Overview of Sakai Technology

1. Overview of Sakai Technology Mark J. Norton Senior Technical Consultant The Sakai Project SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

2. Welcome! SEPP Summer Conference June 10, 2005 Baltimore, Maryland SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

3. Overview • Quick Technical Overview • What’s New in Sakai 2.0 • Kernel • Services • Portals • Sakai Technical Development • Getting Involved • Anticipated Changes SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

4. What is Sakai? • Sakai is a Collaboration Learning Environment. • It is a platform for modular tools. • It’s also bundled support for: • Course management • Learning delivery • Collaboration, work, and administration SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

5. What is a Framework? • A “framework” is like a “hosting environment” • It is the stuff that “surrounds” the user-programmable parts “inside” • This framework includes common services that can be used to build more complex services. The Sakai Framework Sakai Tool Sakai Tool Sakai Tool Sakai Service Sakai Service Sakai Service Sakai Service SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

6. What is an Architecture? Client The Abstract Sakai Environment • Very abstract • The part that doesn’t change • Defines common terminology • Usually not heavily debated • Is not the implementation detail at all Aggregator Presentation Tools Services System SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

7. Architecture .vs. Framework External Aggregator Client Architecture The Sakai Framework Internal Aggregator The Abstract Sakai Environment Aggregator Presentation Support The Sakai Architecture leads to the design of a Sakai Framework The Sakai Tool Environment Presentation Sakai Tool Presentation Sakai Tool Code Tools Application Services Services Framework Services Framework System System SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

8. The Sakai Framework Portal The Sakai Framework consists of three essential parts: JSF to manage presentation and implement the Style Guide, Common Services to provide essential service support, and the kernel to provide a basic web application environment. JSF Tools Application Services Common Services Kernel SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

9. What’s New in Sakai 2.0? • A Completely New Kernel • Flexible support for applications • Service Transition • Legacy Services moving forward • New Common Services • Portals • Now: Charon and Mercury • Later: Astro and uPortal SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

10. New Kernel Features • Login and Authentication • User Sessions • Tool Placement • Component and App Registration • Dependency Injection via Spring • Broader UI support (Servlet, JSP, myFaces) SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

11. Legacy Services Start to Migrate • The Legacy Authorization service is still in place. • Changes were made to legacy services so they will work with new kernel. • Work being done on Content Hosting. • Providers replace plug-ins. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

12. alias announcement archive assignment calendar chat content coursemanagement digest discussion dissertation email event id message Legacy Services • news • notification • preference • presence • realm • resource • security • site • time • user • CVS • cluster • component • config • courier • current • email • log • memory • portal • session • sql SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

13. Providers • Providers are a way to “look someplace else” for data. • These other place can be a remote service or a database. • Sakai is working on well known database schemas to allow data to be moved in via intermediate databases. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

14. New Common Services • Several key services are being completely re-designed: • Authorization • Super Structure • Course Management • These will enable hierarchical site organization and improve integration. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

15. The Sakai Common Services Authorization Agent / Group Repository SuperStructure Type Uuid Authentication SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

16. Super Structure UCD Group Tree Functions Group Chat.Read English Science Email.Write Group Group Staff Biology Assess.Grade Dean BIO-101 Agents Agents Site.Create Prof. Section Site Tools The Authorization Structures WHO CAN-DO WHAT? SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

17. Sakai Super Structure sakai Note: this is not a reporting structure, Rather, it is a way to organize resources and determine access to them. UM GRP1 Group-UM-Students EE GRP2 Group-EE-Students EE101 chat-tool Off101 Chat-channel-0439 S123 layout chat-tool dir/ rsrc-tool file.txt SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

18. Portals • Sakai will continue to offer it’s own portal. • These are being rolled out in Sakai 2.0 and 2.1. • Support for uPortal is being moved into place based on WSRP work by Anthony and Chuck. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

