Shortly after it was made publicly available in July, 2004,
our CTO began to test it
We hired staff in December, 2004
Put up demo copy of 1.0 during the summer
Launched Pilot with 2.0 in Fall, 2005
The Pilot – Fall 2005
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50 faculty members
5,000 students, in classes
ranging from 15 students to
1,200 students and across
all disciplines
Results:
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Easy to use
Still young but promising
Anyone affiliated with Rutgers
can set up site
The Pilot
10000
9514
9338
9000
Spring semester begins
8409
8000
7000
6000
Pilot begins
6057
Users
5806
5479
5000
4861
Pilot ends
4000
3000
2000
1000
0
227
Aug 2005
Sep 2005
Oct 2005
Nov 2005
Dec 2005
Jan 2006
Feb 2006
Mar 2006
Fall 2006 Architecture
Sakai at Rutgers

Staff
Applications Developer
 Systems Programmer/Administrator (1.25)
 Instructional Designer
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Other staff who are working with us
Campus-based instructional designer (2)
 Web developer/campus-based instructional
designer (0.25)
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Sakai in Research
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Motivation
Open source, open license
Intuitive, easy to use
Cyberinfrastructure
- Collaborative environment for
internal/external
- Front-end for tools/applications
- Same environment as courses
Research Demo Site
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Created site to demonstrate tools
Joinable
Additional general collaboration
tools under development
 Blog
 Shared Display
 Shared Whiteboard
 Multipoint Audio
 Multipoint Video
 Open Source Portfolio
 SakaiBrary (TwinPeaks)
These are works-in-progress by members of the Sakai
eResearch community. There are no dates for release.
Web Services
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Standard web technology that can facilitate
communication of data into and out of Sakai
OIRT exploring to create “bridge” between
existing tools and Sakai using web services
We are currently collecting information about
tools that faculty have developed in their labs
that they might want to integrate with Sakai
using web services
For more information
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sakai.rutgers.edu
sakaiproject.org
Email: sakai@rutgers.edu
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Gayle K. Stein, Ph.D. (gstein@rutgers.edu)
Tom Grzelak (grzelak@rutgers.edu)
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oirt.rutgers.edu
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