(***) continues to support the original intention of the Sakai project to integrate and synchronize the software development of academic institutions around the creation of a "Collaboration & Learning Environment (CLE), a pre-integrated collection of modular open source tools including collaboration, course management system and research tools with portal capability, built to a framework that allows usage of interoperable tools." Further, commitment by institutions, including (***), to implement this CLE locally at their own institutions and to provide dedicated FTE in support of the CLE is, in a sense, the definition of the continued success of the project.
In the post-core development phase of Sakai, (****) supports a set of general operating guidelines and formal structures that will help ensure the integrity and longevity of the Sakai community from which the software project will draw its strength and evolution.
Drawing on the late April discussions in the Governance and Advocacy Discussion Group, particularly by Craig Counterman and Joseph Hardin, (****) supports the notion of a central board and a staff that can support, maintain and manage both the product and the Sakai user community in both the short and long term. This will be particularly important in the 2 to 3 years following the final software release by the core developers.
(****) recognizes that there will be many ways an individual institution can contribute to the ongoing Sakai initiative including but not limited to:
- Developing new tools in collaboration with members of the discussion groups;
- Participating on the Sakai Board if called upon to do so;
- Contributing to discussions in the discussion groups;
- Contributing financially to the central organization on a scale of ****'s contributions as a SEPP member;
- Donating open source code to the Sakai Community.
We are prepared to participate in any or all of these ways to help ensure a continuation of the quality of development work and governance that has gone into the creation of Sakai to date by the core group.
(****) also believes that the requirements for a new governance structure and organization must ensure the technical richness afforded by a collaborative and distributed development community. Joseph Hardin has described1 a governing focus on supporting the Sakai base code release referred to as the 'enterprise bundle' (EB). To maintain the quality of the base system the central staff should own kernel level additions, changes and enhancements and possibly also the Sakai Services layer. It should provide Q/A for the kernel and the base services and tools and conformance testing and verification for candidates for extensions to the EB.
For (****), which expects to participate as a Tool Developer, two of Hardin's points are additionally relevant. Hardin mentions that the process for including components into the Enterprise Bundle could include
- Providing support for developers in the form of pre-release tasks for the inclusion of a tool in the EB
- Establishing a process that checks the usability of new tools as part of the release process of the EB.
(****) notes that tool developers require a variety of testing tools and specifications that can help them understand how their work is progressing with respect to meeting full Sakai standards. Along these lines it notes the conformance tests provided by the ADL SCORM model and suggests that such tests are relevant for community developed Sakai Tools and Sakai Services (which may or may not become candidates for the EB). A central Q/A process would further validate community contributions to Sakai, and provide assurance that the community contribution is fully compatible with the EB. Some tools which may have special security considerations associated with their use may need high reliability stature afforded through signatures or certificates similar to signed Java Applets. In addition perhaps the core Sakai product could allow for System API Authorization schemes such that certain tools could only access specific API's based on their authorization or role status.
Finally, one issue not yet addressed in the discussion groups relates to the scaling of Sakai central support. Perhaps it makes sense to consider some hierarchical organization to the community. The Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Labs suggest models for regionally distributed and/or merit based concentration of effort. One could imagine, for example, that a subset of the institutions in the UC System might work together on a set of tools or issues that appear particularly relevant in the Western region, to the UC System or to a common technical need found in institutions with similar internal organization.
Independent of an extended organizational structure, active partners need to understand how they can participate in organizational decision making and how institutions are elected or appointed to the board or other governing body. Organized and well maintained communications between the various levels of institutions and people involved with Sakai will be paramount to ensure the continued success of Sakai, and the Sakai community that has developed over the past few years.