19. Charon • Charon is a new version of the Sakai portal that supports flat worksites and legacy authorization. • It is integrated with the new Sakai kernel, so it is more robust, flexible, and extensible. • It works pretty much the same as before (but look for a new Sakai skin!). SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

20. Mercury • Mercury is a development portal, new in Sakai 2.0. • It provides some system level information to help developers. • Allows tools to be accessed independently. • No more need for tunneled access. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

21. Astro • Astro will be the default Sakai portal in Sakai 2.1. • It will support hierarchical organization of projects and courses, including inheritance of permissions. • It will use the new Authorization Common Service. • Will require some admin changes. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

22. uPortal • Anthony Whyte and Charles Severance have been working on adding WSRP support to Sakai (for the IMS TPP project). • This should also provide support for uPortal integration as well. • Coordination and development will be needed from both Sakai and JA-SIG. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

23. Getting Involved in Sakai • Sakai is a community based, open source development effort. • That means that we need many people to get involved. • Not everyone needs to be a developer: • UI specialists -- Database people • Testing and QA -- Documentation SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

24. Kinds of Sakai Development • Framework development – core • Service development - specialists • Tool development - general • User interface design – HCI specialists • Database Migration – DBAs, etc. • Skins and style sheets - designers SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

25. Framework Development • Chuck, Glenn, Lance, Craig and others will continue to work on the Sakai Framework. • However, there is room for other contributors: • Internationalization • Accessibility • Modularity, Plug’n’Play, etc. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

26. Service Development • Services are the heart of Sakai functionality. • Legacy services will be migrated. • Common services, completed. • Consider other services, though: • Work flow, SCORM, instructional design, • Content management, library services, etc. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

27. New Tool Development • Existing tools are being reviewed and re-designed to make them Style Guide compliant. • New tools are being proposed. • What tools would you like to build? SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

28. User Centric Design Requirements Tool Design User Feature Requests Conceptual Design Service Requirements Sakai Style Guide Test Plan Evaluation By Users User Interface Principles SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

29. Database Migration • Sakai currently supports: • Oracle • MySQL • Hypersonic • Others we could consider include: • PosGreSQL • MS SQL Server • Etc. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

30. Governance • We framing the discussion of how Sakai should be governed at this conference. • If you care about Sakai, please contribute to this dialog! • Governance many not specify what gets built, but it may determine how fast it gets there. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

31. Starting a Work Group • The Sakai discussion groups will continue to serve as a place to incubate ideas around. • If there are people who are interested in turning these ideas into code, a work group can be created. • Sakai provides on-line support for WGs. • Submit a WG proposal, it’s easy! SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

32. CVS Process • Server: cvs.sakaiproject.org • CVS Structure • The bundled release of Sakai is now managed under the sakai2 CVS root. • Use scratch to hold prototypes, etc. • Use config to distribute completed (etc) code. • Sakai Releases • Part of the governance discussion is to figure out how future Sakai releases will be managed. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

33. Quality Assurance • Carol Dipple is leading the Sakai QA effort. • We all benefit from the QA process. • Sakai is getting better at testing release candidates, but we still have a ways to go. • Please help by volunteering to test. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

34. Bug Tracking • Full-time bug manager (Peter Knoop) • bugs-admin@sakaiproject.org • bugs@sakaiproject.org • bugs.sakaiproject.org • Open to the public to view and submit • Will increasingly be the focus of new work assignments SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

35. Documentation • Sakai has several kinds of documentation: • The KnowledgeBase at Indiana U. • https://www.indiana.edu/~sakaikb/ • Sakaipedia • Published documents and reports • JavaDoc • If you can’t find what you need, please consider writing it. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

36. Documentation • Collab.sakaiproject.org • This is where most projects are organized. • Sakaipedia • A collaborative documentation effort similar to Wikipedia. • Formal documents • The kernel and key services are formally documented. SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005

37. Questions? SEPP Technical Presentation - June 2005