SAKAI China Day
Sakai中国日讨论会
Sakai in Hong Kong
Sakai在香港
Center for Enhanced Learning & Teaching
The Hong Kong University of Science & Technology
香港科技大学
教学促进中心
1 Mar 2008
Sakai in HK
• About HKUST
•关于香港科技大学
• History of LMS and SAKAI in HKUST
•科大应用 LMS 和 SAKAI 的歷史
• Major customization on SAKAI 1.5/2.1/2.4
• SAKAI在科大应用上需改动的部分
• Current usage statistics in HKUST
•目前在SAKAI应用上的一些統計
Sakai in HK
• Lesson Learnt
•建设SAKAI过程中所得到的经验
• Recommendations for SAKAI
implementation
•建设SAKAI上的一些建议
• Moving Forward
•下一目标
About HKUST
• HKUST - A dynamic, international
research university in Hong Kong
• Official opening in Oct 1991
• Located in Clear Water Bay with beautiful
scenery
• With around 6,000 UG students, 3,500 PG
students and 450 teaching staffs
About HKUST
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School of Science
School of Engineering
School of Business & Management
School of Humanities & Social Science
HKUST Fok Ying Tung Graduate School
(located in Nansha IT Park)
About CELT
• Center for Enhanced Learning & Teaching
• CELT supports the University's mission of
advancing knowledge by providing a
dynamic and supportive environment for
students, faculty members and other
teaching staff to continually improve their
teaching and learning.
History of LMS and SAKAI in HKUST
• 1991 – WWW not available
– Face to face teaching & learning activities
– Course notes distribution by paper
• 1997 – Teaching.ust.hk
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A common web server for course file distribution
HTML / FTP for content update
Cgi programming for interactive courseware
Problem: Require technical skills to publish web contents
WWW
• 2001 – WebCT / Lotus Learning Spaces
– User can self-develop online courses
– Some interactive functions available (forum, chat and calendar)
– Ease of content update by non-technical persons
History of LMS and SAKAI
• Problems / issues in using commercial products
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Very few vendors available
Inflexible to cater users’ needs
No control / ownership of enhancements or problems
License cost
• Decision in 2005 : Implement an open-source
eLearning system to better fulfill the needs of
users
– SAKAI and Moodle has been considered
– Final choice is SAKAI
History of LMS and SAKAI
• 2005 – SAKAI 1.5 (Pilot)
– Named as LMES – Learning Management & Evaluation System
– Implemented with SCORM support tool (Runtime using Java Applet)
• 2006 – SAKAI 2.0 and SAKAI 2.1 upgrade
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Tests & Quizzes
Enhanced Grade book
JForum Discussion
Wiki & RSS News
SCORM support is missing for version 2.0 and 2.1 due to major
structure change in SAKAI from version 1.5 to 2.0
• 2007 – SCORM support in LMES 2.1
– Re-developed the SCORM support using AJAX
– Integrated with the Resources Tool
– Developed resources access tracking and reporting tool
History of LMS and SAKAI
• 2008 – SAKAI 2.4 upgrade
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The current version of SAKAI using in the HKUST
Enhancements on assignments, grade book and test & quizzes
Better group support in various tools
Mailtool, Blog, Podcast & Poll
Authentication using CAS
Usage example in HKUST
LMES main page
Usage example in HKUST
Resources tool with SCORM support
Usage example in HKUST
AJAX-based SCORM Player
Usage example in HKUST
Customizable Tracking Report
Usage example in HKUST
Library reserves of a course
Usage example in HKUST
Debate by linking to phpBB
Usage example in HKUST
Online Debate with Customized phpBB
Usage example in HKUST
Synchronized video and lecture notes review using SCORM
Usage example in HKUST
Video Podcast
Other variants of LMES in HKUST
• eLOP (eLearning online platform) for the
Hong Kong Virtual University
– For high school students
– Mainly online
• CL3 (College of Life Long Learning)
– For public
– Blended with classroom
& online training
Development Resources
• Development team
– 1 system architect
– 2 programmers
• Operation and support team
– 2 operation & support staffs
Production platform
• Application server
– Redhat Enterprise Linux 4.0
– 8GB RAM, Dual Xeon CPU
– Tomcat
• Database server
– Redhat Enterprise Linux 4.0
– 16GB RAM, Dual Xeon CPU
– Oracle 10g Standard One Edition
Usage Statistics
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273 course sites in Fall 2008
Most used tools are Resources and Discussion
Total number of unique students - 7,000
Total number of unique teaching staffs and TA –
450
• Data volume – 40GB (3GB data, 37GB file)
Major customization on SAKAI
• Integration with student records system
– User (students, instructors, TA)
• Customized provider for the “User Directory Service”
• Link up & synchronize with the enrollment & teaching records
Student
information
system
– Course
Course
information
system
• Modified “Site Management Service”
• Retrieve information from the course information system
• Future development : Making a customized provider for the “Course
Management Service” under SAKAI instead of modifying the Site
Management Service directly.
• User-interface customization
– Mainly on CSS / image
Major customization on SAKAI
• Tool debugging
– More tool debugging required in the previous version of SAKAI
– Less problems found in release 2.4
• SCORM tool implementation
– SCORM package upload & verification
– SCORM runtime player (store/retrieve interaction)
• Access tracking for both SCORM and non-SCORM item
• Customizable Report for access record and SCORM
interaction details
• Data Migration and file storage management
Lessons Learnt
• Technologies used in Sakai were changed heavily from
v.1.5 to v.2.0
• Development / customization done in one version may
not be easily portable to a new version
• Substantial effort is required for version upgrade (6 man
months for v.2.1 -> 2.4)
• Some tools are not mature enough, require more testing
and fixing
• User's expectation and reluctance from WebCT to LMES
• Data migration need extra caution (need to fully test the
migrated system before release)
Recommendations for implementation
• Recruit developers with appropriate skill sets (i.e.
technologies used in Sakai)
• Plan for usage expansion
• Plan for user support and training
• Minimize customization to the system unless
necessary for easier upgrade
• Collaborate with the SAKAI community for any
enhancements / improvements required
• Submit your fixes, enhancements to the
community to strengthen the system
Moving Forward
• Share all fixes and customizations to the community
• Collaborate with SAKAI community to improve the
SCORM functionalities (e.g. to support SCORM 2004)
• Customize the jForum to support debate functions
• Develop an activity sign-up system and integrate with
SAKAI
• Integrate with uPortal
• Integrate with LAMS with LMES
• Integrate the course evaluation system with LMES
• 2010 - Major expansion of the system to support all
courses in the University
– 4 Application server with load balancing & session clustering
– 1 File server link up with the University’s SAN
Thank you
Contact information:
Mr. William Wan 尹頌明
Teaching Technologies
Center for Enhanced Learning & Teaching
HKUST
Email: william.wan@ust.hk
Tel: (852)2358-8037