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Michigan, Indiana, MIT, Stanford Contribute Sakai Software to the Sakai Foundation, Sakai 21 ... Press Releases Tuesday, 06 December 2005 PRESS RELEASE Austin, Texas, USA -- 6 December 2005 -- Michigan, Indiana, MIT, and Stanford Contribute Sakai Software to the Sakai Foundation, Sakai 21 Released to the Public, 500+ Gather in Austin for 7-9 December Conference The new Sakai Foundation is pleased to make a series of announcements as the first phase of the project ends, and over 500 gather in Austin for the fourth Sakai Conference with the Open Source Portfolio (OSP): * The four founding institutions of the Sakai Project are granting a copyright license to the Sakai Foundation. and Pearson Education are added as Sakai Commercial Affiliates. Sakai Conference with OSP The Austin Conference marks Sakais largest gathering yet with over 500 attendees from 144 institutions with 93 member-led sessions. The conference includes sessions for Sakai implementation, faculty training, support, development, e-science/e-research, digital repository integration, and many more topics surrounding developing and deploying the Sakai software. The Open Source Portfolio joins the conference with sessions in portfolio thinking, large scale implementation, development for the 21 version of OSP, and much more. Ira Fuchs of the Andrew W Mellon Foundation will present a keynote address on a Vision for the Future from a project sponsors perspective. The conference is at the Austin Hilton Hotel from 7-9 December. Sakai Founders Grant Copyright License The University of Michigan, Indiana University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Stanford University have each agreed to grant copyright license to the Sakai Foundation. The Foundation provides a permanent home for the software and an independent coordinating organization for the Sakai Community. This grant from the four Sakai Project founders gives the Sakai Foundation a clear lineage of copyright for the Sakai software code, said Joseph Hardin, Sakai Project Chairman of the Board. Like the Apache Foundation, the Sakai Foundation will use a contributor agreement for all contributions, and we thought the founding universities should lead by example in being the first to freely contribute their code. Other Sakai contributors, such as the University of California - Berkeley, Foothill College, Cambridge University, and many others will also execute contributor agreements so that the Sakai Software distribution can have a simple notice of Copyright the Sakai Foundation. In addition, Indiana University and the rSmart Group have also granted copyright licenses for the Open Source Portfolio software code to the Sakai Foundation. The Open Source Portfolio remains a distinct community and software project, and it has chosen to work through the Sakai Foundation for organizational and legal matters. Community Elects New Board Members Christopher Coppola (rSmart Group), John Norman (University of Cambridge, UK), and Charles Severance (University of Michigan) were elected by the Sakai community in the first election from a field of 16 candidates. These new members replace outgoing Board members Carl Jacobson (uPortal), Amitava Babi Mitra (MIT) and Jeff Merriman (OKI), all of whom have made valuable contributions during their tenure. The bylaws of the Foundation allow all members of the community to run for the Foundaion board. This election demonstrates the wisdom of a diverse Sakai Community, noted Carl Jacobson, an outgoing board member who oversaw the election. The community is over 85% colleges and universities with the largest representation from North America, yet this group elected leaders from a company, from England, and the Sakai Chief Architect (Severance) to the foundation board. Sakai is an ecosystem of contributors who give with enlightened self interest for a common good. Lois Brooks (Stanford University), Ian Dolphin (University of Hull, UK), Mara Hancock (Berkeley), Joseph Hardin (University of Michigan), Vivian Sinou (Foothill College), Jutta Treviranus (University of Toronto), and Brad Wheeler (Indiana University) will continue from the Sakai Project Board to the Sakai Foundation Board. As the Sakai founders complete the work of the initial grant, the Sakai community has sent two clear messages: they want a more open project for contributions by many and they want continuity. This initial set of board members for the foundation delivers on both, said John Norman, who helped facilitate a governance discussion at the June Sakai Summer Conference in Baltimore, Maryland. Sakai 21 Software Released 1 December 2005 The 21 release of the software marks the fourth release for the two-year project. It adds the ability to manage multiple sections of a course, a new API for groups/teams, a Wiki, a pictorial Roster, and many performance and interface enhancements. Clay Fenlason (Boston University), who has been piloting Sakai 20 this Fall and worked closely on the 21 release, stated that current users of release 20 will see substantial differences and many refinements throughout. The Resources Tool has been enhanced, with major contributions from the OSP community, giving users access to files across all of their courses and projects from inside any course. Many of the tools and new features have already been available and in full production use at some institutions for months before being assembled in the 21 release package. The 21 release also marks Sakais first release with entire new tools contributed from non-board member institutions. The growing maturity of the Sakai Framework is ripe for developers to create and port quality tools to work with Sakai. This has been our smoothest and best release yet, said Charles Severance. The community has learned how to rapidly design, develop, test, and release in the finest sense of a large open source project. Sakai Partner Membership Hits 100 Institutions and Companies One hundred institutions and companies have become Sakai Partners in the first two years of the Sakai Project. The Sakai software is free to use, modify, and redistribute under the Educational Community License, but this formal participation in the community provides great value in rapidly sharing knowledge, support, and leveraged development. Charles Sturt University, Australias largest distance learning provider, recently joined the Sakai Foundation and announced support and deployment for the Sakai Collaboration and Learning Environment software. The Universitys Vice Chancellor, Professor Ian Goulter, said Sakai is an important initiative because it recognises the need for a scholarly collaboration environment that is capable of allowing members of the university community to blur the boundaries between their various teaching, learning, research and administrative activities. and Pearson Education Are Newest Sakai Commercial Affiliates Apple Computer and Pearson Education round out a dozen Sakai Commercial Affiliates that provide for-fee support, services, or otherwise aid the Sakai Community and its software. David O'Connor, Pearson Higher Education's Vice President of Product Development, said "We welcome the opportunity to join the growing Sakai community by becoming a Sakai Affiliate. Pearson is dedicated to ensuring that our vast library of digital courses, in use today by tens of thousands of instructors, is accessible to the increasing number of institutions that adopt the Sakai platform." Sakai as a Model for Community Source Projects In just two years since the Sakai Project was first proposed at EDUCAUSE 2003, the project has created production-quality software, is in full deployment and large-scale pilot at dozens of colleges and universities, and has given higher education a way to meet its software needs. The Sakai Project and the Open Source Portfolio are both Community Source projects that were launched with university investments and generous gifts from the Andrew W Mellon Foundation and the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation. Community Source is "community investments for community outcomes in the open source tradition," said Brad Wheeler, Dean of IT at Indiana University Blo...
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